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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (37231)	8/12/2002 11:00:39 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Nadine Carroll; Re: "Threats have to be believed to have any effect." This is true, and it applies to both sides in a nuclear standoff. The fact is that humans are territorial animals, and will go to much higher levels of force in defense than they will in offense. This is as true for Saddam Hussein as it is for George Bush. Saddam could threaten to use nukes all he wants. He'd never do it because of the inevitable consequences, except as a last resort if Baghdad was being overrun. That's why he couldn't use nukes as a "nuclear sword". Here's a question for you. Suppose that Saddam had nuclear weapons, and suppose, just for the sake of argument, that those weapons were so hidden that Israel could not possibly locate them for a pre-emptive strike. Now suppose that Saddam threatened to attack Israel with nukes unless Israel immediately folded itself up and mailed itself to Brooklyn. Tell me. *Under these supposition, which you must admit are the worst case for Saddam, assume he has nuclear weapons and Israel cannot neutralize them; do you think that the Israelis would kneel for Saddam?* I don't think they would. I think they'd call Saddam's bluff. This is why nuclear weapons have never been used to bully countries into surrendering. Nukes have been around for 50 years. The theory is fairly well known. -- Carl P.S. Of course I wouldn't want to be in Jerusalem during all this, but the fact is that Israel's nukes are there for a purpose, deterrence, and they deter other country's nukes as well as anything else. If it were up to me I'd live in a world where only my ethnic group / nation state had nukes, but that's a fantasy world, not the real one.