At what point is a preemptive strike actually justifiable?

[gnome]

(derail) Once again I can't help but feel depressed at the post-Cold War world. I used to think that once we could get over the insane nuclear standoff with Russia, we could go about moving into the fabled "future" and start building our hovercars, robots, and interstellar spaceships and such

 

[Ralph]

How is Pakistan different from Iran? Pakistan was the first modern Islamic state, is clearly a failed state currently ruled by the military, announced its intensions of building The Bomb and subsequently built it, was the sponsor of the Taliban and indulged Al-Qaeda, and has facilitated terrorism in Kashmir for decades. It has missile technology from North Korea and its own technological resources. Did it not slip inside the 7-yard zone a while back?

One difference is that Iran denies that it has a nuclear weapons program.


At least Iran doesn't have a knife.


Isn't it too late to stop Pakistan? Where in the real world, right now, are nuclear weapons closer to the hands of Islamist millenarians? What's the average life-span of a Pakistani regime? Why the obsession with what Iran might do ten years down the line?

I think there's a huge difference between Iran & Pakistan.

Cops don't shoot everybody they see who's acting in a "possibly threatening" manner. There are many obvious negative consequnces to doing that.

They have to make some very tough decisions as to who's just bluffing....and who's a genuine threat.

Yes-there's concern about Pakistan.....but so far they haven't acted in a manner that warrants force being used against them. If Islamic fundies topple Mushareef that might change things and I suspect India may decide to take action should that ever occur.

At the moment though...Pakistan bears watching--but not "being shot".

Not being psychic of course how does the cop decide between bluff & threat.

I'd guess he has to go by the demeanor of the potential assailant. Is he muttering crazy things under his breath (like "The holocaust is a myth). Is he acting aggressively (like threating to annihilate others merely for existing.)
Is he threating to actually commit a violent act ( like stating that nuking Israel would be worth losing some Iranian cities and winning a Pyhrric victory.)

Of course as the threat approaches that magic 7 yard mark---tensions escalate. If the cop was wrong - once that 7 yard mark is passed--he could be dead---even if he does pull his weapon & shoot.

At any rate--because Pakistan has them is certainly no arguement that Iran should too.

 

[Ziggurat]

Uh-huh. So a democratic government has the absolute right to invade autocratic countries and blast 'em all to bits because they don't have a mandate from the masses ?

Don't misunderstand me. I think there are plenty of reasons to topple many a dictatorship. Because of what they DO. But JUST because they're not democraties ? Isn't that taking it a little far ?

It is taking things a little far, which is why nobody proposed that. I'm not claiming democracies have free reign to do whatever they want to non-democratic countries. Of course they don't. There still has to be some justification FOR an action against a dictatorship - that sovereignty cannot be used as an argument against interference doesn't mean that other arguments against such interference don't exist. In the hypothetical example above, the fact that innocent civilians would get blasted to bits is an argument against interference, and so it's not justified unless it's outweighed by some other concern. If your concern is that disregarding sovereignty of dictatorships means complete open season against them, it doesn't. It does, however, mean that they shouldn't get the same respect, deference, and guarantees of safety that democracies get.

 

[CapelDodger]

Wouldn't russia and the US have gone to war after WWII without that threat ?

To the extent that certainty is possible, no, they wouldn't. The leadership on both sides, for some decades on, had direct experience of conventional war on that sort of scale. That was enough to dissuade them. What could possibly be gained that would justify such cost?

 

[gnome]

To the extent that certainty is possible, no, they wouldn't. The leadership on both sides, for some decades on, had direct experience of conventional war on that sort of scale. That was enough to dissuade them. What could possibly be gained that would justify such cost?

Without nuclear weapons, I don't know if Russia could have had the resources for another war--after all, weren't they projected to endure devastating losses invading Japan?

 

[CapelDodger]

Yes-there's concern about Pakistan.....but so far they haven't acted in a manner that warrants force being used against them. If Islamic fundies topple Mushareef that might change things and I suspect India may decide to take action should that ever occur.

They smiled benignly on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Didn't that, in retrospect, warrant force being used against them? In the spirit of pre-emption, is it a good idea to wait for the Islamists who are a powerful force in Pakistan to take over? The Pakistani Army itself was Islamicised (?) under General Zia ul-Haq. If Musharraf dies - and there's been no lack of effort in that direction - anything could happen.

Is he acting aggressively (like threating to annihilate others merely for existing.)
Is he threating to actually commit a violent act ( like stating that nuking Israel would be worth losing some Iranian cities and winning a Pyhrric victory.)

How does this apply to Iran? (I may have missed some statements, I've been busy on other stuff.) The second bit sounds like something a Chinese general said recently regarding Taiwan.

