The kicker being that developing defensive weapons is so oft viewed by both the pious and the paranoid as wicked (naked?) aggression.

(And of course, from their point of view, they do have a point....)

I personally don't care for the "joint" aspect
of these tests. This doesn't seem right to be
giving Israel this kind of inside relationship on
weapons development. This is a bad path to be on.

The truth is a defensive shield IS an offensive
weapon in that it enhances the tactical freedom
to operate against enemy targets.

JH --

Why do you assume that we're letting the Israelis in on something we've developed?

Video of a successful anti-missile laser test can be found at: http://www.israeli-weapons.com/index.html

One non-barking dog as of yet is to be confronting candidates with their stance on the ABM treaty pre-9/11.

I'd love to hear, "Senator, given your oppostion to the Bush withdrawl from ABM, do you propose re-instating that treaty in toto?"

That'd be rich.

David,

I know where your heading with that thought and
I guess I can only say that the horse is already out of the barn. The history of capital
and technology flow over the past 20 years or so
has been overwhelmly uni-directional and there have been a number of well publicized espionage cases over the years as well.

So yes this, laser cannon device could have been
cooked up by some Israeli firm (with plenty of pilfered ideas), but with the
history I have mentioned and with the
citizenship switching that we see quite often with
Israeli/Americans that probably is more a question
of semantics

From my perspective its unsettling, possibly not yours. I don't have an axe to grind, but I think there will be a time when many in our government
and in industry will need to make a more clearcut
statement of loyalty.

I think it's farsighted on our part J.H. We need all the help we can get for our anti-missile defense program and a secure site in the Mideast wouldn't be too bad in the bargain.

JH --

I'm not sure I have any idea where you're going.

First, capital outflow. As you no doubt know, the US has been running a trade deficit for a while know. That is, the value of what we export is less than the value of what we import. You may not know, though, that, by definition, capital flow offsets the current account deficit. In other words, for as long as we've been running trade deficits, the unidirectional capital flow has been into the country. (Another way to think about this is that foreigners send us stuff, and we send them little bits of paper. The paper only has value because we say it does. In other words, each dollar we send them is a call on future US economic activity.)

You may be thinking about foreign direct investment. At year end 2002, foreign direct investment in the US (i.e., foreigners owning stuff here) exceeded US direct investment overseas by about than $2.39 trillion, having increased better than $400 million during that year.

So, capital flow is unidirectional: it all comes to us, because frankly there's nothing else to do with the money we send them.

(I'm reminded of Michael Dukakis, who told a group of employees during the '88 campaign, that the Republicans might think it was ok for them to work for foreigners, but that wasn't the future he envisioned for them. He was at an Italian subsidiary when he said it.)

Technology flow is harder to quantify, but if you are using a cell phone or hope to buy a high definition tv, then you might want to think twice about stopping all technology transfer. For that matter, if you have a Japanese (now, probably Chinese or Indonesian) manufactured vcr or tv ("American" technology now dominated by foreigners), you might want to celebrate being able to buy this technology so cheap, while, like the rest of the world, watching Hollywood programming.

All good things don't come from American labs, nor should we keep all "American" technology here, any more than we should keep all Massachusetts technology in Massachusetts.

But is military technology different? Clearly, we want to be able to keep some military secrets. But I'm not sure why you think that you know, or can know, better than the military what secrets it makes sense to share with which allies. Should the Poles not have shared Enigma with the British? Should the British not have shared radar with us? Should we not have shared MAGIC with the British? Should the Israelis not have trained the USMC in house-to-house urban warfare against Islamic extremists?

1) America is rich.

2) America acts like they want to be defenseless. (Like restoring the ABM treaty -- or England in the Thirties with disarmament and peace movements.)

3) My traditional economy is based on conquest, looting, and pillage of all those weaker than me. (Like Naziism or Arab tribal Jihadis.)

Put these three together and what do you get?

JH: Whoever you are. perhaps you could explain to us what you really think. Israel has a lot of really smart scientists who have thought really hard about the problems of missle defense (seeing as thought of being hanged in the morning concentrates the mind so wonderfully well) and I am sure that they have made very substantial and worthwhile contributions to this project.

Or do you see some darker agenda?