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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 - 11:38am Feb 22, 2002 EST (#11719 of 11726)

Almarst asked some very good questions -- deep questions. almarst-2001 2/21/02 10:38pm Here are some of my thoughts:

. 1. Is the World domination, the unspoken US policy? And, If yes, even as benevolent as one can imagine, is it desirable? Is it feasible?

At some levels, the answer is that world domination IS US policy -- but not at many others. The situation is not only "unspoken" - but not coherently discussed, even among specialists -- and not discussed at all among the general population. It needs to be discussed. If it were discussed, and focused to the level human action actually takes, some patterns and adjustments would, I believe, be inevitable. I have been hoping for that discussion, and working for it, because I think it would be strongly in the interest of both the people of the United States, and other people all over the world.

The discussion of the United States' role, and tendencies toward "world domination" include unusual circumstances and some special and strange problems. Key facts about the past -- about the Cold War, need to be understood, and are barely understood at all in America. I'm not sure they're understood clearly anywhere else. For historical reasons, dating from the Cold War, the United States has developed a special and long-standing committment to military intimidation. That committment is both intense and theatrical. Intense, in some ways ambiguous, and, in historical terms, very strange. The United States defeated the Soviet Union by scaring that particular country, with its particular circumstances and responses, into a physiological collapse. It was a very unusual "war" , between quite unusual adversaries under strange and unprecidented circumstances, with new intellectual challenges, muddles, and terrors occupying both sides. There was but little combat between Americans and Soviets. But the Soviet Union was, nonetheless, maneuvered and stressed into collapse - and a collapse that was not well anticipated and controlled by the United States. Nor clearly explained or understood by Americans, either in the rank and file, or among our elites.

The United States, like Germany, worked to defeat the Soviet Union in a military conflict, but there were key differences. Germany wanted to conquer territory, and kill and enslave so that it could benefit from the territory.

For forty years, our military forces were engaged in absolutely real shows of strength, with entirely real and terrible threats. Our fear was real, intense, and justified. But though all that time, psychological warfare, and control of information to Americans, was an essential, indeed primary, part of operations. Our intention -- our central policy - was containment -- immobilization by threat. The intention was to terrorize -- to inspire fear so great that fighting didn't have to happen.

It was a gruesome and ambiguous business, involving a great deal of "play-acting" -- a great deal of action with multiple intentions, and sometimes contradictory cover stories and justifications at different levels. Our institutions, especially our military institutions, have been much shaped by that time. Many of the patterns and committments, and many of the secrets from that time, leave us perversely unfitted to meet reasonable challenges that face us now, in a very new world.

The United States has no coherent policy of world domination that makes rational sense from an exclusively American point of view. None at all. It is a policy, with some intellectual underpinnings in details, that has basically continued by default, and because of political and personal decisions that are understandable at fine scales, but with perverse overall effects, for the United States and the world.

"Missile defense" is most interesting to me as "psychological warfare" run amok

rshow55 - 11:43am Feb 22, 2002 EST (#11720 of 11726)

A policy run amok, where the "psychological warriors" succeed in fooling themselves and those they are loyal to. As a technical matter, missile defense makes no sense. Other things about the current United States military posture make no more sense (although, since money flows pay salaries and sustain careers, some profit by anything the military does.)

In important ways, Almarst , you're right that World domination is in a sense the "unspoken" US policy. But it is a muddle, not in the interest of the American people, not defensible in plain terms by politicians -- not clearly thought out and fit to our circumstances. When you ask "Is US World domination feasible and desirable" -- the answers, in some limited semantic senses, will be yes, but in more senses the answers will be "no."

This is an area where things need to be discussed -- and if facts about what happened in the past were made clear, and some facts about the present were made clear --- reasonable adjustments would be in the interest of the whole world.

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