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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 - 03:14pm Aug 31, 2001 EST (#8270 of 8274)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I think that the

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

is a stunning, dead clear exemplar of how you set things up to make win-win situations impossible, and efficient complex cooperations improbable, by concealing and muddying information flows.

It is a document built from the traditions of the Cold War --- and built to perpetuate it.

rshowalter - 03:20pm Aug 31, 2001 EST (#8271 of 8274)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Here are characteristics of collaborative situations - - the kind of situations that were supposed to be much easier to craft, and to make the world much richer with the new possibilities of the internet, according to Thomas Friedman in The Lexus and the Olive Tree.

Collaboration:

Problem-solving stance

Confronting differences and sharing ideas and information.

Searching for integrative solutions.

Seeing problems and conflicts as challenges -- and solving the problems in ways that permit all to win.

Collaborative solutions to problems are hard to get to -- but they are the ones we want.

Deception defeats them. They require interactions to work well -- which can only happen if what people do fits realities.

rshowalter - 03:26pm Aug 31, 2001 EST (#8272 of 8274)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

This thread has been an effort to "scope out" what collaborative solutions required to get rid of nuclear weapons, and get military balances more sane, would take. We've made some headway.

A key point is that facts have to be checked, in enough ways, so that the facts are right. And the facts have to be well explained - - so that people can come to adjustments, and cooperations that are efficient, comfortable, and safe.

Even though they may see the world differently in all sorts of other ways.

The present administration's missile defense stances look like group insanity to me - - and plenty of other people - - and there seems to be an enormous avoidance of fundamentals - an unwillingness to check, and to be open, when it is right answers, widely understood, that are needed.

rshowalter - 03:29pm Aug 31, 2001 EST (#8273 of 8274)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

If George W. Bush, President of the United States -- said

" I'm for finding out right answers, even if that means admitting mistakes . .

the key concerns that stand in the way of very large reductions in nuclear arsenals could start to be adressed pretty quickly.

And rogue states could be controlled, not perfectly, but well enough to take the risk of nuclear destruction close to zero.

rshowalter - 03:46pm Aug 31, 2001 EST (#8274 of 8274)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Rumsfeld May Not Cut Military a Lot By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Military-Cuts.html

A nice example of competition in the sense of

" satisfy my own concerns -- nothing for the other guy"

in action, with plenty of veto power, and ability to manipulate information flows, all around.

I wonder how many Europeans, Asians, and South Americans think that "the current size of the US military is about right?"

For what ?

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