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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?

lchic - 02:43pm Jan 13, 2002 EST (#10744 of 10755)

Were Pakistan with India to jointly ensure a future for Kashmir and at the same time offer regular people routes to a more prosperous and sustainable future - then there would be hope.

rshow55 - 03:42pm Jan 13, 2002 EST (#10745 of 10755)

If they did that (or worked, coherently, and with clear communication, in that direction) they might well, in the process, increase not only their own safety and prosperity, but that of the whole world. One thing might clarify -- and may be being clarified in many minds. There are no morally justified, or operationally reasonable, uses for nuclear weapons.

They are extermination weapons - useful for that only. And extermination is impractical -and more impractical, these days, than it used to be.

Use of nukes would elicit, in greatly enlarged form, the angers we've seen elicited in America and elsewhere from the WTC and Pentagon crimes. There'd be far worse problems after their use than any "solved."

Nuclear weapons are obsolete menaces, and we should prohibit the damn things, in ways that work. That means people have to understand what the things do. And also understand that we can't defend against them with Buck Rogers boondoggles, such as the US "missile defense" programs.

We need to use forces that we have, or can build, along with forces that other nations in the world have and can use. Forces that can work. Backed by human consensus that we need to build, and can.

We may disagree on a great deal. But on nukes, if people simply look at the facts, and understand that these things are real , there should be little disagreement.

rshow55 - 03:53pm Jan 13, 2002 EST (#10746 of 10755)

I think the world is closer to the following suggestions than it was when they were made.

MD266 rshowalt 9/25/00 7:32am . . . MD267 rshowalt 9/25/00 7:33am
MD268 rshowalt 9/25/00 7:35am . . . MD269 rshowalt 9/25/00 7:36am

rshow55 - 08:24pm Jan 13, 2002 EST (#10747 of 10755)

MD4996 gisterme 6/13/01 12:58pm

possumdag wrote: "..."Could one misfire destroy the world?"

A B S O L U T E L Y !! ..."

Especially if there's nothing to stop that misfired ICBM.

MD4997 rshowalter 6/13/01 1:03pm

If you admit that -- (and you know some technical facts) -- then you're admitting that the controls on our nuclear weapons are grossly defective.

Which I believe they are.

THAT SHOULD BE FIXED.

It is a point I've been making, repeatedly, since September 25 of last year.

MD4998 rshowalter 6/13/01 1:05pm

Unless I misunderstand the situation, one misfire, from anywhere, and the US missiles could go up like a string of firecrackers -- under easily imaginable circumstances.

Perhaps the Russian, too -- they certainly would if the US fired many missiles.

That would end the world.

MD4999 rshowalter 6/13/01 1:08pm

When I wrote md304 rshowalt 9/25/00 5:28pm .... I thought that I was adressing William Jefferson Clinton, President of the United States, and Commander in Chief.

I've been told I was wrong in that assumption. Even so, the statement was public, and I repeat it. Many of the things I would have wished to say have been said on this thread, but not all of them.

MD5002 rshowalter 6/13/01 2:31pm

And a lot of people, including many of high rank, in positions of great trust, have been paralyzed by fear and lies.

The situation is so stupid that, once the basic problems were acknowledged a lot could be fixed. ! ! ! !

MD5003 rshowalter 6/13/01 2:33pm

With just minimal honesty, it WOULD be time to party, or could be in a few months. The essential needs of Russia and the rest of the world could be met and we could take the damn things down.

They are obsolete, useless menaces that could destroy the world.

rshowalter 6/13/01 3:03pm

rshow55 - 08:38pm Jan 13, 2002 EST (#10748 of 10755)

MD5018 rshowalter 6/13/01 3:31pm

There are problems we should fix, lest the world end. And because they are so ugly, they need to be fixed in any case.

Since 9/11 we know, more clearly than before, what mass murder is, and how wrong it is. The logic that says mass terror is wrong says that nuclear weapons are wrong. (Nor are they usable, even by rational monsters.)

The Enron mess should make clear the limitations we have on judgement, and reliable morality as well.

Missile Defense can't work. That can be shown. All it would take would be a mechanism for getting technical arguments fully in the open -- where technical arguments can be taken to closure. That shouldn't be necessary. We should acknowledge that MD can't work.

And we should do the reasonable, feasible things needed to get rid of nuclear weapons, and other weapons of mass destruction, and live more reasonably, and safely, as human beings.

I believe that we can.

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