At any rate--because Pakistan has them is certainly no arguement that Iran should too.

It is for their Iranian neighbours.

My point is that the almost hysterical response to the prospects of an Iranian Bomb is wildly different from the response to Pakistan's nuclear program which they made no real effort to conceal, and I wonder why.

 

[Ziggurat]

My point is that the almost hysterical response to the prospects of an Iranian Bomb is wildly different from the response to Pakistan's nuclear program which they made no real effort to conceal, and I wonder why.

But Pakistan and Iran are NOT equivalent, despite whatever superficial similarities you'd like to draw, so no reason the response SHOULD be the same. If you want to argue that our response to Pakistan acquiring nukes was insufficient, fine, do so. But you haven't, and I suspect you don't really want to either.

And you're wrong: Pakistan DID conceal their efforts, and quite successfully. They caught us totally off guard (much to the embarassment of the CIA) when they detonated their first nuke. The reason their secrecy didn't become such an ISSUE for the US was that 1) most Pakistanis don't chant "death to America!" on a regular basis, 2) they never had any treaty obligations that were violated by developing nuclear weapons, since they never signed the NPT, and 3) our government, having failed to notice the program beforehand, wasn't keen on emphasising that failure.

 

[Ralph]

They smiled benignly on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Didn't that, in retrospect, warrant force being used against them? In the spirit of pre-emption, is it a good idea to wait for the Islamists who are a powerful force in Pakistan to take over? The Pakistani Army itself was Islamicised (?) under General Zia ul-Haq. If Musharraf dies - and there's been no lack of effort in that direction - anything could happen.

How does this apply to Iran? (I may have missed some statements, I've been busy on other stuff.) The second bit sounds like something a Chinese general said recently regarding Taiwan.

It is for their Iranian neighbours.

My point is that the almost hysterical response to the prospects of an Iranian Bomb is wildly different from the response to Pakistan's nuclear program which they made no real effort to conceal, and I wonder why.

I'm not trying to suggest that my Tueller drill analogy is analogous to whether or not Iran has a knife.

I'm using it to represent a line---which if crossed - allows a possible threat to inflict severe or fatal injury upon someone--no matter what the victim decides to do at that point.

If the cops confront a man with a sword who's just standing there and he's 100 feet away they won't shoot him. If he starts using threatening language but keeps his distance...they still won't shoot him. They probably will start urging him to drop his weapon though.

If he doesn't...and continues to move closer----the cops still won't shoot---but they may decide to unholster their weapons. When he moves to within 50 feet the cops STILL have the upper hand. They don't HAVE to shoot him yet since they could still put him down at that range without endangering themselves.

If they decide to let him inside that 7 yard circle though--they've lost control.
The man with the sword now has it within his power to kill the man with the gun.

I believe Iran wants the same thing. A nuclear arsenal will allow them to inflict severe or even lethal damage on the "cop" (or US). I'm sure they are betting if faced with loss of one or more cities the US would abandon Israel.

They have allready OPENLY STATED their willingness to sacrifice Iranian lives for Jewish ones if that's what it takes to ANNIHILATE Israel.

You talk as if it's perfectly reasonable for the Jews to just quietly pack up & leave Israel. That's not going to happen.

As far as Pakistan--I agree with most of what you say about it. It was a mistake.....so hopefully we won't make the same mistake twice.

Aren't you the slightest bit bothered by the rhetoric coming out of Iran? They are now claiming they are perfectly willing to share their nuclear know-how with other Islamic countrys. Do you really think this won't eventually end in catastrophe?

 

[Mephisto]

Say it looks as if the other guy is going for a gun. In fact he's stood around the neighbourhood making rants about how when he gets a gun he'll blow you/your friend away.

At what point does the pre-emptive strike become acceptable? At around the same time it becomes unworkable?

Well, . . . all I can say is you'd better make damn sure he's got some WMD in his coat pocket. You're going to look pretty stupid (like someone we all know) when you attack first because YOU THINK he's got a weapon and then the police find out YOU were the one who initiated violence.

Your last statement is really laughable! Perhaps you should walk around pre-emptively striking everyone, just to make sure you got the people who MIGHT do you harm.

 

[CapelDodger]

But Pakistan and Iran are NOT equivalent, despite whatever superficial similarities you'd like to draw, so no reason the response SHOULD be the same. If you want to argue that our response to Pakistan acquiring nukes was insufficient, fine, do so. But you haven't, and I suspect you don't really want to either.

When I use "almost hysterical" in reference to Iran I'm not making a comment on the response to Pakistan. That seems pragmatic and reasonable. A shrug and "Hey, waddya gonna do". One thing to be done is prop up the military regime since, after them, a potential deluge. No mission to promote democracy there.

And you're wrong: Pakistan DID conceal their efforts, and quite successfully. They caught us totally off guard (much to the embarassment of the CIA) when they detonated their first nuke.

Details of the program may have been concealed but everybody knew they had one. Bhutto announced it way back. You can't conceal a full-cycle nuclear weapons program within such a small and underdeveloped economy. Their first-class centrifuge industry rather stands out.

The reason their secrecy didn't become such an ISSUE for the US was that 1) most Pakistanis don't chant "death to America!" on a regular basis

A lot of them do. Would you buy a KFC franchise in Karachi? In the border provinces, which are pretty much outside government control and always have been, the attitude towards the US is not friendly.

2) they never had any treaty obligations that were violated by developing nuclear weapons, since they never signed the NPT

Why not, do you think? Shouldn't that raise a flag? Just how embarrassed should the CIA be? Here's a thought : perhaps the CIA knew full well there was a Pakistani nuclear program but didn't assign it high priority. India seems to have known about the imminent Pakistani demonstration since they showed off some of their own a few weeks earlier. They presumably told the US what they knew before that, if only in the hope they'd lean on Pakistan.

3) our government, having failed to notice the program beforehand, wasn't keen on emphasising that failure.

Perhaps this time they're pre-emptively avoiding the possibility of such failure.

 

[Belz...]

that's quite possible, but obviously not certain. that's really the dillemma of the Bomb, it help prevents war, but it also opens the door to armegeddon. Given the choice I don't think I'd allow nuclear bombs to exist either, despite the benefits.

Maybe. Though there are other practical uses to their existence. They were, of course, the first step towards nuclear energy which, hopefully, will lead to fusion (not the dragonball kind, though that'd be COOL!) Also, it MIGHT be useful in deviating asteroids from impacting the earth, that sort of thing.

 

[Belz...]

It is taking things a little far, which is why nobody proposed that. I'm not claiming democracies have free reign to do whatever they want to non-democratic countries. Of course they don't. There still has to be some justification FOR an action against a dictatorship - that sovereignty cannot be used as an argument against interference doesn't mean that other arguments against such interference don't exist. In the hypothetical example above, the fact that innocent civilians would get blasted to bits is an argument against interference, and so it's not justified unless it's outweighed by some other concern. If your concern is that disregarding sovereignty of dictatorships means complete open season against them, it doesn't. It does, however, mean that they shouldn't get the same respect, deference, and guarantees of safety that democracies get.

I don't disagree, but I get the nagging feeling that my position is strongly influenced by the fact that I LIVE in a democratic country.

 

[Belz...]

To the extent that certainty is possible, no, they wouldn't. The leadership on both sides, for some decades on, had direct experience of conventional war on that sort of scale. That was enough to dissuade them. What could possibly be gained that would justify such cost?

Without nuclear weapons, I don't know if Russia could have had the resources for another war--after all, weren't they projected to endure devastating losses invading Japan?

I'm sure you're both right. I take it back. Considering the above, I've no way to know IF there would have been war.

 

[Ziggurat]

I don't disagree, but I get the nagging feeling that my position is strongly influenced by the fact that I LIVE in a democratic country.

Perhaps. But the fact that you might not hold a particular view had you grown up in some different environment doesn't mean that the view in question is wrong, either.

I'm going to make some generalizations which might get me into trouble, but I'll make them anyways, because they might make you more comfortable with where I'm coming from.

First off, we can never avoid truly difficult moral questions (ignoring them doesn't count as avoiding them). A set of moral principles which makes such decisions easy is probably not a correct one. Sovereignty for dictatorships is such an idea: it basically presents us with a default decision of never interfering with such countries, even if they're doing terrible things to their own citizens. It is, in that sense, an easy choice, since there is little we must decide in order to come to that conclusion. My opinion, which is that dictatorships have no legitimate claim to sovereignty, does not present us with easy decisions. We must still weigh relative risks (direct costs of interference to both us and possible innocent victims in the country in question, as well as indirect costs in terms of possible complications to relations with other countries, and even opportunity costs) against expected benefits. We must consider the likelyhood of success for whatever our objective is, and the costs of possible failure. And those questions are NOT easy, even though the principle of not valuing sovereignty for dictatorships is simple. Not valuing sovereignty for dictatorships is not equivalent to violating it at every opportunity.

 

[CapelDodger]

I'm not trying to suggest that my Tueller drill analogy is analogous to whether or not Iran has a knife.

I get the point vis-a-vis pre-emption generally, but you keep mixing in Iran specifically.

I believe Iran wants the same thing. A nuclear arsenal will allow them to inflict severe or even lethal damage on the "cop" (or US). I'm sure they are betting if faced with loss of one or more cities the US would abandon Israel.

