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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.

rshow55 - 10:35am Mar 28, 2002 EST (#896 of 900)

Almarst , you are WINNING some important arguments -- things you've been concerned with, and arguing for, since March 2, 2001 are getting much wider attention, throughout the world, than they've had before.

lchic 3/28/02 1:24am . . . points out some reasons for hope. And there are many others.

I think your arguments in
MD887 almarst-2001 3/27/02 11:39pm and MD888 almarst-2001 3/27/02 11:45pm

are eloquent and worth much attention. All the same - it is too easy to "deny others the right to speak" -- though often there are "good reasons" for the cutting off of communication.

With communication, quite often, things do converge - and there can be good consequences. Rules of order matter a good deal -- and injustices are big. But when people are "connecting the same dots" they often come to agree - - if not on everything, on enough that situations improve from what they would have been.

Progress sometimes gets made. Status positions change. Ideas do change. For instance, Putin's international position and Russia's position, is far higher than it was a year ago, when Muddle In Moscow http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=533129 was printed. And Russia is running better. Perhaps, in part, because of communications between people who weren't talking before.

Progress, in a world which is very complicated, where consent is required, depends on persuasion

MD252 rshow55 3/7/02 7:56pm ... MD481 rshow55 3/13/02 6:22pm

The status of "missile defense" in world opinion has shifted a great deal.

It seems to me that there are possibilities of great progress, ugly as the world is. And plenty of room for it.

almarst-2001 - 10:49am Mar 28, 2002 EST (#897 of 900)

Britain issues first warning of Libyan missile strike - http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/breaking_3.html

The list of "evils" is still open...;)

lchic - 11:03am Mar 28, 2002 EST (#898 of 900)

Bush/Blair... not normal times. If the leaders of the US and British governments are united by any single belief in the post-September 11 era, it is the belief that they have an overriding right and a duty to decide what must be done, and to whom, almost regardless of public opinion, factual analysis and common sense.

rshow55 - 11:11am Mar 28, 2002 EST (#899 of 900)

Almarst , if you were a leader of Russia, or China, what would you ask the leader of America to do -- what would you want American voters to understand?

At one level, "sound bite" sized statements may work -- do you have some?

At other levels, you need details. Any details in mind?

You've used the phrase "there wouldn't be any problem if . . . . "

What, in your views, are the ifs?

I'd like some questions of detail about missile defense answered, and these larger questions answered, too:

. What is the real national interest of the United States? Not just the interest of the military-industrial complex.

and

. Can the United States be honest enough and trustworthy enough about what it asks for, and agrees to, so that its interests can be reasonably, efficiently, justly accomodated by the rest of the world?

MD877 rshow55 3/27/02 3:54pm

Almarst, what would your questions be? If you could "wave a magic wand" and persuade the American people of some things (things that are factually true, and ideas that fit facts) what would those things be?

lchic - 11:11am Mar 28, 2002 EST (#900 of 900)

Afghan War Is a Lab for U.S. Innovation
New Technologies Are Tested in Battle
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16892-2002Mar25.html

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