Walter Williams over at Capitalism Magazine wonders about how we might create a credible disincentive to a nuclear attack on this country. He references a Victor Davis Hanson article that I discussed here. Not surprisingly he falls into the same trap as Dr. Hanson. This threat only works if those countries you are threatening believe without a doubt two very doubtful facts about the United States.
If there is an attack on our country, with weapons of mass destruction, the first thing we can expect is for country officials to deny any responsibility. Hanson says that we should beforehand tell the leaders of Middle East countries that if there’s an attack on the United States, we will hold them responsible if they’re proven to have aided or sheltered the terrorists.
Holding the country responsible would mean that in response to an attack we’d totally destroy their military bases, power plants, communication facilities and, if necessary, totally destroy their major cities. Source: Creating Effective Incentives by Walter Williams — Capitalism Magazine
This might work if the countries you threatened actually believed these two items. Lets forget for a moment those countries that might be led by irrational actors. Ask yourself if any leader bent on destroying this country actually believes these next two items.
- That given the current climate of distrust inside and outside of the government and the startling amount of polarization between the parties that any agreement on the “evidence” of which country might have aided those terrorists would be even released much less debated. Anyone who still believes that the CIA is acting in this countries interest with nary a thought to politics simply isn’t paying attention.
- Furthermore, that the American people would agree to risk more attacks if the choice was between more attacks or removing ourselves from certain nasty regions of the world. Will trumps weapons and money every single time they are tested against one another.
He believes that other country’s, who might be involved in the production of the sorts of weapons he fears, do not understand the obvious fact that we would be so convulsed by competing theories on who did it that we would be paralyzed by debating the evidence. For instance we have more than a few folks running around near the levers of power in this country who believe that 9/11 was NOT conducted by Arab terrorists but by nefarious folks inside of our government. That used to be funny now its getting a bit worrisome. Certainly all of this conspires to render any sort of threat we might make laughable.
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[...] if you aren’t counting the explosion that killed 241 Marines. Then again I guess we have to define evidence again…as if Laurie Mylroie didn’t do a magnificent job so many years ago [...]