At the end of some years of this ding-dong invention and counter-invention, the current version of both the missile and its antidote will have attained a very high degree of sophistication. Yet at the same time - here is the Red Queen effect again - there is no general reason for expecting either side in the arms race to be any more successful at doing its job than it was at the beginning of the arms race. Indeed if both the missile and its antidote have been improving at the same rate, we can expect that the latest, most advanced and sophisticated versions, and the earliest, most primitive and simplest versions will be exactly as successful as each other, against their contemporary counter-devices. There has been progress in design, but no progress in accomplishment, specifically because there has been equal progress in design on both sides of the arms race. Indeed, it is precisely because there has been approximately equal progress on both sides that there has been so much progress in the level of sophistication of design. If one side, say the antimissile jamming device, pulled too far ahead in the design race, the other side, the missile in this case, would simply cease to be used and manufactured: it would go 'extinct'. Far from being paradoxical like Alice's original example, the Red Queen effect in its arms-race context turns out to be fundamental to the very idea of progressive advancement.
