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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 - 06:50pm Jun 11, 2003 EST (# 12488 of 12502)
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 a junior official, having gone in as a temporary a few months before; but I had taken on myself the job of producing large numbers of radar scientists. As usual, everyone had forgotten the sheer human needs, in terms of numbers of trained minds, of a new device. I got my summons and went off to the Treasury. My interlocator was so many steps above me in the heirarchy that no regular communication was possible. That did not matter. Later on, we became friends. The interview, however, took about five minutes. Was this scheme going all right? Should we get enough men? At the right time? The answer to those questions was yes. Did I need any help? No, not just then. That was all. That is the way heirarchical politics sometimes has to work. Granted a serious objective, granted a long term and unspoken respect for certain rules, it often works very well.

"This is a form of politics which has not recieved the attention it needs, if one is going to have any feel, nor for how elaborate organisation is supposed to operate, but for how it does in fact."

Eisenhower had spent his presidency frustrated and terribly concerned - largely frustrated by limitations linked to these usages. And limited as these usages were limited - to situations that were simple - and well understood. He felt - and good people around him felt - that in some key areas we needed better answers. And better ways of getting answers.

Eisenhower liked a slogan from the Disney TV series Davy Crockett.

" Be sure you're right. Then go ahead."

At the levels that a President had to worry about - that "the average reader of The New York Times" had to be concerned about, we had problems with " finding what was right using analysis" and " figuring out, at the levels of detail that actually mattered - how to go ahead efficiently."

It was thought that better answers might be possible. I was asked to work for them - and promised to work on them. Eisenhower promised me that I'd get as much education as I could handle to do the narrow and limited but unusual jobs I was being asked to do.

rshow55 - 07:02pm Jun 11, 2003 EST (# 12489 of 12502)
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.

There's been progress in plenty of things since 1967. But there have been some losses in administrative competence, as well.

And in common ground.

Eisenhower told me something (a good deal later) that he thought was self evident, dead simple, and utterly uncontroversial.

"We want the best damned welfare state that we can actually afford."

Americans aren't as clear and united about that as they were then. And standards of veracity have gone down, as well.

Read My Lips By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/11/opinion/11FRIE.html

Democrats should be asking voters to substitute the word "services" for the word "taxes" every time they hear the president speak"

But in addition to a loss of agreement - there have been big disappointments. We haven't had the increases in productivity, year after year - needed to fund the social benefits the country has wanted - and promised. That's because our country, and the world, have not done nearly as well as they technically could have in getting sustained, solid economic growth. The Europeans are in and even bigger mess about the funding of social services for the same reason.

The reasons growth was slow were clear to Eisenhower - and frustrated him. I was asked to work on them - they seemed, at bottom, to be the same sorts of problems that happened in government every time it tried to innovate.

The objective was not to reject planning. The objective was much more pragmatic. The objective was to make planning better - and make kinds of execution of plans that involved repetitive problems better as well.

rshow55 - 07:11pm Jun 11, 2003 EST (# 12490 of 12502)
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 also did combat theory with practical applications. I'd been able to condense, clarify, and demonstrate in a small way some things military people found useful - especially about engaging superior forces - and was very concerned with defending my country. I thought I was just as loyal an American as Eisenhower.

I think I was - and think I have remained so.

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