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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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lunarchick - 08:29pm Nov 13, 2002 EST (# 5730 of 5736)

Vision Mission Values

The process began with an all-staff meeting in which Ms. Jurow emphasized that strategic planning has the potential to transform organizations in two ways: by the products and by the very nature of the process itself.

She also introduced us to the concept of paradigms, or mental models, and the idea that strategic planning might involve significant paradigm shifts in the organization.
http://www.nal.usda.gov/NewAlin/1995janmar/janmar1995/strgplan.htm

lunarchick - 08:37pm Nov 13, 2002 EST (# 5731 of 5736)

Strategic thinking is “directional,” determining where you want to go.

• Planning is determining how you will get there, what resources you will use, and how you will put them into action. If you are taking a trip, for example, strategic thinking is choosing a destination; planning is deciding whether to fly or drive ...

... an essential element of strategic thinking is that it is data-driven. It does not emanate from a lone genius sitting in an ivory tower. It begins with gathering sufficient information to make decisions on what your direction will be, what issues you need to address

.... Once you have a sense of where you are and where you want to go, the differences between the two will be clearly identified as what you need to change

.... the outcome of strategic thinking itself—is the identification of issues: What do I need to do today to create the future I want? Once issues have been identified, you can begin to prioritize what you will do to address them; you can begin to plan.

http://www.napl.org/cyber/ccast_archives/111501/cybercastem4.htm

To analyze the components of the Societal Environment, for example, the following must be considered:

• Economic forces: GNP trends, interest rates, money supply, inflation rates, unemployment levels, wage/price controls (if any), devaluation/revaluation, energy availability and cost, and monetary exchange rates.

• Technology forces: total federal and industry spending for research and development, the focus of technological efforts, patent protection, new products, new developments in technology transfer from development to market, and productivity improvement through automation.

• Political-legal forces: antitrust regulations, environmental protection laws, tax laws, special incentives, foreign trade regulations, attitudes toward foreign companies, laws on hiring and promotion, and stability of government.

• Socio-cultural forces: literacy levels, lifestyle changes; career expectations; consumer activism; rate of family formation; population growth rate, age distribution, and regional shifts; life expectancies; and birth rates.

rshow55 - 08:46pm Nov 13, 2002 EST (# 5732 of 5736)
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.

Lunarchic is the most valuable mind I've ever been close to - and I'm honored to work with her.

Let me post this, before knocking off for the night.

5690-5695 kalter.rauch 11/13/02 2:08am contain some very eloquent writing, in a certain style, and from a certain point of view. 5690 includes this:

"you don't WANT there to be a military/technical solution to the problem."

If "the problem" is the reasonable security of the United States - I want a set of responses, which, taken as a whole, serve the reasonable security needs of the United States. That has to mean responses that are consistent with the reasonable security needs of other nations, as well. There are, and will have to be, "military/technical" parts of the solution. But the world is too complicated, working systems are too fragile, and individual pieces of hardware too inflexible, for any "military/technical solution "to actually exist.

Kalter, we've made trillion dollar mistakes, listening to arguments like the ones you make. We have to learn to make peace - better than we've done -- in a world where everyone really has to live along continuums of trust and distrust.

Where force and reason both matter.

Not because we're naive. But because we're realistic. The idea of an "invulnerable technical shield" is a myth. Because there are so many ways that we are vulnerable that we simply cannot defend against them all.

In 5697 kalter.rauch 11/13/02 4:42am yset out a rather elaborate deception responding to 5544-6 rshow55 11/8/02 8:39am

I responded to Kalter's grossly incorrect posting in 5702 rshow55 11/13/02 6:24am . Because the plain, obvious facts I stated may have been displeasing, there was a response that was as close to a personal threat as you're likely to find on these boards mazza9 11/13/02 9:58am - a response that lchic called vile - a moderate use of words. The fact is that the US is vulnerable. In ways that cannot be fixed by technical gimmicks. We're safer if we know it.

We're safer if we know the bolded section of this posting, too: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/364

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