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Pastimes : THE SLIGHTLY MODERATED BOXING RING -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: thames_sider who wrote (2585)	3/15/2002 7:32:31 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21057

"ABM is purely defensive. Its really of no concern to the rest of the world " If a nation has the ability to act without any fear of retaliation, that's of concern. I don't think the UK has to be too concerned despite a few comments Laz tossed in your direction. In fact it's likely that the UK will get some protection itself. I think most of the world should be more concerned about the states that have nukes that we are trying to protect ourselves from then they should be about our defenses or about getting nuked by the US. All the countries without ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction have no new cause for concern it doesn't even effect them. Countries like China, and North Korea that have nuclear weapons and probably have atleast some ability to hit the US with them (definitely in the case of China, possibly in the case of NK at least to hit Alaska and Hawaii and US forces in S. Korea, and Japan) do have a reason to be concerned, but I don't think there concern on this issue should be a major factor in US policy. We don't owe an easy target to the rest of the world. If its difficult or impossible for them to attack us, then fine by me. Have the British ever deliberately made themselves vulnerable to appease the rest of the world? Has any major power throughout history done this with the exception of the US and USSR when they where part of the ABM treaty? Maybe you missed the rather careful leak of plans for tac use? You said "tactical nuclear weapons use", you didn't say leaks and rumors and then later discussion about contingency plans which have a good chance of never being put in to effect. The US military has made contingency plans covering all sorts of possible situations. Most of them probably get dusty on some shelf somewhere. If we are going to be held responsible for every contingency plan that is dreamed up in the Pentagon then we have a long list of sins to answer for, but I would prefer waiting to something is done or at least there is some evidence that something is going to be done, before I would condemn someone for doing it. Its unlikely that the US will use nukes unless someone uses weapons of mass destruction against us. The increased military spend is reported here more as to do with more and more advanced weaponry - souped-up bombs, more smart weaponry, more stealth, more unmanned stuff... not 'pay and rations' increase. I apologise if I'm wrong and it's all going on pay... is that the case? Some of it is going to new weapons and research. But almost all of that is for programs that we already planned and then under funded. The increase avoids cancelation of programs it doesn't really create much in the way of new programs. It also prevents further shrinkage of our force levels, but doesn't budget anything for increases. (except maybe a bit extra for special forces) But a huge chunk of it is "pay and rations", and also replacement of weapons we used in Afghanistan. In Iraq we dropped at most 10% or so smart bombs. In Afghanistan I understand that over 50% of what we dropped was smart bombs. We severely depleted our stockpile, and will probably be unready for another similar campaign for a few months while the companies who make the smart bombs schedule over time... BTW, why was there no action taken over Iraq using poison gas on its own people, or on Iran? Wasn't that just as evil? A good argument supporting Karen's idea of using "threatening" or "menacing" rather then "evil". I would say we would normally go only after those who threaten us, or allies, or our strategic interests. Even the US would be over stretched trying to police the whole world. But I also would say if our enemies are evil I don't have a problem with calling them that. I can see that the countries in the ME might see it as hypocrisy, but its not really a logical train of thought. I don't see any of them being overly concerned about their neighbors welfare. Iraq threatened the stability of the region when it took Kuwait but without US leadership the countries in the area (with the obvious exception of Kuwait) would have found an accommodation with Iraq (how stable this accommodation would be is open to debate, I could imagine that Saudi couldn't exactly feel comfortable under those conditions). Tim