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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.

rshowalter - 05:23pm Aug 28, 2001 EST (#8214 of 11924)
Robert Showalter mrshowalter@thedawn.com

Illustrating the crucial points Dawn Riley makes in MD8202 lunarchick 8/28/01 6:29am would be wonderful, too. If only these points were widely understood!

Separate issues

of technical reality ; paper pusher function and dysfunction ; chisling ; knowledge worker co-option and intimidation ; and auditing , both financial and technical

are IMPORTANT. And separate, though connected issues. Issues that need to be well explained, and illustrated, so that people can understand what is going on, at the levels that matter for checking and action -- for the real people involved.

If "the Emperor is naked" then that has to be shown - - so that people can see - and see clearly enough to check for themselves, and come to believe.

rshowalter - 05:42pm Aug 28, 2001 EST (#8215 of 11924)
Robert Showalter mrshowalter@thedawn.com

We need some islands of technical fact , related to key points, determined, beyond reasonable doubt, or in a clear context.

Other issues can't be taken beyond politics, but technical issues, carefully handled, often can be -- except for a few "die-hards" . That is, these issues can be made clear to almost anyone who cares to look. And they can be clear to juries, or to the "jury of public opinion" nationally and internationally.

The level of exposition in Crude Weapons Cited As Achilles Heel in Missile Plan http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/27/international/27MISS.html is an example of much of what that would take -- on a number of issues.

But there would have to be more.

Questions of fact would have to be subject to criticism from people with reasons to wish to contest those facts.

And if there were disagreements, decisions would have to be made, in ways most people could understand in large degree, by umpires with widely respected credibility.

rshowalter - 05:53pm Aug 28, 2001 EST (#8216 of 11924)
Robert Showalter mrshowalter@thedawn.com

There's a moral and practical question, too.

Crude Weapons Cited As Achilles Heel in Missile Plan by William J. Broad http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/27/international/27MISS.html ends with this quote from Lt. Col. Richard Lehrner.

" It's irresponsible to launch off on more difficult flight tests before we've solved the fundamentals."

But isn't it also irresponsible to initiate, or continue programs where there are very good reasons to believe that the programs cannot meet objectives for fundamental and clear technical reasons.

Perhaps it isn't irresponsible. That can be argued in terms of what is actually involved.

Perhaps going forward in expectation of a "miracle" (compared to what could be done in the open literature) can be permitted for these military investment decisions.

Perhaps such gambles are permissible.

That's a judgement call, that has something to do with the numbers involved, and the technical experience and trends involved with particular technical questions.

But it ought to be clear what gambles are being taken.

It ought to be clear what the "miracles" that have to be conjured are.

Especially here, with so much riding on right answers.

With the whole world being put at risk by these decisions.

Some of these programs involve "long shots" in more ways than one.

Questions of how hard these technical jobs are ought to be answered, and illustrated, so that people can understand.

rshowalter - 08:34pm Aug 28, 2001 EST (#8217 of 11924)
Robert Showalter mrshowalter@thedawn.com

MD5351 rshowalter 6/18/01 9:17am

People need to exercise judgement (and that includes a willingness to doubt) in senses that I feel were eloquently explained in a sermon that I've posted here a number of times. http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/sermon.html .

The point is made in the whole 20 minute sermon, and the sermon is largely secular after the first 9 minutes. The key point about judgement -- and that means judgement enough to check things, and make sure that we're right about what matters, is made especially in the last minute of the sermon, after minute 19.

The seconds leading up to the last word of the sermon, I believe, are eloquent persuasion.

When it matters, we need JUDGEMENT.

When the consequences matter, technical answers matter. Checking matters. A willingness to doubt pat answers, and make sure matters.

The Bush administration, it seems to me, is fooling around with mattes of life and death, and "taking matters on faith" that no serious religious person ought to condone. When facts matter enough, checking must be a moral obligation.

Whether you're a believer, or a nonbeliever.

I think Johnathan Edwards would have thought checking was morally forcing here, for all his superstition, with stakes like this.

rshowalter - 02:56am Aug 29, 2001 EST (#8218 of 11924)
Robert Showalter mrshowalter@thedawn.com

Treaties Don't Belong to Presidents Alone By BRUCE ACKERMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/29/opinion/29ACKE.html ... raises key questions. Among them:

"If President Bush is allowed to terminate the ABM treaty (without consulting Congress) what is to stop future presidents from unilaterally taking America out of NATO or the United Nations?"

What is to stop this president from doing such things, or other serious things?

A related question is this. How far are NATO and the United States going to be able to trust the word of the United States?

Especially if checks and balances can be vitiated entirely by elections hinging on 535 much disputed votes, among hundreds of thousands or millions of questionable ones.

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