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Missile Defense

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 - 08:10am Aug 31, 2001 EST (#8258 of 8261)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

di0genes 8/30/01 11:47pm , thanks for a civil response. This forum is not built for people who "pop their head into this forum, and take a (casual) look around" it isn't surprising that such people don't participate much. People doing serious work are and have been participating -- including participation in hundreds of well written, serious postings from two "stand ins" who behave as if they represent staffed organizations.

MD8062 rshowalter 8/23/01 5:34pm ... includes this

" The NYT- Science- Missile Defense thread is an ongoing attempt to show that internet usages can be a format for negotiation and communication, between staffed organizations, capable of handling more complexity, with more clarity and more complete memory, than could happen otherwise.

" I believe that is something relatively new, and useful. I feel that progress is being made, and that impasses that were intractable before may be more tractable now.

MD8246 rshowalter 8/30/01 3:05pm contains many links about what this thread is built to do, and what it has done.

rshowalter - 08:16am Aug 31, 2001 EST (#8259 of 8261)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD8062 rshowalter 8/23/01 5:34pm ... also includes this:

" I've contributed the most words to the MD thread, and Dawn the most citations and the most connection to the news.

" But the involvement of the "stand-ins" has been very extensive, too, represents an enormous work committment on thier part, and their postings are, I think, very impressive. The involvement of these "stand-ins" continues.

" I believe that their work has assisted in the focusing of problems where neither the US nor the Russians were clear about how to make contact with each other before.

MD7632 rshowalter 7/31/01 7:26am ... MD7633 rshowalter 7/31/01 7:27am

MD8064 rshowalter 8/23/01 5:36pm reads in part: ....."I've long believed that the world could easily end, on the basis of things I believe I understand from a more grounded perspective than many have, that the world could end. I'm not alone in that fear:

. Doomsday by Rebecca Johnson , executive director of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4222863,00.html

I believe that this thread has been effective, and is being effective. We're dealing with paradigm conflict here. Getting at key facts is crucial, but difficult and resisted, under these circumstances. Both some repetition, and some indirection, can be useful. A thread built for people who "pop in and take a casual look" can't deal with that.

The same true idea may propogate, or fizzle, depending on the number of "chain breakers" that inhibit the spread of the idea. In a diverse world, an idea may fizzle in one place, and propagate detonatively in another. I think ideas in this thread are propagating in some places, with useful results, and that as time passes, "chain breakers" may become less in places where these ideas are not being listened to.

Chain breakers: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee79f4e/618

I'm searching for redemptive and detonative solutions to the horror of nuclear weapons, and believe that there's reason to hope, based on events, that they may be found.

Secular Redemption http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee79f4e/1345

We need to go from relationships of war, and avoidance, to win-win situations. It can be done -- but some old patterns are going to have to be junked, for good reasons, and reframed.

rshowalter - 08:55am Aug 31, 2001 EST (#8260 of 8261)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD4532 rshowalter 6/6/01 1:48pm ... We need to find ways to get more of the good of which man is capable, and get more wisdom, and better and more mutual accomodations, so that we can more often avoid the bad. There are ways to do it. . . . .

There are many horrors. But there is some common ground, and there are some common goods. The good things that Putin hopes for, and the good things that Bush hopes for, even with all the differences, have much common ground, as well. And those good things, in the complex world that permits so much more than the over-simple models we have in our heads - ought to be, and logically can be compatible and not contradictory -- with careful mutual accomodation - and some toughness and honesty sensibly applied by the many capable people, capable of honor, who are involved.

rshowalter - 09:06am Aug 31, 2001 EST (#8261 of 8261)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The Reality of Missile Defense By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Missile-Defense-Reality.html

Is a moving piece, that makes clear the reality of the desire for missile defense -- the reasonable desire to find a way to respond to the "rogue missile" threat.

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