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New Strategy Integrate Deterence With Pre-emption
Expanded DeterrenceI always opposed both proportionate retaliation and reducing genocide advocacy to mere politics. I would treat Hamas, Taliban, Hizbollah, and the Ayatollahs like the cockroaches that they are. Hopefully this article signals a new wave of thinking. Again, only Senator McCain could implement policies promoted here. Of course, the content is vague; strategists don't write the way they think. We are facing a threat that is catastrophic in its scale.1 The damage that even a single attack with weapons of mass destruction would wreak could run into the millions of lives, and do egregious damage to American economic, political, and social structures. There is no graver threat to the United States. Translation: the danger threat is so high, that pre-emption is warranted. This threat is only going to get more serious. The progress of technology and the increasing interconnectedness of global systems are driving both productive and destructive power down, to lower and lower levels of agency, and outwards, to the fringes of society. Accelerating advances in computing, biotechnology, nanotechnology have democratized destructive power up to the point at which a single individual may have the power to do enormous damage.2 Today we see this peril most plainly in the justified fears about the use of the first and greatest absolute weapon the nuclear bomb. But the threat of biological and biotechnological weaponry, powered by the highly diffused and swiftly advancing progress of the life sciences, may be even graver. Similar dangers are growing in the fields of nanotechnology, computing, and the like. The proliferation of massively destructive technologies can and should be retarded, but it cannot be prevented. We must accept both that the threat is very real and that it cannot be solved, only managed. Translation: talk of a disproportionate response to a proven threat means there is ample scope for subjective danger perception, and pre-emption (that is already US policy; it has yet to be implemented in practise). Hell, it is lifeboat ethics time; if the enemy can't coexist, then they can't exist. The United States has begun to respond to this grave threat through a layered defense that includes military, intelligence, diplomatic, political, public diplomacy, homeland defense, and humanitarian components. This policy commendably seeks to integrate all elements, hard and soft, of American and allied power to stave off disaster. And all elements of this layered defense are important in preventing attacks, including efforts to stem proliferation and soft power strategies designed to address real root causes of terror... ... The world needs to be put on notice about what a catastrophic terror attack against U.S. vital interests would mean, how responsibility would be apportioned, and what kind of retaliation could be expected. Such an anticipatory announcement would be necessary from both a pragmatic and moral viewpoint, the former in order for the threat actually to have a chance of working and the latter in order to comport with the moral principle that people must have reasonable warning if they are to be held liable in new ways. Demarches and official releases, however, are insufficient for these purposes. The message must make its way downwards and outwards, and therefore requires dissemination through the media, internet, and other outlets. The silence following Hadleys excellent February 2008 speech leaves much to be desired. Translation; that is veiled Council on Foreign Relations attack on nation-building strategies in enemy states, in favor of assured destruction. Nation building worked in Germany and Japan; can't work with Muslims. Assured Destruction worked with the Soviets; could leverage Muslim majority states. Reagan never warned anyone. McCain could always claim, 'I couldn't warn, because that would allow the enemy to escape.' Social solutions present more problems; this enemy needs a military wallop, other than 24-7-365 patrols through sniper and IED pits. Spare the rod; spoil the arab and persian. This done, the United States would present the world with a relatively simple and eminently reasonable expanded deterrent stance against catastrophic attacks. We would hope that the very fear the credible threat inspired would entail that it would never have to be realized, as was our fortunate experience during the Cold War. But we would have to be prepared to follow through on our pledges if we did suffer a catastrophic attack. Beyond real considerations of justice, the continuing peril of a catastrophic terrorist attack would demand that we show decisively that such strikes would meet with a severe response, a response that would demonstrate that a catastrophic attack against the United States can never be consistent with any rational strategy, whatever its aims. Our response following a catastrophic terror attack should prove that all concerned would be far better off doing all in their power to frustrate any future such attacks then to let a single additional one go through. Perceiving veiled and covert threats should be like breathing to a Presidential administration. Where do I sign the Petition? Posted by: McZoid 2008-06-23 |
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