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.

gisterme - 01:49pm Jan 31, 2003 EST (# 8406 of 8413)

almarst2002 - 06:11pm Jan 30, 2003 EST (# 8356...)

"Only the POLICE STATE can Police the World."

That statement doesn't concur with anything that's been observed in history.

Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, the Soveit Union and its satellites, and China, the largest police states since the concept came into existance about a century ago either no longer exist or are changing their paradigm away from such harsh rule. None ever "policed the world". The world has policed them.

Iraq and NK are the two harshest police states left on the planet. They won't "police the world" either.

The last police state to go down was Milosovich's. The Yugoslav people no longer live in a police state and they're getting on about the business of building their dreams.

Milosevich is on trial in the Hague for crimes against humanity.

You can rant and rave all you want, almarst, but you can't argue with success.

The world is a better place because of the "policing" done in Yugoslavia. If similar action is required in Iraq, then so be it. The world still has room for improvement.

lchic - 02:01pm Jan 31, 2003 EST (# 8407 of 8413)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Gisterme - you may be interested in this - WAR studies @ King's College London -

[ which is inline with Showalter's pushing that 'effort' be put into milling through and over the concepts related to 'talk' in a pre-war era ---- meaning can we 'move on from war' and via 'talk' and discussion develop more human alternatives: ]

• Year1) Applied Computing Basic techniques of humanities computing; Capturing & manipulating images; Electronic communication & publishing (including Bibliographical skills on the Internet; Publishing on the WWW; Numerical & graphical analysis; Text analysis; Understanding & using databases

• Year2) Analysis & design for representative problems in humanities disciplines; Implementation issues; Small projects using relational databases, text analysis & text mark-up; Discipline-specific options (including Literary & linguistic analysis; Computer-based learning

• Year3) Applied Computing Computing project in conjunction with student's major department

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/coming/undergraduate/ugp2002/schools/sspp/WarAComm_table.html http://www.google.com/search?num=20&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&q=linguistic+analysis+war&btnG=Google+Search

lchic - 02:03pm Jan 31, 2003 EST (# 8408 of 8413)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Yugoslavia - had TITO put a succession plan in place ... could all the bloodshed been avoided!?

lchic - 02:09pm Jan 31, 2003 EST (# 8409 of 8413)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Showalter implies that were analysis done, by teams, of the 'talk' prior to a war .... then the teams might identify common recurring problems ... and work them through.

All parties concerned should look to this process.

It might be compared to the 'quality' process of business and industry ... that relates to the identification of 'problem factors' and then looks for means of overcoming them .... moving back to smooth process.

lchic - 02:17pm Jan 31, 2003 EST (# 8410 of 8413)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Contrast the resources that are put into communication analysis when a 'war' is on ...

with

.... analysis failure prior to declaration of war

The question being -- if more resources were put to the 'front end' would understanding and negotiation be so improved that moves to war would be limited?

~~~~~~~~~~

The need for the UN - a world body - to set standards is important.

Countries should move towards the 'democratic' ... with limited terms for elected Heads of State thus allowing 'change' and limiting corruption.

wrcooper - 02:20pm Jan 31, 2003 EST (# 8411 of 8413)

In re: [rshow55] http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?9@93.g86tafTq1jx.165289@.f28e622/9917

Huh?

I looked at the first five of the links you posted, and none of them were by gisterme . They were posts of yours. None of them contained an iota of evidence about anything gisterme had written or posted.

Nothing. Nyet. Nada. Zilch.

What on earth are you talking about?

(2 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense