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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 - 05:06pm Sep 21, 2002 EST (# 4468 of 4474)
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.

The Legality of Using Force by BRUCE ACKERMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/21/opinion/21ACKE.html includes these points, which seem almost completely right to me.

"The president's resolution does not assert that Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, but claims an "inherent right" to act in self-defense against risks that do not pose a direct and immediate threat of armed attack. This is nothing less than the repudiation of the United Nations Charter's effort to restrict unilateral uses of force to extreme cases, and to make collective, multinational security measures the norm.

"This is not the time for Congress to eliminate these long-standing restrictions on unilateralism. Its war resolution should permit the use of military force only after authorization by the Security Council. If the president concludes that the Security Council has reached an impasse that makes it impossible to deal with the Iraqi threat, he should then return to Congress to make his case for throwing off the restraints imposed by the United Nations Charter.

"Only then should we consider the need to abandon legal restrictions that have guided America for two generations.

I agree with Professor Ackerman on the pacing of Congressional action to modify long-standing restrictions on unilateralism, and eliminate some of them. But we have been considering the need to abondon legal restrictions on interdiction for a long time.

For example, I've been arguing for the necessity of interdiction (with respect to nuclear missiles in the hands of "rogue nations) on this thread for two years. Interdiction, I've argued, makes sense as a last resort in the face of a clear threat. Not that interdiction was pretty. But that the "technical fix" of "missile defense" was an illusion - while interdiction, as a technical matter could work.

"The National Security Strategy of the United States," http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/politics/20STEXT_FULL.html does indeed make explicit a policy that is at variance with some old agreements. The US, under the leadership of G.W. Bush (no angel) is abrogating and renegotiating the key deal that the US has made with the rest of the nations of the world.

The "new deal" could be far worse for all concerned, or better for all concerned. That depends on many details, many of them crucial.

The "deal" proposed implicitly and explicitly in http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/politics/20STEXT_FULL.html isn't cut yet - and for inescapable reasons, acknowledged in http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/politics/20STEXT_FULL.html , is a multilateral deal.

The new parts of the deal, as proposed in http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/politics/20STEXT_FULL.html , seem to me to be this. Terrorism as a tactic is to be outlawed. Nation states led by people who do not conform to the hard won and fragile usages of modernity - as the United States defines it - aren't to be permitted to hold weapons of mass destruction.

If the United Nations can't see to that, the United States will.

A poster "gdecatrel" said this on June 10 2001.

"There have been predatory thugs, with no morality, since before farming. The United States of America did not create them. And we've done a lot better in the bullying department since the end of the Cold War.

Some might dispute that. Almarst would certainly deny that we've entirely reformed "in the bullying department." Enough Germans to make a political difference seem to feel the same way.

rshow55 - 05:09pm Sep 21, 2002 EST (# 4469 of 4474)
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.

One thing is clear now. Americans are very afraid of weapons of mass destruction - especially nuclear weapons - and are willing to support a great deal to protect themselves from even relatively small - temporally distant - and indefinite risks of their use.

That's new, since September 11th, 2001.

The concern is clear. Whether the steps the Bush administration is taking are effective ones to adress that concern is a very different question.

It ought to be emphasized that "The National Security Strategy of the United States," http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/politics/20STEXT_FULL.html , detailed and clear as it is - only makes sense in a much larger context. It seems to me that most if not all of http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/politics/20STEXT_FULL.html might be consistent with a good deal for the whole world -- if a lot of other things can be worked out carefully - and with broad (not universal) agreement, consent, and sincere support.

That's a big if.

So we're some way from a done deal. Things are unstable.

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