New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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 - 08:08pm Jul 28, 2002 EST (#3323 of 3327)

In addition to the "crazy Showalter hypothesis" I think people ought to consider the "Ishmael hypothesis."

MD2476 rshow55 6/6/02 9:32pm .... http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/289 and http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/294 :

" "The story I like best about me, in this regard, is that I'm just a guy who got interested in logic, and military issues. A guy who got concerned about nuclear danger, and related military balances, and tried to do something about it. Based on what he knew - with no access to special information of any kind, he made an effort to keep the world from blowing up, using the best literary devices he could fashion, consistent with what he knew or could guess. "

Maybe that's a "story" worth telling, now that the government has screwed up so much, so many ways, and people have stolen so much so that nothing can be checked.

To find out whether or not it is a "story" or not, things would have to be checked. In the United States of America, when security issues are even tangentially involved, can anything be checked? What does this say about the limits on what "insiders" can steal?

Of course, I don't have the credentials the NYT most values - and rightly values.

Even so, if I were the NYT, I'd look closely on the origins of Texas oil fortunes -- and the details of how the far right wing of the republican party came to be so very well funded.

I say that sincerely . In Virginia, Young Conservatives Learn How to Develop and Use Their Political Voices by BLAINE HARDEN http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/11/politics/11CONS.html

wrcooper - 09:27pm Jul 28, 2002 EST (#3324 of 3327)

Whatever. God speed.

lchic - 09:36pm Jul 28, 2002 EST (#3325 of 3327)

http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=godspeed

http://www.upcomingmovies.com/godspeedlawrenceman.html

mazza9 - 09:39pm Jul 28, 2002 EST (#3326 of 3327)
"Quae cum ita sunt" Caesar's Gallic Commentaries

do do do do,(pause)do do do do,(pause)

Robert, the sign post up ahead...Well you've entered the Twilight Zone!

Luigi Salvatore Mazza

rshow55 - 09:52pm Jul 28, 2002 EST (#3327 of 3327)

Interesting. 22 posting just got deleted. I'll have to go back and check what they were.

I was about to post this:

U.S. Exploring Baghdad Strike as Iraq Option By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/29/international/29IRAQ.html

"We are looking at the three or four options in between."

As a person who once gave a good deal of thought to interdiction - - it seems to me that the US might consider 4-9 options "in between" -- with sub-options -- all CLEARLY disclosed to the Iraqis.

Repeat: Clearly disclosed.

If the US military can't come up with 20-50 fully workable plans, in short order -- they should work (for the 2-3 weeks it ought to take) until they can do so. Then, they should choose option sets according to a simple rule.

The military should look at options where defense against any particular option precludes an effective defense against any other, from the Iraqi point of view. And where switching from option to option is quick and easy for American forces. Details of execution should be quickly, cleanly programmed for whatever defense option the Iraqis happen to deploy.

In military history, the cleanest, neatest fights are not routs. They occur when one force commits to a coordinated effort, and can be "taken down in order."

If the Iraqi military were confronted with a situation where they were sure that they were going to be defeated - -- beyond reasonable question -- down in order - the objectives of the war might be accomplished cleanly, with absolutely minimum casualties (and minimum mess) on either side.

Professional soldiers are brave, but not suicidal.

Our objective is not carnage, but regime change.

A negotiated change of Iraqi behavior, that eliminated the threats that worry us, would be ideal. For all concerned.

If the military forces of Iraq were sure that they could not survive an attack -- defending only the desire of Saddam to threaten mass murder -- and were also sure that they could defend anything they could reasonably value about their country if they negotiated -- fights might be avoided.

(Note: IMHO, if the Bush administration had called me on the telephone, as I asked them to do before Bin Laden slipped through their fingers -- things would have been considerably cleaner. I've had some very expensive training, and it seems a waste that I'm having to work under current, cramped circumstances. )

The United States ought to want to neutralilze intolerable threats from Iraq (one way or another.) But it ought to want to do that on a basis that has a decent and stable end game.

Because it was one of the main concerns Casey had, I've given a lot of thought to that.

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense