Time Heals All Wounds.. And Then Kills the Patient
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Evening
Evening
Mon Jul 16 16:23:39 2001
Idiocy at the helm
Topics:

Irritated at BushJr's missle defence program. It seems to violate ABM treaties the U.S. had made with Russia some 30 years ago, irritates the world, and is financially moronic. Imagine a very large initial investment for something that's going to stay somewhere hard to reach. This something is designed to combat devices that stay on the ground and are relatively cheap to refit. In terms of a technology race, placing your representative technology in a place that's hard to refit isn't a good way to win. Also, currently it doesn't look like the United States is very much at risk of nuclear war, so their utility is limited. Finally, it is a very impolitic move to make. Phrasing it as a 'defensive' development really only matters to people with a poor understanding of power politics. Imagine if someone were developing a suit that made them invulnerable to capture or weapons. One might initially imagine this to be purely a defensive tool, but when one considers how this affects the person's ability to act with impunity, one can see that this 'defensive' tool is really quite offensive (pun intended). If it really worked as advertised, I'd rather hand someone a rocket launcher and have them come at me rather than come at me with such a suit.