Not everything - not much at all, really - is about Israel. The US has never attacked a nuclear-armed state. Just a thought.

They have allready OPENLY STATED their willingness to sacrifice Iranian lives for Jewish ones if that's what it takes to ANNIHILATE Israel.

Who exactly are "they" in this case? And is there a Farsi word that exactly corresponds with "annihilate" with all the connotations it carries for us? Again with the questions, I don't know what's got into me, normally I have a lecturing style.

You talk as if it's perfectly reasonable for the Jews to just quietly pack up & leave Israel. That's not going to happen.

I do? That's some deep inferencing. You should check out zenith-nadir, he thinks it was perfectly reasonable for the Palestinians to pack up and leave in '48 and '49 and he's explicit about it.

As far as Pakistan--I agree with most of what you say about it. It was a mistake.....so hopefully we won't make the same mistake twice.

Pakistan was a mistake. Period. The world would, IMO, be a better place if it had never existed.

Aren't you the slightest bit bothered by the rhetoric coming out of Iran? They are now claiming they are perfectly willing to share their nuclear know-how with other Islamic countrys. Do you really think this won't eventually end in catastrophe?

Pakistan shared its nuclear know-how with Iran and North Korea, one Islamic and the other deeply weird and inscrutable. Catastrophe has not ensued. Not yet, admittedly. North Korea worries me more than the Islamic world.

I'm not bothered by Ahmedinejad's rhetoric. I find it encouraging. Unable to deliver domestically he tries to distract attention to foreign affairs and emotive issues. The mullahs and Khameini, for whom Ahmedinejad was the best they could fall back on, have found that they can't control him. He speaks for what remains of the firebrand Revolutionary Generation of '79, while they are the comfortable and fat new Establishment. The Revolution has nearly run it's course, and waiting in the wings is an established democratic body, which currently lacks full sovereignty. Left to itself Iran will become the first modern post-Islamic democracy in five or ten years.

 

[CapelDodger]

Without nuclear weapons, I don't know if Russia could have had the resources for another war--after all, weren't they projected to endure devastating losses invading Japan?

They swept over Manchuria and Sakhalin in August '45 without much trouble. I doubt they had any plans to invade Japan's main islands, "Soviet Landing-Craft 1941-45" hasn't even made it to the Osprey catalogue. That said, the Soviet response to devastating losses was a shrug and a "Meh!". Been there, done that, got Berlin.

 

[Giz]

Well, . . . all I can say is you'd better make damn sure he's got some WMD in his coat pocket. You're going to look pretty stupid (like someone we all know) when you attack first because YOU THINK he's got a weapon and then the police find out YOU were the one who initiated violence.

Yes, before unleashing shock and awe one should be as sure as possible. No one has suggested that Iran should be bombed based on someone not liking the cut of Ahminabadmood's gib.

Your last statement is really laughable! Perhaps you should walk around pre-emptively striking everyone, just to make sure you got the people who MIGHT do you harm.

Wow, that's some strawgiant. Did I say strike everyone, or did I say that considering striking the country that is threatening genocide and seems hellbent on developing nukes (aint just Bush thinks this - even the French and Germans are concerned) seems reasonable...

 

[Mephisto]

Wow, that's some strawgiant. Did I say strike everyone, or did I say that considering striking the country that is threatening genocide and seems hellbent on developing nukes (aint just Bush thinks this - even the French and Germans are concerned) seems reasonable...

Okay, if you think it's reasonable to JUST strike those who you feel ACT threatening toward you. . . I guess the law will probably side with you, right?

(edited to add) I don't think Iran has threatened an American genocide. Why don't we just let Israel handle the problem - they're the ones most directly involved?

 

[Giz]

Okay, if you think it's reasonable to JUST strike those who you feel ACT threatening toward you. . . I guess the law will probably side with you, right?

Are you seriously advocating the position that Iran is behaving as if it would be a responsible member of the nuclear club, or are you pretending to be dense for rhetorical purposes?

 

[CapelDodger]

(derail) Once again I can't help but feel depressed at the post-Cold War world. I used to think that once we could get over the insane nuclear standoff with Russia, we could go about moving into the fabled "future" and start building our hovercars, robots, and interstellar spaceships and such

Where's my jet-pack?

When the Kuwait War kicked off I said "At least you know where you are with a Cold War". Times have been interesting and eventful since that cap was twisted off the bottle.

On the plus side we know that the surface of Titan is crunchy "like creme caramel" (radar will never tell us that, you have to be there in a material sense, even if by proxy) and rovers on Mars and Hubble pictures and extra-solar planets and so much wonderful stuff.