So there is a military doctrine that has been in place for decades.
– MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction
If you attack the USA with weapons of mass destruction, you’ll get an overwhelming responses that will totally destroy your country.
This was what supposedly held the USSR at bay during the cold war.
And even recently, President Trump threatened North Korea that they would be “totally destroyed” if they try anything on us.
The problem is that the MAD doctrine of deterrence assumes incorrectly that you are always dealing with rational actors and not with madmen.
Let’s face it, their are plenty of crazies out there, and some of whom may be willing to go down in a “blaze of glory” as long as they stand up to the United States and die a heroes death for their radicalized or “subjected” people.
Whether it’s Iran or North Korea or others–we may not know what we are really dealing with here until it’s too late.
Life is not everything to these people–remember many a terrorist has died a martyrs death with the promise of 72 virgins in heaven awaiting them.
To some, as Prime Minister Gold Meir stated:
“Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us!”
Hate by virtue of perceived injustice, required Jihad or “holy war,” brainwashing or threats and the desire for a “glorious death” standing up to the infidels or the “great Satan…any of all of these can contribute to ignoring the consequences.
Israel has tried to deter horrible homicide bombers/and other mad terrorists from performing their evil misdeeds on the civilian population by for example, demolishing the terrorist homes as a potent consequence that they know going into it, yet many terrorists still wear the explosive vests and detonate anyway.
Similarly, North Korea despite the President’s threat that they “will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen,” brushed it off and shot off more volleys of ICBMs and threatened to engulf Guam in fire.
– The point is that deterrence alone is not a strategy!
If our enemies can hit us with a devastating attack–whether WMD, cyber, EMP, or quantum attack— that can inflict immeasurable harm on us–they may actually choose to take their best shot, rather than wait for us to hit them or continue to feel disrespected, subjected, inferior, and hopeless.
To someone on the radical fringes or the mental edge, maybe–just maybe–they will do the unthinkable and surprise us.
What good will our fire and fury counterstrike do us, when our cities are in ruin and our people dead and dying en masse.
Revenge isn’t so sweet when your family, homeland, and virtually everything you know and held dear is gone.
The only real military strategy is to be able to defend ourselves and AVOID getting a homeland catastrophe!
We need massive investment and expertise in missile defense, bio defense, cyber defense, quantum computing, and expansive hardening of our critical infrastructure.
Unfortunately, as naysayers to the threats abound, we are no where near where we need to be in protecting the homeland.
If one person falls from the high wire and smashes their head, what good is it that the other person falls and suffers similarly or worse.
The point is not to fall, not to get hurt, not to die, not to have our country and way of life destroyed.
Deterrence does not guarantee this security to the country–especially when dealing with no shortage of radicalized nuts out there.
Only a genuine defense that can STOP and counter the threats BEFORE a devastating attack happens and hits us is a strategy worth pursuing …and THEN you can punch the other person squarely in their devil’s face!
Without an adequate defensive strategy, get ready, because every high flying act eventually falls to the ground and hits their head hard. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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