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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?

lunarchick - 11:29am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8772 of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest

lunarchick - 11:35am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8773 of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com

Thread header: 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?

The above looks like the BIG question, but, today's reality is that regular stuff has been turned around on a home population.

The Monroe Doctrine of non-involvement with world affairs .. seems to be outdated by today's events. Seems that the people of the world have to work together, live together, play together, build and strengthen their economies together - interlinked .. so that people are too busy looking forward to get into terror situations.

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rshowalter - 11:36am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8774 of 8787)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

It would be a very good idea for people to work hard to reduce the number of nuclear weapons --- toward zero, ideally, to zero.

They could end the world. They are not as stably controlled as people say.

People are too crazy for them.

. . . . .

Militaries have plenty to do, and that will always be true. But control of hatred, and building of mutually protecting communities, is very important in a world where no one, and no nation, can be "fully defended." There are just too many vulnerabilities that people living livable lives, and nations offering livable societies, have. We are all vulnerable, in more ways than we can take the time to imagine. But we should have sense enough to count enough of them, to learn to be careful, and learn not to provoke hatred when it can be avoided.

People with religious feelings might find this a good time to pray . . . and think.

We should all think . . . with anger only one of our emotions . . . . and think what we do so that the world can go on, and so that things can be less ugly than they are now.

This outrage was able to happen, because there was a large enough, coordinated enough community that "thought it right".

We have to think, practically, about making the world safer, for people as they actually are.

Unlimited threat doesn't work.

That's a checkable fact.

Threaten people too much, make them too angry, make them too desperate, and they fight. Even if it means suicide.

Nuclear weapons should come down , and militaries should do possible things that lead to stable outcomes.

rshowalter - 11:43am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8775 of 8787)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Things that lead, if at all possible, to outcomes that seem reasonable and just to the great majority of the people involved, from all sorts of perspectives, and from the points of view of the great majority of nations.

Bombing -- indiscriminant killing, is ugly.

It is ugly today.

It was ugly in WWII. It was ugly in Kosovo.

And American policies, based on bombing, and bombing to the point that the whole world may be ended, is ugly.

We should find better ways. That isn't to ask for universal peace and love. Just less murder, and less indiscriminant murder.

lunarchick - 11:44am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8776 of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com

Oz reporter says 'car bomb has gone off outside the state dept'

lunarchick - 11:46am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8777 of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com

Oz PM is literally 'bunkered down' outside/below our embassy. He was 4 blocks from Pentagon, now 9 blocks away.

rshowalter - 11:50am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8778 of 8787)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Considering what terrible weapons commercial airplanes can be, in desperate, disciplined and angry enough hands . . . how many other ways are there to do damage to Americans, or other nations ?

It would be fatiguing to count them all -- and impossible -- because there are too many possibilities to imagine --- no matter how a team worked constructing lethal possibilities - - there would always be more than could be constructed.

The "missile defense" proposals of this administration are a bad joke. Worse. The risks and military needs of the world are too serious to waste time and energy on that fraud.

Even if it was technically viable, and it is far from being so - - it would protect only one (awkward) way to get at us - - when there are so many others.

rshowalter - 11:53am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8779 of 8787)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Almarst has made that point many times.

lunarchick - 11:53am Sep 11, 2001 EST (#8780 of 8787)
lunarchick@www.com

This thread has been about 'Taking Nuclear Missiles DOWN'

If there are thousands of them set ready to fire - every day - and they WRONG people, or an ACCIDENT happened ..

Then this injury and devastation - seen now - and still happening - would be nothing by comparison.

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On the international talk threads it has been pointed out time and time that 'everywhere' is vulnerable to attack by conventional means.

That Bwsh has made such play regarding the Shield - and increases in spending - begs the question of whether he has indirectly illustrated to the world there is NO SUCH THING AS SECURITY?

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