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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?

rshow55 - 08:47am Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10801 of 10834)

MD9977 rshowalter 9/30/01 5:21am . . . MD9978 rshowalter 9/30/01 5:25am
MD9979 rshowalter 9/30/01 5:31am

PSYCHWAR, CASABLANCA, AND TERROR , which tells a key story about the Cold War, has interested many people. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/0 Especially the core story part, from postin 13 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/12 to posting 23 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/22 There is a comment in #26 that I feel some may find interesting, as well.

A fairly compact ongoing summary of this thread from September 25, 2000 to date, with many links, is in Psychwar, Casablanca, and Terror -- from #151 on. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/159

guy_catelli - 10:51am Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10802 of 10834)
the trick of Mensa

"You've go me thinking ..."

imo, this is the highest compliment one human being can pay another.

lchic - 12:54pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10803 of 10834)

Checking and Positioning ... important to find and follow the right path to reach wanted destination.

guy_catelli - 01:26pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10804 of 10834)
the trick of Mensa

"Checking and Positioning ... "

m'likes the shots of Kate.

guy_catelli - 01:28pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10805 of 10834)
the trick of Mensa

"parasites"

???

rshow55 - 01:41pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10806 of 10834)

Perhaps a bad choice of words. In some ways - - certainly so.

Contractors and officers working on missile defense are ordinarily competent, conscientious people, in the main - some outstandingly good, some less than outstanding . . as one would expect.

There have been a series of decisions and compromises, over a long time, many or most well intentioned, and reasonable when they were made - - that I believe have involved mistakes. Many involving a mistake, a misunderstanding about the interface between the concrete and the abstract in modelling -- that is 350 years old.

Robert Bork speaks of "the real world of compromises, half measures, and self seeking" that can "appear corrupt."

Sometimes, muddles can need fixing.

rshow55 - 01:44pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10807 of 10834)

I think the fixing could be done in ways that were strongly in the interest of almost everybody concerned. Graceful. Sensible. In ways that make it possible for us to be safer, and make it possible for us to take advantage of real opportunities to solve the real problems that we have.

The military-industrial complex, in my view, is a precious national resource. But it should be deployed doing possible things -- that can yeild security and other benefits for the nation, and human culture in general.

rshow55 - 01:57pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10808 of 10834)

Don't want to be too sentimental, but I believe that these poems express some key points - well known, in practice, to some deal-making businessmen and lawyers (active Republicans) of my acquaintance. We need solutions that are true, and work for all concerned. Based on ideas that can "propagate" through the culture - rather than fizzle from too many "Chain Breakers."

We need solutions that are, in a technical sense I try to explain in two poems "redemptive and detonative."

Secular Redemption http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee79f4e/619

Chain Breakers http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee79f4e/618

- -

Mushy idealism? I think not. I think that a lot of good redemptive and detonative solutions happen in the United States of America, and all over the world, every day. They are the solutions, I think, that work best.

lchic - 03:54pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10809 of 10834)

http://www.allhatnocattle.net/slug.jpg

lchic - 03:56pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10810 of 10834)

http://www.csis.org/polmil/dibreport.html

(24 following messages)

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