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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 - 02:51pm Oct 28, 2003 EST (# 15803 of 15814)
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.

about 1900 posts ago, I made a concession to cantabb , and somehow it seems worth repeating - because a very big WHAT is how to craft win-win solutions that are in everybody's interest, but "unstable" - that is - how to stabilize them workably? Now, that's not entirely limited to missile defense - so I feel like repeating this concession

13916 - http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.API2bRokS8G.5379230@.f28e622/15621

An interesting article:

. Play Fair: Your Life May Depend on It By NICHOLAS WADE http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/21/weekinreview/21WADE.html . . .

Cantabb , I think it is clear that if the monitors wanted to construe the pupose of this thread exactly according to the heading - or any of the headings this thread has carried since its beginning in May 2000 ( those headings are here: 756 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.API2bRokS8G.5379230@.f28e622/949 ) - about 80% of the 25000 posts that have gone onto this thread would have been barred...

Including a lot of stuff that seems to interest a lot of people, cantabb - sometimes including you.

Then, I'll go back and find an example that has been much discussed on this thread - though it isn't missile defense. It is a "solution" that is technically close to within reach that is a big negotiating problem - a problem of taking an "inherently unstable" solution and stabilizing it - which also means understanding what makes the solution unstable.

Arms races are an important examples of patterns based on related instabilities.

rshow55 - 02:56pm Oct 28, 2003 EST (# 15804 of 15814)
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.

http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.API2bRokS8G.5379230@.f28e622/17517 - hegemony has big problems - and I was assigned to find stability without hegemony - Eisenhower knew that stability problem was there.

A lot of problems that persist for thousands of years have been solved - and this one can be, too.

As it happens - the example I'm going to use - large scale solar energy - is an example of problems with hegemony - and the need - sometimes - to have large, monolithic solutions - for technical reasons - but with fairness , too.

You need packages of solutions that are stable. Assemblies. Not too simple to work. Or too complicated either.

cantabb - 02:59pm Oct 28, 2003 EST (# 15805 of 15814)

rshow55 - 02:28pm Oct 28, 2003 EST (# 15800 of 15800)

Suppose for think about you subsitute assume?

Wouldn't produce much difference, I don't think !

Solutions that worked well enough for everybody - even very well - aren't necessarily impossible, either. But there needs to be ways of thinking about and constructing them.

I didn't say they are or would be impossible. Just that how would you know if they "worked" -- unless someone determines it by actually testing (or determining its likelihood by other means). And then, how well. Can everybody afford them, based on their individual needs and situation ? It's NOT that people have not thought about it or some have not tried to construct what they thought might have worked.

At the beginning of the year I thought this might be the year people could learn to do that.

People have been doing it for long.

I'm not posting a lot, just now - hoping somebody with power could take a simple, cheap, low risk step that might make that possible.

Make what possible ? Constructing an effective, affordable defensive system -- without you ? What's that got to do with you "not posting a lot" ? [I don't follow the logic here -- but I don't follow it often in your posts. So, not a surprise or disappointment.]

bluestar23 - 03:00pm Oct 28, 2003 EST (# 15806 of 15814)

MD has proven a great Diplomatic "leveraging" tool; in important negotiations, the Americans can use the MD as a technology-transfer sweetener to get other things they want; or to get technical co-operation or money..or to threaten changes in the balance of power to come...it works in a variety of ways that are useful..

bluestar23 - 03:02pm Oct 28, 2003 EST (# 15807 of 15814)

RShow55:

Will you simply TELL everyone what it is EXACTLY you are "negotiating" with the New York Times and stop the BSing...

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense