New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

rshow55 - 03:21pm Mar 3, 2002 EST (#160 of 180)

Some of the support for local military expenditure is fiece - supported by people who really need the money -- or have been poor recently. The American South includes, and has included, a great deal of real want, and backwardness and deprivation. Some is quite vividly described by a Timesman -- Rick Bragg, in his beautiful All Over But the Shoutin' . The importance of military bases and contrats, for the constituents and contributors of many represenatives and Senators is very great. Connections between Southern politicians and the military have been powerful all this century -- but grew enormously during the Cold War. The Cold War was a very good thing, economically, for the American south.

With the need to justify military expenditure comes a support for warlike, often very narrow ideas -- for instance thos expressed about Europeans in FLYING INTO TURBULENCE by Peter Martin http://www.intellnet.org/news/articles/peter.martin.flying.into.turbulence.html

In addition, the pursuit on interests, and ideas congruent with interests, can be played roughly... In Virginia, Young Conservatives Learn How to Develop and Use Their Political Voices by BLAINE HARDEN http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/11/politics/11CONS.html

The political connection between the US military and politics -- what many call the "iron triangle" consisting of the military, the military contactors, and congress -- can be enormously powerful -- sometimes unstoppable.

Clinton said that, when it came to missile defense, he was up against the "iron triangle" and could only do so much.

Americans, and people in other nations, need to be clearer about how this "iron triangle" works.

Though the interests of the "iron triangle" may be understandable, but they are not identical with the interests of the United States as a country. If they operationally seem to be the same, that's cause for concern, for both America and the rest of the world.

rshow55 - 03:34pm Mar 3, 2002 EST (#161 of 180)

For happy endings, people need to know how the story has gone. And what happy ending might look like.

How a Story is Shaped http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/ducksoup/555/storyshape.html offers a pattern - - how can the story be set out -- to a happy ending?

The stages are :

Status Quo . . .
Initial Problem . . .
Exposition . . .
Complications . . .
Crisis . . .
Climax boom, crash -- . . .
Denouement . . .
Description of New Status Quo . . .
New Status Quo

We especially want to avoid a "Climax, boom, crash" that ends the world . . .

almarst-2001 - 04:11pm Mar 3, 2002 EST (#162 of 180)

The "military industrial complex"

May be outdated.

Today its a "military-industrial-political" compleax.

There reasons are:

1. Growing dependence of US economy at large on the foreign traid. The interests are not just limited to the arms-production. Its more and more the politico-economical influence, vast markets, cheap labor and natural resources - the OIL in particular. There was a truth, as cinical as it is, in T. Friedman's words for the dependency between MacDonald Duglas and McDonald.

2. The political process become more and more expensive by relying primerely on the TV media 30 sec. shots. The $ plays ever greater role in the voting results. The $ comes from the big international corporations directly affected by the US foreign policy.

3. As US military-economical power grew disproportionally and the need for unified front against Soviets diapeared - the constrains by aliases came to be just a background noise.

4. And finaly, the "human factor". The US President's power at home is very limited. While left olmost unchecked and unrestrained abroad, except by US alias. Which became less and less strategically importand. So you get a small guy with overgrown EGO came to the top of the World's power just to find out how limited what he can do at home and how "creative" can he be abroad to live a desired "legacy".

The PEACEFUL remedy may be only in a consolidated power of foreign nations. Or accepted domination of US.

The non-peaceful ASSIMETRIC response already discussed here, is another option.

(18 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense