Afghanistan is an isolated sideshow. We "won" when we forced out the Taliban government and ruined the lives of its key members for years because that sent a message to other leaders about what happens to folks who let their countries be used to plan and stage attacks on us. We would have won more thoroughly had we managed to kill them all; but that was never to be expected, although we should have done better.
What we've been doing since setting the Talibanis on the run, namely trying to create some sort of (to appearances, wink, wink)quasi democratic government in a tribal land, has always been impossible given the constraints we operate under. Imposing a government on those tribesmen even proved impossible for the Russians, who operate under much less in the way of constraints and who were willing to sacrifice a whole lot more lives than we are.
Rex,
You go back to this theme regularly about declarations of war and I tend to be sympathetic toward your position. But here's what Wikipedia has to say about a war fought under the direction the guy who wrote the Declaration of Independence and who presumably understood the constitution along with those who were in Congress and on the Supreme Court.
"On Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, Yusuf Karamanli, the Pasha (or Bashaw) of Tripoli, demanded $225,000 from the new administration. (In 1800, Federal revenues totaled a little over $10 million.) Putting his long-held beliefs into practice, Jefferson refused the demand. Consequently, in May 1801, the Pasha declared war on the United States, not through any formal written documents but by cutting down the flagstaff in front of the U.S. Consulate. Algiers and Tunis did not follow their ally in Tripoli.
In response, Jefferson sent a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress. Although Congress never voted on a formal declaration of war, they did authorize the President to instruct the commanders of armed vessels of the United States to seize all vessels and goods of the Pasha of Tripoli "and also to cause to be done all such other acts of precaution or hostility as the state of war will justify.""
And that man came quite close to winning his bet, so it wasn't a completely preposterous one. Of course, on the other hand, the Japanese militarists perceived themselves as having to roll the dice against quite steep odds, assuming Yamamoto and others who knew the military capability of the U.S. were listened to at all.
Pretty dangerous to rely on the strategic calculations of a bunch of fellows whose education was pretty much confined to memorizing sacred texts, and whose grip on power depends on religious posturing, even if we assume they doen't really, really, really believe it's their duty to set the stage for the return of the Twelfth Imam no matter what the cost in this life.
I wouldn't have laughed before and I certainly won't laugh now. I think it's a very dangerous thing for a country to have a minor nuclear capability.
Once heard an air force general on C-Span testifying before congress. A discussion about missile defense led to him being pressed very hard about our ability to stop a North Korean missile attack if we knew for a fact one was coming. He started to answer that yes we certainly did have options for stopping such an attack, and then he and the congresscritter pulled back from that line of questioning.
This, of course, is why the Russians don't fear an Iranian bomb; because their leaders are honest enough among themselves to state the obvious. The Russian leaders have no intention of letting some minor power take out Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kiev while they have control of thousands of at the ready missiles and they expect their potential opponents to understand that.
Similarly, Israel, with enough nuclear weapons to devastate every potential threatening target in Iran, will not allow Iran to take out Tel Aviv. It will attack on warning or perhaps even on achievement of capability if it believes the Iranian regime capable of launching a surprise attack. Iranians serving the regime or tolerating the regime can figure this out also.
Death of a thousand cuts;we know longer have the the ability either to win outright or cut our losses. It’s the Romans versus the “Barbarians” with a likely similiar result.
No one ever wins outright unless they completely eliminate the enemy, and even then another enemy will inevitably appear. The Romans held off the barbarians for five hundred years which wasn't too shabby if you were a Roman or a Romanized inhabitant of the empire during ninety percent of that time.
I'm not a big supporter of our Iraq and Afghanistan strategies; but we've carried out those wars at relatively trivial cost. Even in terms of military losses it wouldn't shock me to learn that an 18 year old male was safer serving in Iraq or Afghan than driving here in the U.S.
I have no problem with your analysis of the difficulty and risks associated with sneaking one little bomb into Tel Aviv. And no problem with your damage projections (although I think the psychological effect would be to destroy or near destroy Israel by causing everyone in it with any sort of option to leave to do so.)
But I think you're far too sanguine in assuming Iran can't develop delivery means and build numbers of bombs more powerful than what you're writing about. The technologies involved are 65 years old and counting.
@ Ill Papa Fuster:
A great quote. I wonder if it was Roy Cohn or Saint Bobby who wrote it for him.
@ CK MacLeod:
Why not? We give Nobel Prizes to politicians who haven't done anything.
@ Rex Caruthers:
Afghanistan is an isolated sideshow. We "won" when we forced out the Taliban government and ruined the lives of its key members for years because that sent a message to other leaders about what happens to folks who let their countries be used to plan and stage attacks on us. We would have won more thoroughly had we managed to kill them all; but that was never to be expected, although we should have done better.
What we've been doing since setting the Talibanis on the run, namely trying to create some sort of (to appearances, wink, wink)quasi democratic government in a tribal land, has always been impossible given the constraints we operate under. Imposing a government on those tribesmen even proved impossible for the Russians, who operate under much less in the way of constraints and who were willing to sacrifice a whole lot more lives than we are.
@ Rex Caruthers:
Rex,
You go back to this theme regularly about declarations of war and I tend to be sympathetic toward your position. But here's what Wikipedia has to say about a war fought under the direction the guy who wrote the Declaration of Independence and who presumably understood the constitution along with those who were in Congress and on the Supreme Court.
"On Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, Yusuf Karamanli, the Pasha (or Bashaw) of Tripoli, demanded $225,000 from the new administration. (In 1800, Federal revenues totaled a little over $10 million.) Putting his long-held beliefs into practice, Jefferson refused the demand. Consequently, in May 1801, the Pasha declared war on the United States, not through any formal written documents but by cutting down the flagstaff in front of the U.S. Consulate. Algiers and Tunis did not follow their ally in Tripoli.
In response, Jefferson sent a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress. Although Congress never voted on a formal declaration of war, they did authorize the President to instruct the commanders of armed vessels of the United States to seize all vessels and goods of the Pasha of Tripoli "and also to cause to be done all such other acts of precaution or hostility as the state of war will justify.""
@ CK MacLeod:
And that man came quite close to winning his bet, so it wasn't a completely preposterous one. Of course, on the other hand, the Japanese militarists perceived themselves as having to roll the dice against quite steep odds, assuming Yamamoto and others who knew the military capability of the U.S. were listened to at all.
Pretty dangerous to rely on the strategic calculations of a bunch of fellows whose education was pretty much confined to memorizing sacred texts, and whose grip on power depends on religious posturing, even if we assume they doen't really, really, really believe it's their duty to set the stage for the return of the Twelfth Imam no matter what the cost in this life.
@ Joe NS:
I wouldn't have laughed before and I certainly won't laugh now. I think it's a very dangerous thing for a country to have a minor nuclear capability.
Once heard an air force general on C-Span testifying before congress. A discussion about missile defense led to him being pressed very hard about our ability to stop a North Korean missile attack if we knew for a fact one was coming. He started to answer that yes we certainly did have options for stopping such an attack, and then he and the congresscritter pulled back from that line of questioning.
This, of course, is why the Russians don't fear an Iranian bomb; because their leaders are honest enough among themselves to state the obvious. The Russian leaders have no intention of letting some minor power take out Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kiev while they have control of thousands of at the ready missiles and they expect their potential opponents to understand that.
Similarly, Israel, with enough nuclear weapons to devastate every potential threatening target in Iran, will not allow Iran to take out Tel Aviv. It will attack on warning or perhaps even on achievement of capability if it believes the Iranian regime capable of launching a surprise attack. Iranians serving the regime or tolerating the regime can figure this out also.
@ Rex Caruthers:
No one ever wins outright unless they completely eliminate the enemy, and even then another enemy will inevitably appear. The Romans held off the barbarians for five hundred years which wasn't too shabby if you were a Roman or a Romanized inhabitant of the empire during ninety percent of that time.
I'm not a big supporter of our Iraq and Afghanistan strategies; but we've carried out those wars at relatively trivial cost. Even in terms of military losses it wouldn't shock me to learn that an 18 year old male was safer serving in Iraq or Afghan than driving here in the U.S.
I have no problem with your analysis of the difficulty and risks associated with sneaking one little bomb into Tel Aviv. And no problem with your damage projections (although I think the psychological effect would be to destroy or near destroy Israel by causing everyone in it with any sort of option to leave to do so.)
But I think you're far too sanguine in assuming Iran can't develop delivery means and build numbers of bombs more powerful than what you're writing about. The technologies involved are 65 years old and counting.