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 [F] New York Times on the Web Forums  / Science  /

    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.


Earliest Messages Previous Messages Recent Messages Outline (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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