Score another for Kirby the prophet. In the story, a man creates unbeatable space ships and this ends the cold war: the two sides cannot win with bombs, so they have to choose peace. The spaceships were really an illusion, but it worked.
This prophecy came true, thirty years later.
Ronald Reagan poured huge sums of money into "Star Wars" space technology. But the idea was fantasy: even if by some technological miracle you could stop half of all incoming missiles, the other half would destroy you anyway. Yet the fantasy worked: Russia believed that America was creating unbeatable space weapons, weapons the Russians could never afford, so the cold war had to end.
(Yes, I know this is a simplification, but I believe it is a good one. Russia realised that its economy could not continue. Their inability to compete with the Strategic Defence Initiative was simply the most visible sign of the underlying problem.).
This prophecy came true, thirty years later.
Ronald Reagan poured huge sums of money into "Star Wars" space technology. But the idea was fantasy: even if by some technological miracle you could stop half of all incoming missiles, the other half would destroy you anyway. Yet the fantasy worked: Russia believed that America was creating unbeatable space weapons, weapons the Russians could never afford, so the cold war had to end.
(Yes, I know this is a simplification, but I believe it is a good one. Russia realised that its economy could not continue. Their inability to compete with the Strategic Defence Initiative was simply the most visible sign of the underlying problem.).
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