MAD - Was it a good military strategy?

[Avatar]

Their latest long-range missile test failed. *shrug*

Anyway, it looks like we're back to the start. I suspect ol KJI is craftier than he's given creit fo.

NK: Lift Sanctions First

Beijing - North Korea said it was willing to implement an agreement to disarm once financial sanctions are lifted, said the chief of the UN nuclear watchdog on Wednesday.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was speaking in Beijing after a trip to North Korea which he described as "quite useful".

Washington also said that within 30 days of the February deal at six-party talks it would settle a dispute over North Korean bank accounts frozen in Macau, in southern China, that Washington says had been used to launder illegal earnings for Pyongyang.

"The Macau issue will be resolved as we've promised," said US envoy Chris Hill.

--A

[Lord Mhoram]

Why are we talking about MAD in the past tense? Nuclear annihilation is still a very real threat.

[Holsety]

But it's not MAD anymore. There aren't 2 power-blocs which dominate world politics, and the danger is more about 'rogue states' which could eventually be tempted to use nukes in smaller scale conflicts.

[Lord Mhoram]

I disagree. "Rogue states" like North Korea, or subversive organizations like al-Qaeda, and regional powers like Iran know that if they launch a nuclear weapon, they will face the wrath of the United States, Israel, etc. Mutually assured destruction is still a very real defense policy.

[Cail]

Sort of. In NK's case, I think there's a valid argument for MAD. In al-Qaeda's case, there's no "home" country, and people caught up in religious fervor and martyrdom couldn't care less about dying.

[Lord Mhoram]

There's no home country, true, but there are plenty of places (like Mecca, for instance) that no Muslim wants to see destroyed - and they know that the US will threaten Islamdom in a very real way if an Islamist group like al-Qaeda uses nuclear weapons. Alright, Mecca was an extreme example (what a shitshow that would be), but the point still stands. Many members of al-Qaeda don't care about dying, true, but there are still repercussions (like, the destruction of the Middle East) that they don't want to see occur.

[Avatar]

My point is that the destruction will not be mutual. No way on earth could Iran, NK, and a-Q together ever dream of completely destroying the US. But the US could easily destroy that entire region. Which makes them nervous.

In fact, it encourages the use of small-scale nukes by "non-aligned" groups. (In other words, groups like a-Q without a country that can be bombed.)

--A

[Cail]

I agree with Av here. It would be nothing short of insane to nuke Mecca, and I don't see that ever happening.

[Lord Mhoram]

I do see your points. It's definitely not the same as US vs USSR, but by the very nature of nuclear weaponry, retaliatory action is disastrous for whomever launches nukes in the first place.

[Cail]

If a 5-man terrorist cell detonates a nuke in NYC, how could there be disastrous consequences for them? Think about it, we didn't nuke Afghanistan after 9/11 (granted, 9/11 wasn't nuclear, but it was still a pretty big deal).

Now I agree, MAD still works for nation-states, but I can't see a small, fanatical terrorist cell giving a rat's ass what happens after they've struck at the heart of the Great Satan.

[Lord Mhoram]

An isolated cell? No way mutually assured destruction works for that. For a multinational terrorist organization with clear political goals? It could work if a nuclear attack on their region undermines those goals.

[Cail]

I don't think so. If the IRA detonated a nuke in London or NYC, do ya think either the US or Britain would nuke Northern Ireland?

If Shining Path nuked Sao Paulo, do ya think Peru would be turned into a sheet of glass?

[Lord Mhoram]

No, that's true, but if the the United States was nuked, do you think the Bush Administration would do everything in its power to retaliate in a like fashion against whomever did it? I can't realistically see the US taking a nuclear hit and then not nuking back. Hmmm.

[Cail]

But against who? Look at 9/11. We knew that the man responsible was in Afghanistan and that the government of Afghanistan sheltered and supported him. It would've been real easy to pop off a couple of nuke-tipped ALCMs and end it quickly. There wasn't a country in the world that would've blamed us. But we didn't.

The simple fact is that (in the long run), it would have caused more problems than it solved, simply because it would've wiped out a whole nation when only a small percentage of the population was responsible. I think the world has lost the taste for that sort of weapons release (or, say the massive bombing campaigns in Tokyo or Dresden).

[Avatar]

Great post Cail. Totally agree. And that is why I think Iraq is different from any conventional war. Who do you bomb?

You can't, without wiping out countless innocent people. And as long as you're not willing to do that (a good thing I think), then you're doomed to an endless game of cat and mouse, with the only question who gets sick enough of it first. And you know what? Those insurgents have had a lot of practice.

They're the same type of guys who fought the Russina backed government of Afghanistan in a 10-year insurgency until the Russians backed down.

--A