Young in some ways, old in others. The army in whatever time period is configured as best able to wreak havoc upon the enemy, though the purpose for which it's used varies. The enemy in this timeperiod seems to be the whole world. I dreamt a vivid dream. I lived on the hill above downtown San Diego (do they do weather control here?), the airport, the port, and Coronado. In the dream, I sat down to eat dinner. There was a bright flash from above the little indentation that is the bay. I looked up. Then I was very hot, and then the I woke. Why build an army which can only destroy one world? Why not, the whole shebang, and thus all this talk about the "space empire"? Escalation EATS ROCKS compared to a little peace and quiet. So, diplomacy, especially personal and interpersonal diplomacy, seems better a focus for all of the whole memetics/psyops/spin control that MWILSON talks about. For all y'all pilgrims out there, "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson (dare I say the name for copyright infringement?) is a great book about the age of personal nukes and lifeboat-board depleted uranium repeating hypersonic rail guns -- set about 15 -- 30 years from now, I'd just guess. In the end the book rocked and the balanced thing happened and anyway most of the killing was hacking and it only harmed your financial standing if you lost. Well, Hiro Protagonist got paid. It has already in real life, because otherwise, we wouldn't be here. So, we can go on making real life better for everyone since the Star Trek matter synthesizer was a cool idea, even though it would put production of small items out of work. Then could we make planet-sized ships with wings like butterflies and an orbital ring and all that? It would be fun to survive to find out. It would be nice if people stopped killing each other, everywhere; perhaps the most unlikely end of a game theory. Mark Hedges On Wed, 17 Dec 1997, Rosenthal wrote: >I don't know how old you are, but you sound young. My reaction to the >article up until about age 35 would probably have been similar to yours. >Now, after 30 years experience with and study of the art of warfare, I just >think: "Another set of army bureaucrats trying to stand out from the >crowd; another set of _new_ visions for the military." > >Ann Rosenthal >
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