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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 - 04:33pm Oct 2, 2002 EST (# 4706 of 4711)
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.

In ways that are in the real interest of the United States, and the rest of the world.

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.

If Russians, for example, think that Americans are guilty of domineering, duplicitious, and brutal behavior - - that could be right enough - in significant spots - but of only limited importance. They should look at some of their own behavior. Both in the past and, in spots, in the present too.

If we really want to get to a world "where great powers compete in peace instead of continually prepare for war" - - - do technical conditions need to change? With people and circumstances as they actually are, and not as we might wish them to be?

If we're to "beat our swords into ploughshares" do we have to make the swords in question obsolete ?

I'm struggling with that question.

The job of making them obsolete doesn't look hard, or expensive.

Things would be stable if that technology was itself effective and militarily stable without having to be hidden - - and if that technology was inexpensive, defense rather than offensive in nature, and widely or universally known and available.

Yesterday I wondered

Perhaps my duty now is to see that the swords in question become obsolete ?

Anybody object? I'm in the Madison phone book. rshow55 10/1/02 6:52pm

So far, no one has objected. I presume that some people noticed me wondering that - based on past reactions.

My guess is that a lot of politicians, and military officers, would like some things changed - - consistent with the national security interests of the United States - - but aren't placed where they can change things.

Maybe I'll take a shot. I'm waiting a little while longer, to see if anybody objects.

But I would like to point these links out: 4533-4547 rshow55 9/25/02 4:38pm

Add the few new insights in those links to technolgy already "old hat" in 1967 - and we might be well along toward much more stable, safer, more peaceful circumstances.

Angier's article Of Altruism, Heroism and Nature's Gifts in the Face of Terror http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/18/health/psychology/18ALTR.html is very much worth reading and pondering. People can cooperate - and can often find good solutions to mutual problems. But altruism has its limits. Maybe we need some analytical understanding, and some changes in technical conditions, as well.

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