MAD Ain't What It Used To Be...

Excellent piece by Cliff May in which he says that Mutually Assured Destruction is a policy that no longer applies to America's enemies because they don't care about living post-conflict.

I was reminded of this the other day when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued a warning to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, whose regime has been building nuclear weapons and test-firing missiles that could deliver them. The United States, Dr. Rice said, can "deter whatever the North Koreans are up to."

While admiring her icy resolve, I wondered: Can we, really? Or, more to the point, what reason do we have to believe that deterrence is a strategy that can influence the decision-making calculus of someone like Kim?

Is it not possible that Kim might decide to risk – or even sacrifice – his life in order to have the honor of seriously damaging those he sees as enemies? Or might he figure that whatever Americans may threaten, they would never retaliate against innocent North Koreans who are not responsible for Kim's actions or even for keeping him in power?

Perhaps, the CIA has provided Dr. Rice with reliable intelligence concluding that Kim adores being tyrant-in-chief and would do nothing to seriously jeopardize his job. Similar motivations appear to explain why Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi gave up his Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) programs after seeing Saddam Hussein dragged from a spider hole.

Speaking of Saddam, deterrence clearly did not work where he was concerned. He could have held on to his power and palaces had he only cooperated as he promised at the end of the Gulf War in 1991, had he simply complied with UN Security Council Resolutions demanding he disclose what he had done with his WMD.

Why was his behavior not altered by the credible threat of force? Was he counting on his European friends – some of whom, we now know, he was lavishly rewarding -- to leash the American dogs? Did he miscalculate, believing that if American leaders were convinced that he still had a stockpile of WMD they'd be too cowardly to send troops into battle with him? Did his own scientists trick him into believing he had a daunting WMD capability and was he shocked to see his military machine sputter and stall? Or had he becomes so jaded that he no longer cared about his palaces and privileges and wanted only to lead one last guerilla war?

I'm not entirely sure that MAD worked as a strategy anyway, but that's another debate...

Cliff's point is one well worth considering. And it looks to me like the liberals and mavericks are still fighting the Cold War...I'd say the last war, but I'm not real sure that works as an analogy.

Read the whole thing.