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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 - 02:53pm Aug 22, 2002 EST (# 3902 of 3920)
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.

"Here are some things that I think the NYT MD thread has done already. I'm proud, and feel the work has been worth it. One can trace highlights of that effort reading from #151 in Psychwar, Casablanca - - and terror . http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/159

"I believe the NYT Missile Defense thread has accomplished the following already:

"It has demonstrated new ways of getting complex cooperation between staffed organizations using internet resources.

"It has provided (or at the least, demonstrated in prototype) a high bandwidth channel of communication between the US and Russia - and clarified differences of view that take a lot of talking to clarify. MD1999 rshow55 5/4/02 10:39am

" It has been involved with neutralizing the main threat to world stability from missile defense. The Russians now know that US missile defense efforts, as they stand, do not as a practical matter threaten strategic balances. Before, US "missile defense" efforts were a major barrier to ending some of the worst aspects of the Cold War, because these strategic concerns were important. Now, though the program continues to soak up resources - the biggest objection to it from the perspective of world peace has been neutralized. The waste remains.

"The thread has shown new, effective ways of "collecting, connecting and correcting" "the dots" using internet resources, and has clarified some things about how people figure things out, as individuals and groups.

"This last may sound either too simple-minded or too ambitious - but it is an area where I believe there's a lot that can be done that will be useful and aesthetically and intellectually pleasing. I don't think I'm being too optimistic. A lot is possible when you're working with lchic . MD3733-3734 rshow55 8/16/02 8:39am

rshow55 - 02:59pm Aug 22, 2002 EST (# 3903 of 3920)
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 went on . . .

"But I'm muddling something into focus - looking at cases again and again -- asking

- Could it be that simple?

"And asking the question again, and again and again. Monotonous? Yes. - - And my head is full, and fuzzy. But as I get more and more sure that some really important issues really do hinge on just this issue - - the issue that we all have a stake in getting facts when answers matter - - things slowly clear up.

Eventually, I'm hoping to have the point be, in Edison's words

" the most obvious damn thing you could possibly do (say) right here."

"I'd like to come up with the best, clearest language. But the odds are that, trying my best - I won't match the sharpness lchic will come up with. How I hope she does !

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense