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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 - 11:47am Sep 21, 2001 EST (#9556 of 9568)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Since MD8744 rshowalter 9/10/01 9:26pm . . which was concerned with inconsistencies in our past dealings with Nazi war criminals, there have been 811 postings (not counting a few deleted ones). How the world has changed. But there are issues that have not changed, and need to be remembered.

almarst represents thoughts of the RUSSIAN culture -- and Russians, having watched the coddling of Nazi war criminals for fifty years, can be forgiven for responding cynically to selective prosecution of war crimes.

Nazi war criminals in Britain:

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

http://www.guardian.co.uk/nazis/article/0,2763,478005,00.html

The decisions of the past need to be accomodated. And if the standard is "severe prosecution of all war criminals with Communist ties, or Islamic ties, but almost no prosecution of war criminals with Nazi ties" that is a problem.

We can't change the past. But we can remember it, as we move into the future.

For a defense against weapons of mass destruction that can work, if that defense is to be based on community, we need to proceed in ways that have enough consistency.

rshowalter - 01:47pm Sep 21, 2001 EST (#9557 of 9568)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I'm looking very hard at

To Free the Way for the U.S., or Not? by MICHAEL WINES http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/21/international/europe/21RUSS.html

"MOSCOW, Sept. 20 — As American military operations move toward what could be the first deployment of Western troops on former Soviet soil, Russia's policy of giving the Western war on terrorism full moral support — and so far not much else — is about to hit a dead end.

It seesm to me that almarst's comments on this Missile Defense forum have been directly relevant to the core concerns the Russian have, well summarized in Wine's article.

One wonders: What would Americans want our leaders to do, if the roles were reversed?

There's a problem with the question - - but the basis of that problem is shifting notably from day to day.

Russia, for plain reasons, has some essential military wisdom - - deep down, not only intellectually, but emotionally, Russia knows it can be attacked. Russia knows that its people are vulnerable. Russia knows what that vulnerability means, in stark human terms.

Americans, by contrast, have felt invulnerable - if not intellectually, to a great extent, emotionally. Some of the things about the United States that almarst most consistently objects to are linked to that feeling of invulnerability.

American's feel more vulnerable than they used to - - though they are only beginning to think through how vulnerable they really are, in detail. And where workable and substantial defenses really lie.

rshowalter - 01:52pm Sep 21, 2001 EST (#9558 of 9568)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

If America can gain a kind of military sanity that almost all the rest of the world has, Russia's painful choice may become distinctly less painful.

Russia, along with some other nations, may need to ask that the United States become militarily sane in an essential sense -- to become sensitive to its vulnerabilities in emotionally operational ways. That may be a necessary part of an empathy that almarst wants to see, and feels he does not see.

If that sense of American vulnerability was there, not irrationally, but rationally, and in a disciplined, informed way - - a lot of things might sort out. Sort out in ways that would permit "win-win" relations to be substituted for very ugly ones now.

Speaking in shorthand, almarst's central request on this board, from the beginning of March to today, has been that the United States "stop acting like the Nazis."

I've found that an entirely reasonable, well documented request - - documented by citations from almarst , and also documented in action by the statements of gisterme , which I've often found vividly substantiated almarst's concerns.

I feel that it would be to the advantage of the US, and the whole world, if ways were found so that Americans listened to this basic, and fairly simple, request.

To "listen" -- in the ways that would count for action -- would involve some consistency relationships.

In a world complicated enough that some things have to be sorted out by staffs.

rshowalter - 01:58pm Sep 21, 2001 EST (#9559 of 9568)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The major difficulties the world has with terrorism, and with the nuclear terrors that motivate missile defense, are the same problems.

They are problems that decently organized communities cope with successfully.

At the levels needed for much better control of terrorism in all its forms, they look like soluble problems to me.

The press is much involved with any workable solutions to these problems, and I think it makes sense to cite a set of links, on issues of press function in Russia and the United States, that almarst , lunarchick , and I discussed in detail, at a time when, I feel, there was more to criticise Russia for on press relations than there is now.

MD2088-2089 rshowalter 4/8/01 8:30am

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