Treaty w/ russia...

[spence]

Originally Posted by TommyTuna

Kum bi ya messiah Obasm Kum bi ya..all together now sing it with me, drink the Kool aid, heads in the sand or your option up you own Arse. all together now.

Brilliant analysis. And I thought the Liberals were the touchy feely ones.

As for your statement Iran & NorKo "not being able to project power" I think your one dimensional thinking should embrace the threat of asymetrical warfare in our hemisphere. It can be effective, see 9/11, Spain Transit, Kubar Towers etc for its use & results, sometimes quite effective. Chem/Bio weapons in the modern sense, not the WWI crap, have a very aggressive lethality and the skillset is available to steal, develop & deploy said weapons. Hmmm a highly agressive, high mortlality viral plague oh where can we find one.

Asymmetrical warfare isn't very useful in projecting power as it typically requires a indigenous population with some good percentage that's either coercable or cooperative. It can be very effective when trying to repell or stall an offensive campaign, which is how we've almost always seen it used.

Could Iran project power using asymmetrical warfare to dictate the American position or take over our territory?

Not really.

Perhaps they could use it to irritate US interests, but only where the situation would allow it, usually an established defensive or perceived defensive front.

As for terror, if you think the bombings in Madrid or the African embassys were a "projection of power" then you must have a pretty weak view of what power really is. It's precisely because al Qaeda lacks the ability to project power that they've failed in their objective to establish a new Caliphate.

To project power you must be able to sustain and coordinate your efforts away your home. None of these enemies have the resources or relationships to do this effectively.

Now here is a lesson in self defense and nuclear deterrent; strategic ambiguity - a very powerful weapon where the aggressor does not know if/when/how you-the victim(mark) would respond and use your nukes. Kind of like the " armed concealed carry citizen" who conceals his weapon and only demonstrates its usage as a last resort and does not broadcast his having one. Or go announcing it on every street cormer in a tough neighborhood(world); "don't you worry I will not use it unless XYZ happens.

Nuclear deterrent has a lot more to do with MAD than it does spoken or written words. The recent shift in policy has everything to do with improving collaboration with those we're not going to nuke anyway, to increasing leverage against those who we see as real threats.

The issue of course is that building and using a nuclear bomb are dramatically different things.

This may look strange to you, it's called negotiation.

And I seriously doubt our spoken or written position on using nuclear weapons means much as a deterrent. Everybody knows we're not going to use them, except in the most dire of circumstances, and probably only if nuked ourselves. We simply have too many other viable options using conventional means.

So no, I don't think Iran or North Korea has much of an ability to project power now or will in the future. Given that, how we deal with their very real threats should be taken in context. This is the failure of Bush era policy during his first term. Treat every big issue as an existential threat to our survival you have very limited options. When reality further erodes those options down do nothing you're frozen.

And when you're not moving you can't steer.

-spence