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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.

lunarchick - 09:24am Dec 16, 2002 EST (# 6732 of 6747)

"...Judge leaders against themselves..."

gisterme 12/16/02 2:31am

Necessary to set up a model with criteria for 'leadership'

Let's say international powers were to place a job-ad, advertise, for a leader who might then be suitable to run for office in countryXYZ

A checklist would be set-up
together with an examination of additional (special/unique) qualities

So were there a checklist
what would it include?

commondata - 10:19am Dec 16, 2002 EST (# 6733 of 6747)

fredmoore 12/16/02 9:02am - Human beings have layers of consciousness ... strip away the layers and you will soon find the beast ... Overpopulation and shortages or even mooted shortages of critical resources lead to chaos.

Absolutely. Monbiot made the point well in his last column, Who Guards the Guards:

If there is a characteristic which unites all human societies, past or present, it is surely an inordinate fondness for violence. Those who can force others to submit to their demands will do so until they meet a greater force. We tend, in the superficially peaceful communities of the rich world, to forget that violence is the underlying determinant of human relations, and that this violence, far from disappearing, has simply been distilled into a political system which both protects and threatens us.

But given that truth, Fredmoore, what's the best we can hope for? Monbiot suggests:

So our social contract, repulsive and hazardous as it is, is perhaps the best we can hope for: a system which offers some kind of remission from constant armed assault.

This familiar social contract - our relationship with the state, police force and judiciary - desparately needs to be a serious force globally - and desparately needs the support of the last superpower. That's not happening.

Human populations are collections or ordered states in a thermodynamic system and when those ordered states are reduced through resource shortages, you will get chaotic disturbances irregardless of any higher thinking.

That may well be true at one level and from one perspective and may, in fact, be the "deep underlying reality". But just as to frame all chemistry problems in terms of quantum mechanics maybe correct but not useful, so too, to frame sociological problems in terms of thermodynamics may be correct but not useful.

Dunno - definitely worth a few thoughts.

lunarchick - 10:24am Dec 16, 2002 EST (# 6734 of 6747)

resource shortages

as in human resource
as in the 'quality' of a leader
:)

lunarchick - 10:41am Dec 16, 2002 EST (# 6735 of 6747)

Measuring - http://www.iisd.org/measure/default.htm

lunarchick - 10:49am Dec 16, 2002 EST (# 6736 of 6747)

Gu Iraq - a just war? see talkthread 'International'
http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@@.eeced1f/0

There is increasing evidence that American plans for war on Iraq are at a developed stage. But what is the moral and legal basis for an attack on Saddam?

http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq

Bishop Richard Harries: This would not be a just war http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,769010,00.html

Bush ready to declare war http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,769066,00.html

Analysis: Peter Beaumont - beyond the black propaganda, its not a question of when, not if the US will attack http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,769044,00.html

Hardliners in Iran want to down US jets: the threat of war in Iraq has widened the gap between conservatives and reformers in Iran http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,769045,00.html

Comment: John Pilger - the great charade http://www.observer.co.uk/waronterrorism/story/0,1373,754973,00.html

Observer Leader: What would we be fighting for http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,755100,00.html

The Observer says: "America describes invasion as an act of 'pre-emptive self-defence'. But getting your retaliation in first is international law out of a Spielberg movie, a new Bush doctrine that would be used to justify military adventurism from Chechnya to the West Bank to Kashmir".

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