Fast Evolution Beyond Mutually Assured Destruction
One fundamental problem, during this time following the end of the cold war, is that we do not relate the atomic age with the trans-stellar age. The age of flight to neighboring solar systems is regarded as ridiculous, yet the capability to destroy the earth more than once is taken as, and I assume is, a fact. This is a ridiculous position for human history to be in, as technological evolution must be understood as having a positive good. The good must outweigh the bad in the long term; for at least evolution not to be regressive. Having abandoned the logic of MAD, we are being left in the near catch22 of trying to plan military conflicts to avoid partial, however small, nuclear escalation. Yet there is very little in the history of mankind, except during the era of MAD, which says in the long term "all serious military conflicts can be avoided indefinitely".
Hence the legacy of the arms race of the cold war is now gradually undermining the first world because the unthinkable may more likely to occur on a limited basis without MAD. Whether Iraq will open this door is guesswork, the consequence of alliances never an absolute variable. However what is evolving is a skewering of first world foreign policy around the very reasonable desire to escape a post-MAD nuclear conflict, by definition limited. Of course history does indicate very strongly that technological innovation is the key to revealing the preferred future out of a number of choices. Why then do we continue to adopt as a water-tight principle that a trans-stellar escape, spilling into the virgin resources of neighboring solar systems, is impossible because of a light barrier?
Fast Evolution Beyond Mutually Assured Destruction continued
The answer is the conflict between Einstein's law and his theory, still firmly rooted in the developments of World War 2. Even if for a moment you did accept that the unique and only method to break the light barrier is via nuclear fission, unfortunately Einstein, in pioneering the reaction, is very well known as saying the light barrier cannot be broken. Hence maybe the only peaceful and productive use of the atomic explosion, trans-stellar travel, is on hold indefinitely. Einstein in guiding the development of the reaction is also apparently theorizing rigidly it wouldn't serve the purpose of such travel. Under normal conditions of optimism we would regard travelling faster than light as a desirable process on the path to the economic exploitation of our universe. However since this path is only achievable through application of the reaction, the reaction's inventor is now famous for a theory on light speed that effectively makes null and void this development path.
Hence we are still standing potentially to reap the catastrophic consequences of a conflict with such weapons without ever have seriously considered the possible technological evolution in our historical position. We probably may never leave MAD behind until we begin to understand and accept such stocks as giving us a trans-stellar capability. Were this understood, squandering any of this capability on conflict would be unacceptable. Successful application and development will probably remain purely within reach of the American economy for the vast foreseeable future as it would certainly run into thousands of billions of dollars and require enormous expansion of existing space facilities. Without that, no amount of politics can avoid every consequence of the risky global development issue "How to live safely with the legacy of MAD?"