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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 - 11:40am Oct 19, 2003 EST (# 15233 of 17697)
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.

Bush Says He's Open to Security Assurances for North Korea By REUTERS Published: October 19, 2003 Filed at 10:25 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-bush.html

BANGKOK (Reuters) - In a shift aimed at jumpstarting stalled North Korean nuclear talks, President Bush said Sunday he was willing to give North Korea security assurances in exchange for it abandoning its nuclear weapons program.

This is important - and sets out steps consistent with stable solutions. That doesn't set aside the need for short term safety as well - the place for missile defense depends on details.

Questions of " who is the bad guy" can't be negotiated to closure.

Questions of "who goes first" are hard, too. Sometimes there's a place for "oscillatory solutions" - or reason to think about them 9699 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.RErUbPHeYTe.1145082@.f28e622/11242

There are subcultures, some in American colleges, where it used to be more or less assumed that a couple would get engaged and have sex at almost the same time. In the ideal, there would be a ring on her finger, and sexual completion in an "indistinguishable" order. The ideal was to have the negotiation go 'round and round - like lots of bird courtship sequences - and have both sides tired, hot, and practicing enough brinksmanship in a series of interactions with metastable transitions so that - for the rest of their lives, each side could argue, in any way that happened to be convenient, whether the engagement or the sexual pairing was consummated first.

Depending on circumstances, each might wish to take either side, in a fight that mattered some to the parties, but not too much, with themes or variations - some course - some quite subtle.

With six players in a negotiation - and more crosstalk than anyone can trace - maybe there's some possibility to get such a thing to closure - if everybody really wants pretty similar endpoints - on the things that matter most.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Resource Area for Forum Hosts and Moderators Missile Defense