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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 - 03:40pm Mar 28, 2002 EST (#907 of 921)

Bob Herbert did a superb, moving piece today:

Betraying Humanity http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/28/opinion/28HERB.html . Herbert says something I think is profound, essential, and practical now.

" . . . ultimately the many tribes that inhabit this earth are going to have to figure out a way to forge some workable agreements on how we treat one another."

. As of now, the many tribes that inhabit the world do not have workable agreements on how they treat each other.

In part, we don't because we haven't yet understood some basic facts and relations - that permit these agreements to be stated, understood, fit to human needs, and accepted.

Herbert says that "We are in a state of affairs that is outside politics and can't be solved by war."

At one level, that's right. But if we had the workable agreements he speaks of -- that would improve some of our politics, and might make the terror and inhumanity of war far, far less likely than it is.

It seems to me that "workable agreements" far better than the ones we have now may be entirely practical -- and may now be well on their way towards focus. The Middle East, ugly as it is, is offering some reasons for hope.

If, in Herbert's words, "The sense of horror and helplessness in the face of unrelenting madness is becoming overwhelming." . . . people are paying attention, and doing some hard thinking.

I think almarst , while he is sympathetic to the losses from terrorism, would feel strongly that American definitions of what terror is are dangerously narrow.

almarst-2001 - 03:42pm Mar 28, 2002 EST (#908 of 921)

gisterme 3/28/02 2:41pm

Feel free to substitute the MAD with a "credible deterrance" or the "poson pill".

Leave the rest of my assumptions as they are.

And, please, add one more: If you think the rest of the World will fall on its knees facing the New World Order designed for Anglo-Saxon nation's domination - think again. I tend not to believe the age of a New Anglo-Saxon Empire has come or will be accepted without a fight. Its not just a question wof wether US will attack Russia or China.

It is ultimatly a question wether this World is ready for neo-colonial-like domination. And in a matter of just a dosen of years will will be able to see who was right.

rshow55 - 03:42pm Mar 28, 2002 EST (#909 of 921)

I'm reposting from the previous MD thread, from last year.

almarst-2001 - 12:00am May 22, 2001 EST (#4134 of 4138) quoted gisterme 5/21/01 1:49pm, in passages I indent, and responds

"Conditions really are different."

"They are. But not different enough for my expectations.

"nobody including the US has a clue about what to do now or quite how to act in this new environment."

"Most likely so. But that not an impression you get if you listen to Ramsfeld or Wolfoviz or Bzezinsky.

"There are new challenges (or anceint ones revived) but few can be solved by force."

"That was always true, wasn't it? But one would come to a opposite conclusion by studying the US military budget, operational doctrine and wearpons development programs.

"Fortunately, adaptation is one of the strong points of our species. :-) "

"Some hope to "adapt" the others into submission while self adapting to the permanent "masters" and half-Gods. Nothing new here.

"The major and rather fearsome change I see is an attitude of the public to the war and the ability to conduct a "safe" and remote "photogenic" acts of crimes, aggression, destruction and cold-blooded mass-murder. So "beautefull" and even "funny" (remember the footage of bombing the Iraqi bridge blown by a laser-guided missiles fired from a stealth bomber, just in front of a poor motorist), the Pentagon is just proud to provide a footage to the evening news. No PG lable attached. Children could enjoy.

"Once upon a time the war was a dirty and dangerous endeavour. How many people could be killed by a single, even the fittest and most brutal Rome's Legioner in a buttle?

"And now, the moderately fat undergraduate can destroy a city or nation between two cans of bear. And still have a time to watch the nightly Football game.

"That is what is really new.

rshowalter - 05:52am May 22, 2001 EST (#4135 of 4138) Robert Showalter mrshowalter@thedawn.com

"almarst , that's a superb post.

"In a NYT WEEK IN REVIEW earlier this year, James Dao wrote a wonderful essay. It was titled.

" Please Do Not Disturb us with Bombs."

"It set out the argument for missile defense very well in the terms in which people mostly argue for it -- and set that argument out just below a picture showing a gross servoinstability in a recent ABM test -- showing how far short our technology actually remains, compared to the promises offered by the advocates of Missile Defense.

"The policy of the current administration, behind a pelthora of words, many of them evasive and off point, includes the notion set out in Dao's essay title, but says more. Basically, it says.

" Please do not disturb US with Bombs. But we can bomb YOU."

"The US has to do better than that - or it degrades itself --- and the rest of the world has to expect better than that, for its own safety, and because it degrades itself otherwise.

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