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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.

rshow55 - 10:42am Mar 9, 2003 EST (# 9701 of 9713)
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.

Earlier, I talked about "oscillatory solutions" - with some reference to bird courtship behavior - and then evaded some questions by gisterme - because to answer them, I'd have had to talk about repression and group-think and paradigm conflict in ways that I wasn't ready to - didn't feel I had enough support to.

With respect to a number of our diplomatic problems - all the big ones - we need to get solutions that work on the things that actually matter - even if we can't possibly agree on some key ideas, facts, or principles. That can be sensible and honest - but some conventions can have their uses. Here's some reposting

rshow55 - 02:59pm Jan 21, 2003 EST (# 7880 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.ElAQaDMS5D4.865439@.f28e622/9405 includes:

Anybody who wants to go to "end game" without a good many cycles, from where we are - knows more than I do.

Casey had a penchant for "elegant" asymptotic solutions - one shot to a completion - not enough thought about adjustments, and end games - and though we talked about it - I never could get him to see that, if you take a "right" action - no matter how perfect you think it is - if you're to move fast, you need to have two successive actions (if the first is plus, a secondary -, and tertiary + ) ready to go - so that contingencies can be met. Bin Laden and I both had problems because Casey wasn't careful enough that way.

The UN has work to do - and time to spend. The US has good reasons for some of the things it insists on - other powers do, too - international law is not so much in being as in nascency - and there is a lot of reason for people to "keep talking" - - even if they feel sure of their position.

There are subcultures, some in American colleges, where it used to be more or less assumed that a couple would get engaged and have sex at almost the same time. In the ideal, there would be a ring on her finger, and sexual completion in an "indistinguishable" order. The ideal was to have the negotiation go 'round and round - like lots of bird courtship sequences - and have both sides tired, hot, and practicing enough brinksmanship in a series of interactions with metastable transitions so that - for the rest of their lives, each side could argue, in any way that happened to be convenient, whether the engagement or the sexual pairing was consummated first.

Depending on circumstances, each might wish to take either side, in a fight that mattered some to the parties, but not too much, with themes or variations - some course - some quite subtle.

Discussions with the parents or friends of the male and female partner would be likely to get different stories - and nobody could prove a thing.

Such "fights" can, and often did, become formats wherein the couple could negotiate a lot of other things - without anybody violating anybody too badly - so that finer calibrations in the partnership could occur than might have been possible otherwise. Sometimes, they could also be a way of getting laughs or cries when these were useful for release. I was hoping for such a scenario with Marti - but she died a few days too early for me to have the chance.

Alliances have "useful disagreements" that dither negotiations in an analogous way. With animals, there are some analogies in "displacement activity" that becomes a sort of stylized oscillatory, repeatable dance. When things are tense, and conflicted, such dances can be useful.

Oscillatory solutions in the Middle East and the Korean peninsula are avaliable -- very, very good ones. Stable static solutions are not, so far as I can see. It seems to me that everybody involved ought to think carefully about what they actually need - and what they can concede - and people need to take some time. Fighting - and biter words - may have their place - but draconian simplifications can only hurt just now, it seems to me.

It seems to me that people need to b

rshow55 - 10:46am Mar 9, 2003 EST (# 9702 of 9713)
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.

It seems to me that people need to be careful not to "solve" things too quickly, when much better results will be available if people take time.

. . . .

gisterme - 05:02pm Jan 21, 2003 EST (# 7882 of 7899)

rshow55 - 02:59pm Jan 21, 2003 EST (# 7880...)

"...Oscillatory solutions in the Middle East and the Korean peninsula are avaliable -- very, very good ones..."

For example??? You've never quite explained what you mean by an "oscillatory solution", Robert. I've asked before. Here's your chance.

I didn't take that chance. I feel that it is now "a chance worth taking."

Out for a while. I deeply appreciate the chance to post on these boards.

lchic - 11:14am Mar 9, 2003 EST (# 9703 of 9713)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Chance as in 'opportunity' rather than 'chance'

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