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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.

lchic - 01:31pm Sep 25, 2002 EST (# 4520 of 4536)

Nuclear / viewpoints

"" Nash's central insight, the one for which he won a Nobel Prize in 1994, was to prove that every economic game has an equilibrium point—that is, an approach to play in which no player would choose to change his strategy. If a player were to try to change his Nash equilibrium strategy, he would end up worse off than before. ...

These days, Nash-style strategic thinking can be found everywhere.

Consider America's nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union. Each superpower could have disarmed or stockpiled a nuclear arsenal. To decide, the U.S. considered what the Russians might do. If they armed, the U.S. needed to arm as well to defend itself.

But if the Soviet Union disarmed, the U.S. would rather arm itself anyway to achieve a strategic advantage over its enemy. The Soviet Union's thinking ran the same way, and both countries settled on a policy of mutually assured destruction. Despite pacifists' complaints, a nuclear standoff turned out to be the most stable and secure solution—the Cold War's Nash equilibrium.

http://www.latimes.com/la-032202nash.story

[ What's the 'game-plan' re Iraq? ]

lchic - 01:36pm Sep 25, 2002 EST (# 4521 of 4536)

Nuclear anxiety & the mind

"" 4. Afraid a terrorist will use nuclear weapons. Goal: Help rid the world of this threat. Here the possibilities are endless. You first task will be to decide how to go about it. It may take you a year to do only that. But while you are putting your mind to the task, while you are thinking about it and reading about it and asking people about it, your mind is not worrying. It is seeking, reaching, accomplishing. The anxiety is transformed with each purposeful action into determination. And determination is a much healthier, more pleasant, and more productive emotion than anxiety. http://www.youmeworks.com/examplesofusinganxiety.html

lchic - 01:37pm Sep 25, 2002 EST (# 4522 of 4536)

"" Nuclearfiles

This site provides extensive information on nuclear weapons and nuclear war. We believe an informed citizenry is the best means of overcoming complacency about the nuclear dangers that continue to confront us.

http://www.nuclearfiles.org/welcome.html

lchic - 01:45pm Sep 25, 2002 EST (# 4523 of 4536)

"" Their testimony amounted to a public confession that without continuous nuclear testing they would be powerless to go on with their jobs. They said that the present stockpile is safe and reliable but there are several factors which fail to guarantee its safety even next year let alone far into the future.

For one thing there's a disturbing shortage of trained nuclear experts. Weapons, particularly warheads, age and have constantly to be re-tested or replaced.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/letter_from_america/484927.stm 25 October 1999

lchic - 02:37pm Sep 25, 2002 EST (# 4524 of 4536)

A White Paper:

Pursuing a New Nuclear Weapons Policy for the 21st Century by C. Paul Robinson, President and Director, Sandia National Laboratories

Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Strategic Tool?

http://www.sandia.gov/media/whitepaper/2001-04-Robinson.htm

lchic - 03:05pm Sep 25, 2002 EST (# 4525 of 4536)

If the US didn't understand how minds work here : http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/25/opinion/25FRIE.html

Then what hope has the US of understanding the 'minds' of those who may see themselves as 'internationally agrieved'?

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