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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

lchic - 02:47am Mar 6, 2002 EST (#232 of 239)

RU | State Plans Defense Holdings

The government plans to consolidate producers of high-precision weapons and armored vehicles into two large holdings this year as part of the defense industry's restructuring, a top defense official said Tuesday.

"Both the government and defense enterprise leaders understand that in order to survive in the current environment, we have to unite and integrate," said Alexander Nozdrachyov, general director of the Russian Conventional Arms Agency, after a daylong meeting of the agency.

The planned high-precision weapons holding will be based around the state-owned Priborostroyeniye Design Bureau in Tula, bringing under its roof defense enterprises from Kovrov and Izhevsk, Nozdrachyov said.

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2002/03/06/042.html

lchic - 02:51am Mar 6, 2002 EST (#233 of 239)

'Arrogant' U.S. Comes Under Fire at Forum

A symposium with former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl as a guest of honor was supposed to assess Russia and Germany's place in a post-Sept. 11 world.

But participants quickly realized that they could not define the roles without first figuring out where the United States fits in -- and the discussion, amid talk of the "arrogance of power," turned into a heated debate over whether Washington was acting as a global police officer.

"I'm afraid that the U.S. will launch a unilateral attack on Iraq and that its action will be imperfect and a war will start," said Sergei Karaganov, head of the Council of Foreign and Defense Policy.

"The United States, whether we like it or not, is the world's policeman," he said, adding, "It's worse than having no policeman at all." http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2002/03/06/011.html

lchic - 03:05am Mar 6, 2002 EST (#234 of 239)

Kaliningrad Summit

MOSCOW (AP) -- Top officials from 11 countries that touch the Baltic Sea gathered in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on Tuesday to discuss cooperation and European Union expansion.

This week's meeting in Svetlogorsk is part of the Council of Baltic Sea States, which includes Russia, Germany, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. EU officials were also attending. European Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten and Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov were expected to hold talks at the meeting Wednesday.

Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh announced Tuesday that Sweden will open a consulate in Kaliningrad on Oct. 1. http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2002/03/06/031.html

lchic - 03:50am Mar 6, 2002 EST (#235 of 239)

The old 'take' on the Moscow Apartment bombings

http://www.guardian.co.uk/yeltsin/Story/0,2763,200931,00.html http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2000/08/F.RU.000810143124.html

rshow55 - 08:30am Mar 6, 2002 EST (#236 of 239)

Thanks for your distinguished and graceful response. manjumicha2001 3/6/02 12:02am

You're profoundly right when you say that

" . . . "fiction" often serves as the basis for national "vision" of the prior, current and future regimes (whether they are despotic or not). AT the same time, however, the fictional ideology of a regime is often sustained and reinforced by the harsh and unavoidable realities of the nation or people (which is host to any particular regime and its "fictional" ideologies). They often do contront very real and cruel threat to their existence.

We ought to be able to arrange things between nations so that threats to national existence, and other challenges too, are limited to cases where there are compelling reasons for the threats and challenges that cannot be changed. Murder and threats of murder ought not to be casual, inadvertent, or subject to misinterpretations likely to produce instabilities. And we ought to be sure that communication, feedback, and proportions between responses minimize carnage, risk of carnage, and costs associated with the immobilization of positions that preparations for fighting causes.

Sometimes fights are necessary, but it is good to avoid ones that are, at one or several levels, avoidable mistakes.

You've asked some questions about interdiction, and I've been thinking hard about how to respond, in a way that would be stabilizing, and helpful according to the kind of scorekeeping I think we're lkely to agree about, and would serve the US national interest whether it was read by the N. Koreans or not.

By any reasonable scorekeeping, we need to turn away from some of the horrors of the Cold War, and effectively reduce -- very much reduce -- weapons of mass destruction -- and very much reduce the probability of their being used. By anyone.

rshow55 - 08:39am Mar 6, 2002 EST (#237 of 239)

Looks to me like The Moscow Times is doing very competent, sharp wwww-h writing. Crisp, professional looking news stories.

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2002/03/06/031.html

Writing like that, especially if the reporting is as solid and unbiased as the writing looks to be on the surface, is a force for stability, good decisions, and peace.

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