New York Times on the Web Forums Science
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?
(10812 previous messages)
gisterme
- 08:19pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10813
of 10820)
rshow55
1/15/02 6:44am
"...Last year, Russia hosted a meeting on the militarization
of space - something like 104 countries attended. The United States
did not. Lasar weapons were centrally involved in the issues of
concern..."
I heard recently a Russian talking about communism. I wish I
could remember his name. He told a story that illustrates some
realities. It went something like this:
"Two communists were talking one day about socialism and the
first one asked the second:
"If you had two houses and I had none, would you give one to me?"
"Of course I would give you one of my houses." was the
reply.
"If you had two cars and I had none, would you give one to me?"
"Of course I would give you one of my cars if I had two and
you had none."
"If you had two chickens and I had none, would you give me one of
your chickens?"
The reply... "Of course not, because I HAVE two
chickens".
Those folks interested in the "weaponization" of space are
naturally all the have nots.
gisterme
- 08:28pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10814
of 10820)
rshow55
1/15/02 11:37am
"...Americans need to be WORTHY of the GOOD THINGS people
associate with the flag - - not just wave it..."
How do you define worty in this context, Robert? If you
feel unworthy, then don't wave the flag. I feel absolutely worthy to
wave Old Glory and especially blessed to have the opportunity.
gisterme
- 08:30pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10815
of 10820)
rshow55
1/15/02 11:53am
"...Lies or mistakes on "missile defense" or other subjects
don't help..."
Then be more honest and correct, Robert.
gisterme
- 08:33pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10816
of 10820)
"...What is 'an American'? Answer most often is someone
from elsewhere who now resides at a political_geographical locale
named USA."
With the added caveat that they feel good about waving Old Glory.
guy_catelli
- 08:37pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10817
of 10820) the trick of Mensa
rshowalter - 10:11pm Oct 24, 2000 GMT (#7 of 249)
Nuclear war has bothered me because of personal experience. As
a bookish boy with big muscles and a forceful disposition, I found
that I had to fight or defer, found that I fought pretty well, and
learned something about fighting, both with individuals and with
groups. When I went to college, I got interested in some matters of
applied mathematics which had military significance, where it was
felt that, if the Russians solved a certain class of control
problems before we did, we might find ourselves, without warning,
stripped of the capacity to fly planes that could survive air-to-air
missile attack. That is to say, we'd find ourselves without an air
force, and conceivably losers in a war with the very terrible Soviet
Union. That made the problem interesting to me, and I've kept at it,
and made some progress on this class of problems, since.
There was a difficulty. Here was an instability. Change a
simple mathematical circumstance, or perceptions of it, and
perceptions of military risk shifted radically. If we could lie to
the Russians, and say we'd cracked the problem, we might scare the
hell out of them, at trivial cost. Just a little theatrics in the
service of bluff. Scaring the other side, with bluffs (lies) is
standard military practice. I found myself asked to get involved in
what I took to be serous Russian scaring. I refused to go along,
after talking to some people on the other side, because of my old
fighting experience. It was my judgement, right or wrong, that they
Russians were already plenty scared enough, and if scared much more,
they might lose control, and fight without wanting to. I may have
made a big mistake.
But I did become convinced that the United States was carrying
on a very careful, calibrated, but terrible tactic.
We were maintaining the Russians at a level of sufficient fear
that they spent much more than they could afford, in money and
manpower, on their military. The feeling was that, if we kept at
this, for many years, the Soviet system would become degenerate, and
collapse of its own weight. I believe that this is what in fact
happened.
I'd been appalled at the tactic (as I understood it) because I
didn't think the controls were good enough, and feared unintended,
world destroying war might result.
But when the Soviet Union fell, my guess was that the tactic
had been maintained, and controls had been good enough, and the plan
had worked. Nuclear weapons, used as terror weapons, had defeated
the Soviet Union, yet never been actually fired.
let me get this straight. (apparently) rshow55 developed *his
own* algorithm for measuring: 1. how scared the soviets were; 2. how
scared they needed to be; 3. the marginal contribution to their fear
of the no-cost, risk-free, harmless course of action by our side.
he then sought the advice of our enemy; and, finding his views
and our enemy's views were in concert (how surprising!), he refused
to cooperate with our side.
Robert, this is your own version of the case. i wonder how a less
charitable witness to the facts you relate would have described
them.
gisterme
- 08:41pm Jan 16, 2002 EST (#10818
of 10820)
rshow55
1/15/02 5:02pm
Red herring, Robert. :-) Nice try. There's no problem with the
math. The problems have been with technological execution. The great
advances in vehicle maneuverability that have occured since the
references you cite were written are the result of solving
engineering problems far more than underlying science problems.
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