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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
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(10107 previous messages)
lchic
- 07:34am Mar 17, 2003 EST (#
10108 of 10119) ~~~~ It got understood and exposed
~~~~
'Preventative wars' rare in history, says study Monday, 17
March 2003
Leaders do not start wars unless they believe they can end
them quickly, researchers say
Washington's claim that it is fighting a preventive war
with Iraq now to forestall a more dangerous one later is
virtually unprecedented in history, a new analysis argues.
The study of the behavioural origins of 85 wars and 2,000
crises between nations over the past two centuries is to be
published in the book, The Behavioural Origins of War:
Cumulation and Limits to Knowledge in Understanding
International Conflict.
Penned by U.S. political scientists Dr Scott Bennett of
Pennsylvania State University and Associate Professor Allan
Stam of Dartmouth College, it concludes that 'preventative
wars' are rare in history. ... ... ... Only three examples of
preventive motives for war were identified: Germany had fears
in 1914 of Russia's military modernisation; Israel believed it
had some preventive motivation in attacking Egypt in the 1956
Arab-Israeli war; and Japan was worried in 1941 that its
military and economic balance with the U.S. would only worsen.
... http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s808818.htm
lchic
- 07:39am Mar 17, 2003 EST (#
10109 of 10119) ~~~~ It got understood and exposed
~~~~
WAR
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2003/s809040.htm
http://abc.net.au/7.30/
http://abc.net.au/4corners/
(see update later)
http://www.abc.net.au/
lchic
- 08:10am Mar 17, 2003 EST (#
10110 of 10119) ~~~~ It got understood and exposed
~~~~
Countdown http://www.independent.co.uk/
________________________
"" Mr Bush. Could his Iraq policy, whatever its intrinsic
merits, increase the economic dangers that the world now
faces?
Simplistic historical comparisons are both tempting and
risky—economies are complicated and separating out cause and
effect is often close to impossible. The obvious parallel with
the current Iraq crisis, both in military and economic terms,
is the Gulf war of 1991. Yet looking further back, there are
striking similarities between some aspects of American
economic policy in the Vietnam era and now.
Like his predecessors, Mr Bush is reluctant to raise taxes
to fund the war—indeed, at a time when budget deficits are
already projected for years to come, the president is pushing
Congress to approve a tax cut costing more than $1 trillion
over the next decade. Many economists think Mr Bush’s economic
strategy is risky. Financing such high deficits could raise
long-term interest rates, crowd out private-sector investment
and lower growth.
The Centre for Strategic and International Studies
publishes statistics on the costs to America of its
involvement in wars, including Vietnam. The Congressional
Budget Office publishes a recent report on federal spending in
which it estimates the costs of a war. See also an earlier CBO
estimate from September 2002. The White House Office of
Management and Budget posts the budget and other fiscal
information. Yale University publishes William Nordhaus's
report on the cost of a war in Iraq. The Federal Reserve gives
monetary-policy information and posts economic statistics.
Financing such deficits requires large capital flows from
overseas. That is how America funded its huge deficits in the
1980s; those large flows continued in the 1990s, when the
government started to run budget surpluses, because of the
attraction of investing in the booming American economy. The
inflows help America to finance its other big deficit—that on
its current account. But economists have been fretting about
the size of that deficit, now around 5% of GDP. Even if the
capital inflows only shrink, as opposed to turning into
outflows, the dollar could plummet. In fact, it has already
fallen by more than 10% on a trade-weighted basis in the past
year.
http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1632787
lchic
- 08:22am Mar 17, 2003 EST (#
10111 of 10119) ~~~~ It got understood and exposed
~~~~
http://abc.net.au/4corners/content/2003/20030317_seven_war/default.htm
_______________
Edward SAID
http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~scctr/Wellek/said/bindex.html
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