Originally posted by STING2:
Certainly no one wants to attack another country if it does not need to for regional and world security, but if something needs to be done, you have to be ready and prepared to do so. Otherwise regional and global security is put in danger. The problems will not go away by staying isolated or uninvolved. When and if military action is needed in the countries mentioned above, it should be done swiftly and with the best technology and training available.
Well, I have moderated on this issue, with the realization that periodic improvements are necessary. So, as much as Reagan's domestic policies were fucked up beyond all hell, I will give him credit for modernizing the military. Anything that can make warfare more precise and less bloody is a good investment.
What does bother me, though, is that Republicans tend to not know when enough is enough in regards to military spending. Hence, Reagan gave us our several trillion dollar debt, with most due to his military expansion.
I agree it is time to modernize the way our military operates, but I still disagree with the missile shield. It is too expensive to create, too experimental in that we don't know if it can be made (just like the SDI in the 1980s), and it will cost a fortune to maintain, not to mention likely to provoke a global arms race. Let's look at it this way: say that Europe built a missile shield, stating the "need for defense against rogue nations." Would the U.S. then say "okay" and let it at that? No, they'd build their own missile shield, probably also trying to build one that can penetrate Europe's shield. And so on, and so on.
I'm also not convinced that there is really a high-tech threat that warrants one. Sure, we currently have low-tech threats, such as hijackings and suicide bombers, etc., but a missile shield won't do shit against low-tech threats. But, most certainly, once that shield is built, I'm sure those "rogue nations" will create a missile program sufficient enough to test it. Will we be happy at that point? At this rate, it appears it will be the United States, not the Soviet Union, who will create another Cold War.
Melon
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"He had lived through an age when men and women with energy and ruthlessness but without much ability or persistence excelled. And even though most of them had gone under, their ignorance had confused Roy, making him wonder whether the things he had striven to learn, and thought of as 'culture,' were irrelevant. Everything was supposed to be the same: commercials, Beethoven's late quartets, pop records, shopfronts, Freud, multi-coloured hair. Greatness, comparison, value, depth: gone, gone, gone. Anything could give some pleasure; he saw that. But not everything provided the sustenance of a deeper understanding." - Hanif Kureishi, Love in a Blue Time