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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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commondata - 02:22am May 8, 2003 EST (# 11509 of 11531)

Do you think that Kristof is right or wrong about Casey? In view of your relationship over the years with power, and your perspective on the current Iraq debacle, I thank you for making me laugh out loud:

http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?224@13.lQh8aea18lX.0@40679d@.f28e622/10733 This is a hopeful time - and if Bush overplays his hand - it will be a tragedy ... Casey and Kissinger (and George Bush Sr.) and Americans who went before them have perpetrated outrages fully as great as any by Saddam or Kim. Almarst is right about that.

I'm curious as to what you think is right and what you think is wrong. You're certainly right that the web is a new way of doing business, that it leaves a perfect and searchable record, and that it exposes naked and embarrassing inconsistencies. So the question isn't "is Casey good or bad" or "is US foreign policy good or bad" but - can systems be designed to improve "his" or "it's" goodness? I can't reconcile your beliefs on torure, say, or the current Iraq war, with a system that does. Can you? How do you?

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/08/international/asia/08DIPL.html ...the United States had to address both Iran's nuclear weapons capability and its "continuing willingness to work through proxies on the ground" to subvert Iraq and other nations in the region.

A bit old-fashioned or a rational strategy?

rshow55 - 08:51am May 8, 2003 EST (# 11510 of 11531)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Great questions, Commondata. I'm back home, and back at work.

There's a good deal I need to say about Casey - and about getting the big, basic problems of the world solved.

Commondata:

"the question isn't "is Casey good or bad" or "is US foreign policy good or bad" but - can systems be designed to improve "his" or "it's" goodness?"

Casey had just such questions. Eisenhower did, as well. If I'd been able to tell Casey things I know now - I think a lot of things would be a lot better - from the perspective of "the average reader of The New York Times" and many other perspectives, as well.

A (much too short) answer to your question, Commondata, is that the things that power and logic can do that are GOOD are massive - and sometimes there is no substitute.

The dangers and horrors often associated are big, too, and there is NO CHOICE but to take big risks, or talk seriously about issues of right and wrong, and social controls.

Often (and this is especially problematic) there has to be exception handling that works.

Back soon.

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