In response to Iran and North Korea, the Bush Administration has rolled out plans for preemptive nuclear strikes.

Bush certainly made the world safer after recklessly rescinding the ABM treaty, after blythly declaring Iran and North Korea part of the "Axis of Evil."  Liberals, again, knew those were blunders at the time.  Now, because he made those blunders, he rolls out this plan.  

Three more years of this guy might be like three years of the Cuban Missle Crisis: with Donald Duck and Kim Jung-il leading instead of Kennedy and Kruschev.  I hope we survive.  

That's a terrifying concept.  Since the Cold War, MAD has been that one thing that kept matters sane.  Adopting anything that dilutes the deterrent is downright scary.

But, lets opine on WHY the neocons are reconsidering the Cold War stance.  The anti-pre-emptive strike policy was built on the concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD), which demonstrated that both sides will essentially incur equal and devastating damage from any use of a nuke.  As long as both sides realize this, and are concerned for their own welfare, then nobody has the incentive to strike.  Sorta like the the good old Adam Smith/Gordon Gekko concept that "greed is good".

However, the equation most definitely has changed in two regards.

1. War isn't exclusive to nation-states with defined territory.  Terrorist groups, freedom fighers, et al can't be attacked as conveniently as countries.  Plus, even if an enemy can find them, they are so dispersed that nukes are ineffective against them.  

2. Terrorists don't seem to be as concerned with civilian impacts.  Whether it be suicide bombers who will sacrifice their lives, or just run-of-the-mill terrorists who don't mind wasting 100 civilians to get their point across, even the threat of effective retaliation doesn't seem quite as reliable as in the past.

Now, I'm not advocating pre-emptive strikes, but some rethinking of strategy is probably timely.  Reality is that MAD doesn't work much against terrorists, and thus the threat of a pre-emptive strike on their side is much higher than it was vs. the Russians.  I don't know if endorsing pre-emptive strikes is a good idea, but at this point we should put everything back on the table and see what deserves to be in policy.

My profession requires me to make accurate assessments of people.  I swear, every piece of evidence I see about this guy makes me think he is a little prick who never grew up - pompus, a shoot-from-the-hip-because-I'm-too-hungover-to-think guy who must go to bed every night with a woody over his blind damn luck to be the President of the US.  

I'm serious.  I really have tried to give this guy every benefit of the doubt, but he makes my skin crawl. Like with the right & Clinton, it's beyond disagreement. I dislike the guy and think he's a true ass.  Shallow, arrogant, and stupid. Insecure and powerful.  Lazy and mean, and disingenuous as a lifestyle.  It's a whole pattern of attitudes that I have contempt for, and he's got 'em.  

As the Euro mags headlined after '04 election, "What the hell are they thinking?"

And to give him (or for that matter, to implement this policy with any administration without public discourse) this kind of power just is nuts.  I don't trust him enough to let him have this kind of discretion.  Plain and simple.  He might not like what's on TV and, in a moment of divine clarity, pop one just to see 'em vaporize.  Damn, that beats coke for a rush.  After all, he's a "war president" and, well, don't they get to pop the big one if they think that's the thing to do?  

Ok, things are changing, but the US cannot just adopt the policy to drop a nuke pre-emptively without a lot of global consensus.  This policy destabilizes things from Paris to Delhi.  

We are the most dangerous country in the world.  Unquestionably.

So, is this a strategy to scare Korea and Iran into walking the straight line?  Sounds more like the Russians in Dr. Strangelove who developed the deterrent but forgot to tell anyone.

This is my main, overriding concern: our social institutions have to get much better at managing the accelerating chaos of rapidly developing WMD, etc.  Our elections have to provide incredible leaders, not trash like GWB and lame-o's like Kerry.  

Crap.  I hope this report is wrong and that you're just a nutcase shouting that the sky is falling.  But if it's right, I hope it gets a bigger headline than Katrina.  

That'll be the day....

Sigh.  Thinking about this kind of stuff makes me want to drink.  

Is it '08 yet?

My guess is that every country that doesn't have nukes will say no, and that every nation with ties to terrorist groups will also say no.  Does this make it wrong?  NO!  It might be wrong anyway, but global consensus, IMHO, is a sign that the policy is so diluted it will never work.

BTW: Totally agree with everything else you say, particularly the "boner" part.

1. War isn't exclusive to nation-states with defined territory.  Terrorist groups, freedom fighers, et al can't be attacked as conveniently as countries.  Plus, even if an enemy can find them, they are so dispersed that nukes are ineffective against them.  

2. Terrorists don't seem to be as concerned with civilian impacts.  Whether it be suicide bombers who will sacrifice their lives, or just run-of-the-mill terrorists who don't mind wasting 100 civilians to get their point across, even the threat of effective retaliation doesn't seem quite as reliable as in the past.

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Question:  Don't you think your 2 statement above make a good case as to WHY we SHOULDN'T have gone to war in IRAQ to attack terrorist that MAY or MAY NOT have even been in that country in the first place ? I dunno, but just saying ......

this isn't news.

It has been the policy of the United States for thirty to forty years that a germ is a chemical is a nuke, i.e., that we will respond to the use of chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction with nuclear weapons.  Why?  Because we don't have the former; we only have the latter.

Furthermoe, we (like virtually every nation-state) have always reserved the right to preemption.  It is one of the myths of the far Left that our actions in Iraq were a new policy, rather than simply a new application of an old policy.

(1) pre-emptive nuclear strike is more appearance than anything.

Pre-emptive strikes are time-honored tactics, and the nation that has the ability and thinks it has the need, will do it.

But it's precision guided munitions that have made  nukes less useful, and I doubt we'd use them except against an incredibly hard target.   There is just no percentage in collateral damage these days - why risk knocking out an oil well, if you can target control systems?

The fact is that a lone superpower is going to do as it pleases, and the question is how subtle it will be, whether it plans 2 weeks or 2 years in advance.

Don't think for a minute that the Frogs/Krauts/Reds wouldn't do the same damn thing if they could get away with  it - it's just a matter of style, and they'd get to the same result.   Eg, it took the Frogs nearly 10 years to figure out they couldn't hang onto Indochina.

(2) Dubya is an obvious shill, and an embarrassment.  He gets a lot of press for his misunderstatements, but nobody ever mentions that, even when he avoids the obviously stupid, he STILL never says anything sensible.  He just rambles about whatever crap drifts into his line of sight.

So why does the GOP win?  Well, they have figured out the need for discipline, and the value of fudging - and yeah, lies are good too.  They have a bloc of disciplined voters - you can find any number of evangelical churches who all but march their congregation to the polls with pre-marked ballots.  That's apart from the redneck vote, eg the guy who was at an OH airbase during VN, and doesn't understand why we can't just bomb them little slanteyes back into the Stone Age.  Or wishes he had the balls to enlist.

They understand that most communication is non-verbal, and looking good is usually as important as talking sense.  Besides, how many people understand the EPA?  or any of the other complex issues that come up daily?

Then there's the Democrats.  The problem with losers as a constituency is that, well, you depend on voters who need an armed escort to find the polling place, and motivate them to mark the ballot.   And the minute they think they might win, well, they instantly fragment into all the little special interest groups, squabbling about whose feelings are hurt the most.

Politics.  Sheesh.