Space Debris/Ozone da 1 debris disad 2

Economic crash causes nuclear world war III

[Sean, 2/26, Baltimore Republican Examiner writer and Squad Leader in the Marine Corps Reserve, the Baltimore Examiner, "Will this recession lead to World War III?," http://www.examiner.com/x-3108-Baltimore-Republican-Examiner~y2009m2d26-Will-this-recession-lead-to-World-War-III]

 

Could the current economic crisis affecting this country and the world lead to another world war? The answer may be found by looking back in history. One of the causes of World War I was the economic rivalry that existed between the nations of Europe. In the 19th century France and Great Britain became wealthy through colonialism and the control of foreign resources. This forced other up-and-coming nations (such as Germany) to be more competitive in world trade which led to rivalries and ultimately, to war.  After the Great Depression ruined the economies of Europe in the 1930s, fascist movements arose to seek economic and social control. From there fanatics like Hitler and Mussolini took over Germany and Italy and led them both into World War II.  With most of North America and Western Europe currently experiencing a recession, will competition for resources and economic rivalries with the Middle East, Asia, or South American cause another world war? Add in nuclear weapons and Islamic fundamentalism and things look even worse.  Hopefully the economy gets better before it gets worse and the terrifying possibility of World War III is averted. However sometimes history repeats itself.

Debris Impact—Miscalculation

Given the concern about the increase in space debris, and the need to improve the ability to forecast and avoid potential conjunctions, in your view there is an opportunity to cooperate with Russia and other nations in the area of space debris analysis and warning? The significant increase in space debris presents challenges to all space faring nations. I believe that coordinated international efforts to develop and share information, particularly with respect to space debris, could help increase awareness and prevent mishaps, misperceptions, and mistrust. I understand that the Department recently signed statements of principles on Space Situational Awareness sharing with Australia, Canada, and France. Additional such statements signed with other nations, and with commercial firms, would continue to enhance spaceflight safety for all parties.

Although war can occur even when both sides see each other accurately, misperception often plays a large role. Particularly interesting are judgments and misjudgments of another state's intentions. Both overestimates and underestimates of hostility have led to war in the past, and much of the current debate about policy toward the Soviet Union revolves around different judgments about how that country would respond to American policies that were cither firm or conciliatory. Since statesmen know that a war between the United States and the Soviet Union would be incredibly destructive, however, it is hard to see how errors of judgment, even errors like those that have led to past wars, could have the same effect today. But perceptual dynamics could cause statesmen to see policies as safe when they actually were very dangerous or, in the final stages of deep conflict, to see war as inevitable and therefore to see striking first as the only way to limit destruction.

Is war the rational and well-calculated pursuit of states, or are decisions for war more often dominated by miscalculation and misperception? This is an important question because assumptions about the extent of rationality in decisions for war underlie policy debates on a range of subjects from deterrence and missile defense to peacekeeping. Arguments about rationality also underlie academic debates about the general causes of war and the methodologies to study them, as well as historical debates about the causes of specific wars. If one assumes that states start wars intending to win them, then losses by war initiators will tend to indicate that the decision for war was dominated by miscalculation and misperception. This assumption means that the extent of miscalculation and misperception can be measured by looking at the win and loss rates of initiators.

Just as general causes of war can be parsed into the table above, debates about the causes of specific wars often turn on arguments about rationality versus miscalculation and misperception. The best example is the literature on World War I. Copeland and Fischer blame deliberate German policy (2000; 1967). In contrast, Snyder and Van Evera argue that WWI was caused by a web of misperceptions which they file under the rubric “cult of the offensive” (1984; 1985, 1999). Levy runs up the middle, arguing for a fairly subtle form of miscalculation: many of the Great Powers wanted a limited war prior to WWI, but that the huge scale of WWI was not what they intended or predicted (1991). In the debate over the Japanese decision to attack Pearl Harbor, Ienaga (1978) contends that Japan had fallen into the grip of militaristic hypernationalism while Sagan (1988) holds that Japan rationally weighed its choices and chose war. In assessing Saddam Hussein’s decisions to go to war in 1990/91, Pollack argues that Saddam, although a risk-taker, was not irrational or suicidal and had successfully been deterred in the past (2002, 248). On the other hand, Baram states that Saddam and his government had been irrational, prone to take unreasonable risks, and made many colossal errors in judgment (1992). Stein believes that Saddam stayed in Kuwait because of an unfounded belief in an American conspiracy to destroy him (1993).7