Saturday, November 01, 2003
MAD (mutually assured destruction) worked pretty well during the cold war. The problem is that the game is now changed. Terrorists seem posed to find away around the US's nuclear umbrella. Nuclear deterrence will not work, it is argued, because the guilty are not associated with any one state and terrorists do not fear death. To make matters worse, terrorists rightly sense that the US has spent its military, economic and political wad rebuilding Iraq.
The way around this, a friend of mine argues, is to change the balance of power calculations of everyone in states, where terrorists thrive, reformers included. According to him, this will require some radical rethinking. 911 he says has all but eliminated the possibility of another Afghanistan. The threat now is more likely to come from terrorists that have set up shop inside countries allied with the US (e.g., Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia) and Iran, where a large segment of the population is sympathetic to the US. In other words, in addition to everything else, existing alliances and potential alliances stand in the way. This he says must be ignored. The following must be made clear: If terrorists, that thrive in these societies, succeed in carrying out an attack that kills hundreds of thousands of Americans, one or more of these societies will be facing a nuclear winter.
It is only when you spell out the consequences of a major terrorist attack that the key players will readjust their calculations. When I pressed him for examples, he quickley but tententivley mentioned the following examples. Faced with nuclear Armageddon, the reformers in Iran might decide that they must act sooner rather than later; they no longer have the luxury of waiting for the conditions to be just right. He also noted how many experts feel that Egypt has cut a deal with Al Qaeda and it is for this reason that Egypt has suddenly disappeared from Al Qaeda's list of evil doers. Looking down the barrel of a gun, perhaps Egypt does not cut such a deal and decides it must for the sake of national security go to the trouble of cracking down big time on the Muslim Brotherhood , radical clerics et al. )
Now, I am sure even Osama would be stunned if someone told him, "poison LA's water system and we will irradiate Mecca for all time." However, such a plan does, of course, have a few short comings. For one, there is this thing called oil. Radiation and oil extraction do not mix and OPEC, among other things, would be likely to implement a ban that would make the 1973 oil embargo look like a closing out sale. For another, unlike during the Cold War, there would be inevitably be a significant time delay between when the US was attacked and when it responded. It is one thing to lunch a full fledged attack when missiles are minutes away from hitting Washington. It is another thing altogether to spend a month picking up the pieces with the help of the rest of world and then going on to lunch an attack on a government, who while apathetic, hardly sympathize with the attackers
The way around this, a friend of mine argues, is to change the balance of power calculations of everyone in states, where terrorists thrive, reformers included. According to him, this will require some radical rethinking. 911 he says has all but eliminated the possibility of another Afghanistan. The threat now is more likely to come from terrorists that have set up shop inside countries allied with the US (e.g., Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia) and Iran, where a large segment of the population is sympathetic to the US. In other words, in addition to everything else, existing alliances and potential alliances stand in the way. This he says must be ignored. The following must be made clear: If terrorists, that thrive in these societies, succeed in carrying out an attack that kills hundreds of thousands of Americans, one or more of these societies will be facing a nuclear winter.
It is only when you spell out the consequences of a major terrorist attack that the key players will readjust their calculations. When I pressed him for examples, he quickley but tententivley mentioned the following examples. Faced with nuclear Armageddon, the reformers in Iran might decide that they must act sooner rather than later; they no longer have the luxury of waiting for the conditions to be just right. He also noted how many experts feel that Egypt has cut a deal with Al Qaeda and it is for this reason that Egypt has suddenly disappeared from Al Qaeda's list of evil doers. Looking down the barrel of a gun, perhaps Egypt does not cut such a deal and decides it must for the sake of national security go to the trouble of cracking down big time on the Muslim Brotherhood , radical clerics et al. )
Now, I am sure even Osama would be stunned if someone told him, "poison LA's water system and we will irradiate Mecca for all time." However, such a plan does, of course, have a few short comings. For one, there is this thing called oil. Radiation and oil extraction do not mix and OPEC, among other things, would be likely to implement a ban that would make the 1973 oil embargo look like a closing out sale. For another, unlike during the Cold War, there would be inevitably be a significant time delay between when the US was attacked and when it responded. It is one thing to lunch a full fledged attack when missiles are minutes away from hitting Washington. It is another thing altogether to spend a month picking up the pieces with the help of the rest of world and then going on to lunch an attack on a government, who while apathetic, hardly sympathize with the attackers
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