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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?

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

rshow55 - 01:08pm Mar 12, 2002 EST (#406 of 419)

The question of feasibility is important.

And if there is feasibilty to a "certain degree" magnitudes matter very much.

We're talking about a very serious situation here . . . people are paying attention, and the rather careful folks who write editorials for the TIMES were pretty emphatic today on stakes closely related to these questions ... America as Nuclear Rogue http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/12/opinion/_12TUE1.html

Was the uncovering of the Enron situation a "predictable situation?" At the start, it looked like enronation would triumph -- after all, obfuscation and lies carried that organization a very long way.

Then things changed.

If people in Europe, Russia, China, and the United States were clear about the extent of the frauds so far - - and the issues could be made clear - - it could be important.

If major leaders -- people who could make news, rather than just cover it - asked that the issues be clarified, they would be. Patterns that could clarify a great deal have been discussed here before. Would people pay attention? If some power was brought to bear -- many likely would.

rshow55 - 01:15pm Mar 12, 2002 EST (#407 of 419)

There are limits to how completely people can run away from questions about details. MD393 rshow55 3/11/02 2:15pm

Trials do often get right answers - - - though travesties like the OJ trial do happen sometimes.

It takes trouble and money to present technical evidence and argument at the level required in a trial -- the level usually needed for real persuasion. But it can be done, and well done. It could be done on the internet.

People with power would have to want it done.

lchic - 01:28pm Mar 12, 2002 EST (#408 of 419)

There's the patch and mend strategy of continually adjusting a policy.

There's the dump and throw out the old to take on a completely NEW strategy or policy.

Were there to be an international agreement that nuclear weapons were 'not on' to the point of them being 'ousted' .. then NEW international strategies would have to be introduced.

-----

Yesterday Military was about war
Tomorrow let it be about peaceful assistance and development

Yesterday the UN was a toothless monkey
Tomorrow let it play a 'fuller' role

Yesterday war and 'hero' were mystically related
Tomorrow let peace and 'hero' replace this in thinking.

rshow55 - 01:42pm Mar 12, 2002 EST (#409 of 419)

Enough people are concerned enough that they may be willing to face human fighting and threat patterns -- and wars -- as the public health problems they are.

We need to be "connecting the dots" much more carefully -- and with our hearts, minds, and emotions engaged.

Krstof: Cicero was wrong. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/12/opinion/12KRIS.html

War is a behavioral pattern -- very natural to people -- that ought to be considered clinically.

Like cancer, and like death -- it is natural - and needs to be better understood.

lchic - 02:36pm Mar 12, 2002 EST (#410 of 419)

... whenever I write a mushy column about sending medicine abroad as well as soldiers, building bridges instead of just bombing them, I get reproaches from readers who insist that we should worry not about being liked, but about being feared .. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/12/opinion/12KRIS.html

A holistic approach to 'thinking' should be implemented.

rshow55 - 02:53pm Mar 12, 2002 EST (#411 of 419)

The US needs to learn how to make peace . As of now, we don't know how - - and the results have been grisly -- http://www.nctimes.com/news/2002/20020310/60236.html

rshow55 - 03:01pm Mar 12, 2002 EST (#412 of 419)

It is very easy -- if you ask people to change in ways that they cannot - or if you threaten them excessively - in ways that don't give them an out - to get them to fight to the death. As individuals and as groups.

Maybe, in some circumstances, such things are necessary.

But to be avoided, unless you're willing to elicit "fight to the death" responses. How often do we want to do that?

The standard US military approach of "maximum threat" doesn't work -- it is a recipe for endless war - - and endless, escalating risk to Americans.

Cicero was wrong - in the Roman context -- and under the circumstances of today -- much more wrong - - both practically and morally.

manjumicha2001 - 03:12pm Mar 12, 2002 EST (#413 of 419)

rshow

Gee, how do you guys manage to "go on" writing articles like that in a place where Fox and NBC reigns suprerme ??

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