OT: Alien Contact

[QuarianRex]

I don't think that there would be any real problem with alien contact, provided we are contacted by sufficiently intelligent aliens.

I mean, according to most movies aliens are apparently idiot savants. They can figure out how to travel interstellar distances but they can't figure out how to open a dialogue BEFORE trying to land on the Whitehouse lawn (thus provoking tanks to shoot at it, denying us a cure for cancer, etc., etc.).

Any alien race that managed to say hello before trying to land (a.k.a. invading Earth) would receive a rather warm (if stunned) welcome. As for the military, they might get a little twitchy but there is really nothing they can do against orbital bombardment and they know it. Despite the cliche of the texan general who is aching to nuke something, these are professionals who will not start a war that they have no hope of winning, and no idea of how to fight.

Putting outer space into strategic and tactical consideration would require a greater shift in military doctrine than was required when tanks replaced the cavalry (or any other major advance in the art of war).