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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?

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rshow55 - 09:20pm Oct 15, 2002 EST (# 4921 of 4924)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

rshowalter - 08:17pm Jul 24, 2001 EST (#7388

Dawn and I were proud to interact with almarst , and I think we both were fascinated with his passionate, angry arguments that, dealing with the United States, Russia needed nuclear weapons. It was like talking to a very smart, responsible person, living in a different conceptual world from the one I came from.

Part of my job, for years, strongly encouraged by Casey, was to work on negotiation dynamics, and especially to try to figure out "why we couldn't talk to the Russians." Casey was clear that, even when we tried to avoid fights with the Russians, we got into them. The Russians had corresponding problems with us. I'd spent a good deal of time, working with Steve Kline, thinking about problems of complex cooperation -- and the idea of complexity itself -- partly because of a sense of those problems, and partly because of related difficulties with "paradigm conflict" that Steve and I had become interested in, that Dawn Riley and I have clarified this last year.

rshow55 - 09:21pm Oct 15, 2002 EST (# 4922 of 4924)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

rshowalter - 08:18pm Jul 24, 2001 EST (#7389

We were especially interested in dialog with almarst after we read "Muddle in Moscow" http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=533129 ..... cited in MD1126 rshowalter 3/17/01 4:57pm ... When we read that story, we imagined that we really were dealing with a powerful man who had taken time, with a staff, to do some listening. Or perhaps we were in a "dry run" that that powerful person might be interested in. And for the next week, Dawn and I worked hard to tell almarst things we thought President Putin might be able to use, and got a lot of perceptive dialog back from almarst while we were doing it.

MD1127 rshowalter 3/17/01 5:06pm ... MD1128 rshowalter 3/17/01 5:31pm
MD1129 rshowalter 3/17/01 5:38pm ... MD1130 rshowalter 3/17/01 5:38pm

MD1131 rshowalter 3/17/01 6:02pm ... MD1132 rshowalter 3/17/01 6:10pm
Kline's Index of complexity -- V + P + L < C < V times P times L ... a key reason why truth is critical for good function in complex systems.

MD1133 rshowalter 3/17/01 6:13pm ... MD1134 rshowalter 3/17/01 6:17pm
MD1135 rshowalter 3/17/01 6:19pm ... MD1136 rshowalter 3/17/01 6:24pm
MD1138 rshowalter 3/17/01 7:20pm ... MD1139 lunarchick 3/17/01 7:47pm
MD1140 lunarchick 3/17/01 7:52pm ...

The need for 3 views -- the need to account for positions that have "some of the truth, but not all of it."
MD1143 rshowalter 3/17/01 8:03pm ... MD1144 rshowalter 3/17/01 8:04pm
MD1145 rshowalter 3/17/01 8:22pm

MD1150 rshowalter 3/17/01 9:57pm

The dialog went on, and we got onto some crucial information, I felt, about economic efficiency, which I set out in:
MD1394 rshowalter 3/23/01 5:30pm ... MD1395 rshowalter 3/23/01 5:36pm
MD1396 rshowalter 3/23/01 5:38pm ... MD1397 rshowalter 3/23/01 5:41pm
MD1398 rshowalter 3/23/01 5:43pm ... MD1399 rshowalter 3/23/01 5:51pm
MD1400 rshowalter 3/23/01 5:53pm
. and, for emphasis, ... MD 1401 rshowalter 3/23/01 5:56pm

It is important for Russians to talk more informatively and reliably among themselves, and with others.
MD1402 rshowalter 3/23/01 5:58pm ... MD1403 rshowalter 3/23/01 6:22pm
MD1404 rshowalter 3/23/01 6:33pm ...

MD1405-8 rshowalter 3/23/01 6:37pm

A key point that should be common ground, for all the disappointment and bitterness: MD1409 rshowalter 3/23/01 7:10pm

And I suggested an exercise in MD1410-1415 rshowalter 3/23/01 7:30pm

rshow55 - 09:21pm Oct 15, 2002 EST (# 4923 of 4924)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

rshowalter - 08:20pm Jul 24, 2001 EST (#7390

After that week of dialog, I felt I understood the Russians better, and hoped that, if the Russians could understand these things, they might be able to sort out some of their internal and international problems better than before.

I don't know if it has worked. But it seems to me that the Russians have done pretty well in a lot of areas since March, and almarst , Dawn and I have kept talking. (There have been 6258 postings since we cited "Muddle in Moscow" http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=533129 )

We've also had a lot of dialog with our "Bush administration stand-in" gisterme , starting with a powerful one in his first posting .. MD2997 gisterme 5/2/01 1:09pm ... that has clarified a lot. almarst has paid attention to that dialog.

Has all this work been useful? Dawn and I have tried to make it so.

It seems me that, if Bill Casey was looking down, he might be smiling.

Maybe laughing at me.

Hard to know.

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