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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 - 11:04am Jul 3, 2003 EST (# 12827 of 12837)
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.

Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States http://www.bartleby.com/124/index.html

fredmoore - 11:10am Jul 3, 2003 EST (# 12828 of 12837)

Ask not what your planet can DO .... for you

But ask .. what you can do ... for your planet.

President Condoleeza Rice Inaugural speech 2020.

rshow55 - 11:34am Jul 3, 2003 EST (# 12829 of 12837)
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.

She'd make a good presidential candidate - and she could run sooner than that !

4705 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.MUj8bHYimxk.0@.f28e622/5953 . . Along with some stances that many outside the United States find uncomfortable, there are some high ideals expressed in "The National Security Strategy of the United States," http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/politics/20STEXT_FULL.html . That document, primarily written by Condoleezza Rice, with much consultation throughout the Bush administration, contains this:

" Today, the international community has the best chance since the rise of the nation-state in the seventeenth century to build a world where great powers compete in peace instead of continually prepare for war. . . . . . The United States will build on these common interests to promote global security. "

Those ideals don't stand alone. But they are real.

There are some problems of a planetary scale. Enough food for the planet - enough energy - enough drinkable water - these are what Snow called primal things . And health is a primal thing, too.

It is reasonable that we work on getting reasonable - even optimal - solutions to these problems now . Altruism is a motivation, and a good one - but we have to proceed practically - and find solutions that are stable and self sustaining. That work with the people and institutions that we've got. I think we can.

But when problems are international in scale - some key parts of the solutions have to be, too.

fredmoore - 11:48am Jul 3, 2003 EST (# 12830 of 12837)

Oh! that should be 2021 of course.

lchic - 12:01pm Jul 3, 2003 EST (# 12831 of 12837)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Alex pointed out

all the strife of the past Century has centered on

E N E R G Y

By 2020 the Brits think they'll be 'out' of energy

Sounds like a war brewing

Who's stewing - thinking over this problem NOW? Is Condi?

lchic - 12:07pm Jul 3, 2003 EST (# 12832 of 12837)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Showalter - why should the petro-interests object to additional sources of energy being developed?

The 'new' energy would 'energise' the economies of current 'have-not' countries

These in turn would develop - and demand more sophisticated product from the advanced countries

The demand for traditional oil product might well stay constant

Were this so, then there might be positive interest shown in the development of alternative sources by this group

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USA employment rose in June ||| Most States can't live within their budgets ||| so what-how-when will the world economy be 'boosted'?

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