If folks are willing to commit suicide for what they consider a higher aim, then deterrence alone wont always work...but perhaps deterrence in conjuction with preemption it will. Knowing that we will preempt perhaps further deters the bad guys.
As Rumsfeld admitted in Congressional testimony, these suicide fighters "are not deterrable". Period. You have kill them, arrest them, deprogram them, or gain respect from their community, but you can't threaten with "might makes right", and they are obviously provoked with the idiocy of "crusade" language scripted for Junior. High tech kills by remote UAVs generates only respect for violence and more recruits.
And as far as the masses go, victory coupled with doses of democracy, self determination and sprinkled with a little free enterprise and free trade can work wonders. A modern example would be mao's china, which would no longer be recognizable to tseng much less mao.
Which proves the point -- we did none of the things to China that we did to Iraq. Iraq was a failed, subjugated, pathetic state. It was already completely and totally deterred, which is why the neocon-complex considered it to be ripe for invasion, rather than inspection. |
