In the American foreign policy class today we discussed US President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) that was an attempt to built an anti-missile system. Reagan believed that an effective anti-missile system would lift the US out of the condition of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) and thereby restore the American ability to threaten a nuclear attack without fear of nuclear retaliation. At the time the Soviets believed that SDI was highly destabilizing, and the Russians continue to lobby aggressively against the initiative. To get an idea of how seriously the Russians regard the threat of an American breakout of MAD one need only to examine the threat the Russians made against the apparent willingness of Denmark to become part of the anti-missile system. According to Reuters: “Russia threatened to aim nuclear missiles at Danish warships if Denmark joins NATO’s missile defense system.” I doubt that the Danes will back down.
The process of global warming is only dimly understood–the climate is extraordinarily complex and trying to model it is more than simply difficult. Scientists believe that there may be evidence for another twist in the possible consequences of global warming: a change in the ocean currents of the north Atlantic Ocean that may raise sea levels along the US Atlantic coast significantly more than had been anticipated. Indeed, there seems to be evidence for a “4-inch sea level rise of the U.S. East Coast in 2009 and 2010” due to the shifting currents. South Hadley may be beach property at some point.
The long-time leader of Singapore, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, died at the age of 91. Almost single-handedly Mr. Lee guided Singapore from a poor colonial outpost of the British Empire into one of the most dynamic city-states in the world. Mr. Lee was an authoritarian leader who did not pay too much attention to principles of representative democracy but who also built a political system that is truly unique due to the near total absence of crime and corruption.
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