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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 - 04:07pm Feb 16, 2003 EST (# 9007 of 9013)
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.

Summary of postings between Sept 25, 2000 and March 1, 2001 (#4)

#714-715: "The big picture." : How do our military arrangements look, in terms of what our military is supposed to do for our country, and for the world? .......And in terms of the totality of United States interests, and values, in the world? .......Beauty in context. rshowalter 2/19/01 12:22pm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md714_716.htm

#734_737: CHECKING FACTS: We aren't set up well to check facts. And the most basic fact, that we are ignoring, is this: The most basic fact is this. Distrust and nuclear weapons go together. That's an inescapable fact. Fear levels, and human nature dictate that "in general." The historical facts reinforce the general tendency with irresistable force. rshowalter 2/21/01 1:49pm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md733_736b.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md737_741b.htm

#740-742: Key references, hotkeyed to sources elsewhere on the internet: There are reasons to doubt the usefulness of Missile Defense as currently possible, and beckvaa , who I believe is W.J. Clinton, set up discussion of some of them rshowalter 2/21/01 3:34pm in

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md737_741b.htm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md742_743b.htm

The problems of "paradigm conflict" - systematically different views of the same facts, from different human groups, seems evident in nuclear defense. We and the Russians do not see eye to eye -- and the differences can be garish and dangerous. rshowalter 2/21/01 3:44pm (741) http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md737_741b.htm

Paradigm Shift .... whose getting there? .... Summaries:

306-310: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/360

313-317: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/367

166-167: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/209

other summaries of the Paradigm Shift thread are set out in 116 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@201.dgfSa6OVF8o^287330@.f28e622/137

CHECKING is an essential, difficult issue in paradigm conflicts: Especially where power relations are involved, checking must be MORALLY FORCING .....If some basic facts could be checked, especially about the existence and dynamics of mistrust between our nation states, the problems of nuclear terror find solutions of disciplined beauty.

I believe that everybody concerned about matters of defense, and especially nuclear deployments, should consider carefully the concerns about the “military-industrial complex” set out in the FAREWELL ADDRESS of President Dwight D. Eisenhower January 17, 1961. http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htm rshowalter 2/21/01 4:02pm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md742_743b.htm With circumstances that appear to show a disproportion and operational mismatch between means and ends, the speech seems to me to raise issues of crucial importance today.

rshow55 - 04:09pm Feb 16, 2003 EST (# 9008 of 9013)
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.

Summary of postings between Sept 25, 2000 and March 1, 2001 (#5)

KEY QUOTE: #748: To reduce threats, one needs to apply assurances that, in limited ways, for limited times, weapons are not going to be used. It is a FACT that the Russians, as a nation, feel that they have been, and still are, subject to an active first strike threat from the United States, and this fact can be checked. If one thinks about the Golden Rule, and applies it to the Russians, one has to remember this. If one asks how US actions are regarded in Russia, one has to remember this. rshowalter 2/22/01 4:48am

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md744_748b.htm

#757: I feel that issues of morality deserve special emphasis in a discussion of nuclear costs. Moral damage has all sorts of costs, in quality of life and straight economic terms, because the complex cooperations of productive business are, so often, based on predictablity and trust. Therefore, moral inconsistency can be expensive. I suspect that a major problem, in most underdeveloped countries, involves such inconsistencies. I don't see how anyone, or any nation, can adopt a "first use of nucear weapons" policy, and maintain a moral consistency - it seems to me that our nuclear policies are corrosive to our whole moral and intellectual life. rshowalter 2/22/01 6:55pm

http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md00100s/md756_758.htm

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