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.

lchic - 02:08pm May 19, 2002 EST (#2303 of 2318)

Dahrendorf, Nici

Office Of National Security Advisor Established (Lusa/08/05/01) The transition administration of East Timor announced Tuesday that an office of the national security advisor has been established, headed by Nici Dahrendorf, who last June oversaw a study on the territory's defense. That study, prepared by King's College in London, had envisaged creation of the office. Dahrendorf's responsibilities will include advising the territorial leadership and the UN on policies and strategies concerning "internal and external developments that may involve the area of security". The office, which has been operational since late last month, will collect, analyze and coordinate pertinent information for the security services at the national and district level. Dahrenhdorf may also call meetings of a national security council made up of senior members of the territory's UN transition administration and the East Timorese leadership, among other duties.

The first group of candidates for the East Timor Defense Force, which was formally founded last February, are currently undergoing basic training.
^{http://www.gov.east-timor.org/old/news/Media_Monitoring/20010510am.php}

rshow55 - 02:19pm May 19, 2002 EST (#2304 of 2318)

Looking at the NYT and other papers, as a whole, it seems to me that we are getting CLOSER to a situation where a lot of things can be sorted out -- if people are willing to distrust and check.

Just Try to Imagine a Palestinian Democracy By JAMES BENNET http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/19/weekinreview/19BENN.html

Reform is turning into a political football. But consider if it was a grail instead.

- - - even during the fighting, people are talking.

Suicide Bomber Strikes Market in Israeli City of Netanya By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html

Peres' proposal says a restructuring of the security forces would be followed by a Palestinian state established in areas the Palestinians currently control, a process that could occur within weeks.

Palestinian autonomy zones now cover some two-thirds of the Gaza Strip and islands of territory amounting to about 40 percent of the West Bank.

- - - -

There are promising things going on. Can they get to closure?

People are learning more about what that will take.

Is it possible to get from muddle (or statistics) to workable certainty, and clear agreement?

Sure is.

Takes work and clarity, but people do it all the time.

lchic - 02:20pm May 19, 2002 EST (#2305 of 2318)

The New Statesman Essay - Whatever happened to liberty?

Ralf Dahrendorf on the missing word in the Third Way ...

.... The Third Way presupposes a more Hegelian view of the world. It forces its adherents to define themselves in relation to others, rather than by their own peculiar combination of ideas; and often the others have to be invented, even caricatured for the purpose.

The point about an open world is that there are not just two or three ways. There are - as I put it in an earlier NS article (29 May 1998) - 101 ways, which is to say, an indefinite number. For purposes of practical politics, that is important. The question may be the same everywhere, since it is put by largely global conditions: how can we achieve wealth creation and social cohesion in free societies? The answers, however, are many. There are many capitalisms, not just that of Chicago; there are many democracies, not just that of Westminster. Diversity is not an optional extra of high culture; it is at the very heart of a world that has abandoned the need for closed, encompassing systems. In fact, even politics in the name of the Third Way is quite varied ...

^{http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/199909060018.htm}

... He then identifies six policy areas of the Third Way:
(1) a new politics or "second wave of democratisation" by going directly to the people;
(2) a new relationship of state, market and civil society that "joins them up";
(3) supply-side policies through social investment, notably in education and infrastructure projects;
(4) the fundamental reform of the welfare state through creating a new balance of risk and security;
(5) a new relationship to the environment by "ecological modernisation"; and
(6) a strong commitment to transnational initiatives in a world of "fuzzy sovereignty".

lchic - 02:24pm May 19, 2002 EST (#2306 of 2318)

Above (1999)

.... there HAVE been 'transNational' initiatives by the score since then, and the binding interlocking-linking of Nations is a move towards ONE rather than separate worlds.

(12 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense