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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 - 09:19am Feb 17, 2002 EST (#11592 of 11603)

With deceptions, things can get worse almost without limit - - and stay bad for very long times. When corporate groups, or nations, each committed to incompatible fantasies, interact, there may be little but waste, fighting and tragedy. Much of the Cold War was like that.

Solved problems happen when people deal with the complexities before them, and do it well enough to get adequate results. Lies stand in the way of this. The more complicated and difficult things are, the more judgement and a sense of proportion have to be employed, the more truth matters.

Warren Bennis has some key points absolutely right in A Corporate Fear of Too Much Truth http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/17/opinion/17BENN.html

This thread shows many examples of the effort governments and organizations will go to to muddle and suppress simple truths -- for example, the truth that the technology of missile defense is hopelessly inadequate judged by tactical standards.

On "missile defense", truth is feared, and suppressed, and the suppression can be effective. Political decisions, against the interest and wishes of our allies, and against the interest of the United States as a nation, occur -- and dissent about them is suppressed. The "advantages" of fiction can be so compelling to interested, powerful parties.

For example, if the rationale for "missile defense" (so called) is North Korea -- how important it is, to maintain support for "missile defense" -- to keep the North Korean threat alive --even when it appears to be easily removed. MD859 rshowalter 3/7/01 4:30pm

Truth is important -- and the world would be much safer, and richer, if we had the courage and discipline to insist on more of it. A key point, still controversial, but basic, is this. When facts matter for consequential action, checking of facts should be morally forcing.

That would be a change in the way people make decisions. But if that change were made, a great many things would improve, and could be improved smoothly, and step by step, by the people actually involved.

rshow55 - 10:29am Feb 17, 2002 EST (#11593 of 11603)

Some very good questions from this thread's "Putin stand-in" MD998 almarst-2001 3/14/01 10:56pm

"I think today, after the Cold War, we may indulge ourselve in asking the most basic question - What are the reasons today for hostility between nations?

Fictions are part of it.

The notion that the US "missile defense" programs offer reasonable defense are one of those fictions --- deeply connected with many, if not most, of the military-diplomatic challenges the US is involved with in the world.

myaugiedogie00 - 12:16pm Feb 17, 2002 EST (#11594 of 11603)

Lost chances:

March 7, 2001 South Korean President and Bush at Odds on North Korea By DAVID E. SANGER http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/07/world/07CND-KOREA.html

March 6, 2001 How Politics Sank Accord on Missiles With North Korea By MICHAEL R. GORDON http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/06/world/06MISS.html

"As the Clinton administration's senior policy coordinator on North Korea, Ms. Sherman was prepared to fly to Pyongyang on a moment's notice. Her task there would be to clear away the final barriers to an accord that would neutralize the North Korean missile threat, which has been a central justification for the hotly debated American national missile defense project.

lchic - 02:05pm Feb 17, 2002 EST (#11595 of 11603)

" ... the Saudi leader said: "Any attack on Iraq or Iran should not be contemplated at all because it would not serve the interests of America, the region or the world, as there is no clear evidence of a present danger. Iraq is contemplating the return of the inspectors, and the U.S. should pursue this because inspectors can determine if Iraq is complying with the U.N. resolutions." An Intriguing Signal From the Saudi Crown Prince By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/17/opinion/17FRIE.html

mazza9 - 03:20pm Feb 17, 2002 EST (#11596 of 11603)
Louis Mazza

lchic:

Good post of Friedman's column.

.My only concern is, "talk is cheap". Blowing up pizza parlors and Bat Mitzvahs doesn't quite deliver the diplomatic communique that the Saudi leader would have us believe. Who is the aggrieved party?

Depends on your point of view but certainly the 12 year old girl who lost family might be considered one.

LouMazza

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