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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 - 03:01pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9655 of 9706)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The process by which policy has been coming into focus has some very good things about it, too.

From Many Voices, a New War Council by THE NEW YORK TIMES http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/23/national/23ADVI.html

reported and written by David E. Sanger, Thom Shanker and Jane Perlez.

I'd like to point out that the patterns coming into focus, while they could, of course, go very wrong, seem nevertheless consistent with the setting right of every major concern that almarst has expressed on this thread.

"Calibrating the Use of Force" includes this language:

" The administration has reached out to many prospective partners, including NATO members, Russia, China and India. Wisely, it has recognized the importance of enlisting major Muslim nations like Pakistan, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia in the antiterrorist coalition."

If that discourse process works well, and if fundamentally necessary issues of common ground are worked out clearly, and to closure - - many, if not all, of the problems discussed on this thread could be moved a long way towards resolution.

It seems reasonable to expect that the closure needed will, from time to time, require the checking of objective facts under circumstances where opinions and feelings about these facts are diverse, and in need of focus.

rshowalter - 03:12pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9656 of 9706)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

For this to work well, people representing nation states that have difficulties about words, and necessary ideas, are going to have to be clear about these things, and how they matter.

And will have to do so in ways that work for communication, in situations where it may be hard, sometimes, for different people to hear each other.

The objective is to resolve resolvable differences, and clarify other differences so that they can be dealt with in ways that are workable.

On some crucial issues, everybody has to be "reading from the same page" - not about emotions, but about what the key facts are.

Complex cooperation, and the fashioning of "win-win" situations, will require that.

For the notion of "winning" a war on terrorism to make any sense, ideas are crucial.

The difficulties in community building that exist here are essentially the same difficulties that have to be resolved to reduce the risks that motivate (at least the public) parts of the US missile defense efforts.

rshowalter - 03:20pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9657 of 9706)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

HOW TO SEARCH THE MISSILE DEFENSE FORUM ......

MD9057 rshowalter 9/14/01 2:26pm ... MD9440 rshowalter 9/19/01 8:07am

rshowalter - 03:29pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9658 of 9706)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Some things seem to me to be going reasonably.

But I do have reservations, and serious ones, that I believe almarst shares, based on gisterme's very extensive postings.

Links to gisterme's postings, and links to some serious reservations of my own about some of gisterme's postings, are connected to
MD9538 rshowalter 9/20/01 5:01pm

lunarchick - 04:17pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9659 of 9706)
lunarchick@www.com

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rshowalter - 04:20pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9660 of 9706)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Hi, dawn. My eyes are gettting sore. But I thought I'd post this, for balance.

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