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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 - 04:53pm Jun 9, 2003 EST (# 12440 of 12448)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

I was talking about something real - when I said,

" 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."

I was in fact trying to solve the missile guidance problem - and had not at that time done so. But I was no stranger to the idea that we were trying to scare the Soviet Union into collapse. I did feel terribly strongly that it was dangerous to try to generate the collapse on an acute basis - when I lost the argument with people of higher rank I was asked to participate in a bluff - saying that the guidance problem was solved. I refused to participate. People were stunned and angry at my refusal. I was tortured - competently, but not severely - scared to death but not killed. This was late in 1971 - at a time when the ABM treaty - largely an exercise in exaggerating our capabilities to the Soviets - was being negotiated. People were very angry with me for insubordination - and in significant ways, justifiably so - but it was decided that I was to continue to work - stripped of day-to-day contact with military matters - with William J. Casey as my sole contact and superior.

To repeat for continuity from http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/6

"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.

It now appears to me that this happened in a haphazard fashion, without no more organizational memory about safeguards than NASA seemed to have about aerodynamic heating issues related to the shuttle.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- rshowalter - (#9 - written September 26, 2000 continues. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/8

"That was a decade ago. A terrible thing has happened since. Our nuclear weapons (always plainly dominant of theirs) have not been taken down. Russia, which went down in disarray from the stress and psychological dislocation of our lies and terror, is still in disarray.

"I've been wrenched, watching this.

And I have been concerned about the physical dangers involved.

"The problem, I think, is that Americans couldn't admit what they'd done, even to themselves. There'd been too many deceptions, and deceptive conspiracies, penetrating too deep for too long. Our constitutional system had been too compromised.

And, in addition, every kind of muddle on view at NASA seems to have existed.

"We had built a system that was not only in tension, but in paralysis, incapable of function or comfortable balance.

"In my view, we should admit what we've done, so we can understand the system that we must dismantle. Nuclear weapons are harmful, even when they don't actually fire, and in the new world of the internet, and of ill supported Russian forces, they are far more unstable and dangerous than they used to be. We should take them down. The technical aspects of the takedown are easy. The only hard part is that we need to understand what has happened, and how these weapons have been used.

" We need to know this. The Russians do, too.

- - - - -

I've felt an obligation to try to sort this out - and have been acutely concerned about the dangers.

rshow55 - 05:00pm Jun 9, 2003 EST (# 12441 of 12448)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

If I've seemed "obsessive" - the problems involved here are not easy ones to walk away from, if you have my background.

I think there's enough to fear that people should be competent and careful and honest on these matters - lest the world end.

I also feel that this is a hopeful time - if we can simply face up to some problems -and decide to solve them as they must be solved - both technically, and with regard for the real people involved.

almarst2002 - 06:57pm Jun 9, 2003 EST (# 12442 of 12448)

Berlin meeting on Iraq war: “A turning point in international politics” - http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jun2003/ps-j09.shtml

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