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Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 09:41pm Aug 30, 2001 EST (#8255 of 8257)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Sam Nunn, long a leader of the Senate, Senator from Georgia for 24 years, nominated, with Richard Lugar, for a Nobel Peace Prize, is a senior partner of the law firm of King and Spalding http://www.kslaw.com/attorney_dir/attorneybrief.asp?461 specializing in Cyberspace & Information Security Practice http://www.kslaw.com/practice_areas/prac_cyber.asp

The King and Spalding web page, http://www.kslaw.com/attorney_dir/attorneybrief.asp?461 makes the following piece available, as an exemplar of Senator Nunn's legal practice:

NUNN-WOLFOWITZ TASK FORCE REPORT: INDUSTRY "BEST PRACTICES" REGARDING EXPORT COMPLIANCE PROGRAMS http://164.109.59.52/library/pdf/nunnwolfowitz.pdf July 25, 2000

This was written by Samuel Nunn and Paul Wolfowitz, now a senior Defense Department official, strongly associated with missile defense. On the issue of openness, and the difficulties and kinds of arbitrary power that have grown up with the cold war, the Nunn-Wolfowitz report, which is long and detailed, gives a very clear sense of the barriers to openness that now exist between countries --- and especially between the US and Russia. And also a clear sense of the inherent arbitrariness of many of them.

The King and Spalding web site also contains this:

" Our partner, Sam Nunn will head a new initiative to be funded by Ted Turner designed to reduce the threat of use of the world's nuclear arsenal. http://www.kslaw.com/our_firm/pr_Nunn_Turner_Nuclear.html

Here is Ted Turner's statement on January 8, 2001, announcing the Nuclear Threat Initiative. Turner personally stands for the complete elimination nuclear weapons, and makes that clear. And he has committed 250 million dollars to the effort -- a huge sum, compared to other sums available from foundations - for the cause of peace.

.. Press Statement by Ted Turner Announcing the Nuclear Threat Initiative http://www.unfoundation.org/unfnews/other/turner_20010111.asp January 8, 2001

I find Turner's speech moving. How hopeful I was when I read it in January!

January is six months after the time when Senator Nunn must have spent hundreds of hours working with Wolfowitz.

It seems to me that there are tensions at play here.

There are "constraints" involved, written and unwritten, that may classify solutions, that might otherwise be possible, out of existence. Such situations, sometimes involving people of abundant and proven good faith, illustrate some of the difficulties in the way of peace, and some of the reasons why "islands of technical fact" may be so important.

Some of the "constraints" now in place have to be relaxed, or we have no reasonable solutions at all for the problems before us. We need to be careful of the limitations that are real, but careful, too, to rethink some of the patterns that we've long adjusted to, that classify hope out of existence.

rshowalter - 10:14pm Aug 30, 2001 EST (#8256 of 8257)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Statement of Sam Nunn on the announcement of the NUCLEAR THREAT INITIATIVE ... January 8, 2001 .... http://www.inta.gatech.edu/Nunn/statementofnuclearthreat.htm

From many perspectives this is an admirable speech.

But the constraints built into the system Nunn has crafted, and the constraints built into the background of the main actors, are compelling and disturbing too, from many perspectives.

Is the Nuclear Threat Initiative , so constituted, beautiful or ugly ?

It may be seen as either. It depends on assumptions.

MD664 rshowalter 2/9/01 1:53pm ... MD3946 rshowalter 5/15/01 7:23pm

It matters, and matters a great deal, whether the assumptions made are true - - whether they work when you check them.

In these issues, aesthetics, our animal signal for good proportion, matters a great deal.

The good solutions work in terms of consistency, and also work emotionally -- when they are stated in public. They are "beautiful" in terms of assumptions that can stand the light of day.

There is more "light of day" than there used to be, and international relations are changing in consequence.

di0genes - 11:47pm Aug 30, 2001 EST (#8257 of 8257)

I've been looking for reasons to think well of the Bush administration -- looking pretty hard.

Why? One could find good things to say about Hitler if one tried hard enough, but it's a bad enterprise to engage in, as it distorts and avoids the reality.

And why is this adddressed to me? Oh, I know -- it has something to do with Waco. Oops, I misspelled that.

Perhaps di0genes can explain to me, and others here, what is useful, and productive, about alienating the whole world, on the basis of military plans that no one outside the United States seem to understand at all.

What is useful about strawmen? Since I haven't claimed that there's anything useful or productive about such alienation, asking me to explain it brings us back to Waco.

Meanwhile, your long and repetitive postings alienate almost anyone who pops their head into this forum, takes a look around, and immediately leaves.

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