Peace Is War (Astrocop - Feature Story of April 2002 WIRED Magazine)

Wired Magazine ^ | April 2002 | Bruce Sterling

[SamAdams76]

Get ready for the new frontier of missile defense, where peacekeeping space lasers battle a storm of rogue nukes.

In distant 1990, when the US fought Space War I in the Persian Gulf, its military was a lumbering Cold War juggernaut. During the months it took to move the Army into those Saudi Arabian bases, fighter pilots were already hard at work. Using detailed Landsat images to locate targets fixed by hastily deployed global positioning satellites, US air power methodically devastated the Iraqi army. When American tanks finally rumbled across the wasteland west of Kuwait, they found nothing much left to crush. Dazed Iraqis were surrendering to unmanned drones.

[SamAdams76]

I found this article fascinating. If you go to the website, there are some sidebars worth reading too.

[spqrzilla9]

Sterling distorts the history of those conflicts a fair amount in support of his point.

[Savage Beast]

"Terrorism is the only thing that seems to dent the U.S. military."

And that is because of American patience, kindness, justice, generosity, and forbearance. These qualities are enormous in the American people. But they are not infinite.

[Forgiven_Sinner]

Great article. Being an SF buff, I've advocated "taking the high ground" for 20 years, ever since RR's "Star Wars" defense plan. Three geosyncronous satellites, solar powered, with laser cannon could destroy all ICBMs. Make it so.

[SamAdams76]

Thanks for bumping this article. Reading through it again three months after posting it, it makes even more sense to me.