Donald Sensing has a post denouncing the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (in response to a post by Rosemary on Dean's World), specifically American use of nuclear weapons as a response to the detonation of a nuclear device in an American city by terrorists. The term "Mutually Assured Destruction" isn't really apt anymore (and Rev. Sensing doesn't use it), because there are no other nations (Russia included) with the power to annihilate the United States. What MAD has morphed into is a promise to respond to a nuclear attack with the maximum possible force, rather than "proportional force". We have no desire to trade cities one-for-one with terrorists; as soon as they show a willingness to nuke us, game over -- we will respond with enough force to end the war immediately.
Rev. Sensing claims such a response would be immoral, but this quote makes me wonder if he understands MAD:
I reject a nuclear response that seeks simply to lash out at presumed enemies and make Arabs suffer for suffering’s sake. Killing just to kill would not be warranted even under such grievous circumstances.There are two parts to MAD: the threat, and the follow-through. The threat is intended to convince our enemies that using nuclear weapons against us simply isn't worth it. Terrorists can't get nukes without the aid of some rogue nation (as Rev. Sensing points out -- North Korea or Iran, most probably), and the threat of MAD should serve to deter those nations from helping the terrorists.
It sounds like what Rev. Sensing most objects to, then, is the possibility that we'd actually follow through on the MAD threat if we were nuked. We've never had to before, but there's no guarantee that the threat itself will deter everyone forever. The threat itself is brilliant and costs no lives, but if we're ever nuked we'll be put in a tough position. Do we retaliate with overwhelming (non-proportional) force, as we threatened to do, or do we back down? If we back down, our future threats will be powerless and we won't have any means to deter future nuclear attacks. If we don't back down, and we actually obliterate a city or two in the nation(s) we determine were involved, we'll be responsible for killing a great many people who were only peripherally involved in the attack against us.
However, contrary to what some of Rev. Sensing's commenters claim, such retaliation would not be "murder" or "revenge" -- such terms have no meaning in war. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed when we nuked Japan, but that action probably saved millions of lives (Japanese and American); it wasn't murder it was a strategic use of force calculated to end the war, and it did. Furthermore, since the utility of the threat wholly depends on our willingness to make good on it, it's not revenge to respond to an attack in the exact manner we guaranteed we would. If a thug pulls a knife on a cop, and the cop tells the thug to drop the knife or he'll shoot, it's not "revenge" for the cop to shoot the thug if instead of dropping the knife he charges to attack.
Far from being immoral, MAD is the only moral policy I've ever heard of that has a chance of deterring nuclear attacks against the United States. Rev. Sensing proposes some other possible methods in his post, but they'd all take years to implement, and would do nothing to prevent future nuclear attacks in the mean time. Rev. Sensing's proposals are all excellent long-term policies (most of which we should be doing now), but such possibilities will not be sufficient to deter our enemies from using nuclear weapons against us. You can't correct a child's behavior by threatening to send him to military school in ten years.
Update:
Rev. Sensing has updated his own post in response to mine. First, I'd like to say that I'm sure he's more familiar with MAD than I am -- it was his characterization of deterrence as mere "lashing out" that made me wonder.
By rejecting the use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent, Rev. Sensing seems to leave no real purpose for their existence at all. We certainly won't use them pre-emptively, and if we won't use them in retaliation either then there's no reason to have them. We can't even threaten to use them if our enemies know we will never follow through.
He describes many dire consequences that may follow from our retaliatory use of nuclear weapons, and he's probably right about many of them. But are those possible consequences worse than seeing another US city nuked by terrorists? I'm not sure that's the case.
We could continue to deter Russia and other nuclear nations with the rest of our arsenal, and withdraw our soldiers from around the world if need be. It would obviously be a Bad Thing all around, but would it be worse than losing another US city to another nuke?
Would our retaliation prevent another attack? No guarantees, but it could sure motivate some of our enemies to clamp down on the terrorists in their midsts right quick. If not -- if they're determined to fight a nuclear war -- then we have no alternatives anyway.
As for furthering the cause of Christ... I'll have to consider it. Off the top of my head I can't think of an effective nuclear deterrence policy that would also win people to Jesus if it had to be used. War in general doesn't tend to turn people to Christ, but does that mean we should never fight? Some pacifists say so, but their positions aren't convincing.
The nuking of the two Japanese cities cannot be defended morally nor can it be seen as anything other than mass murder. A war is not just if civilians are intentionally targeted. Now, if it is impossible to avoid killing civilians when there is a military target, that is another thing. But to say that an entire city is a military target is absurd. I side with the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel. However, I don't favor the killing of Israeli civilians. I sided with the Catholics of Northern Ireland in their fight against the British, but I didn't support killing British civilians.
Thanks for expressing my thoughts about the Sensing post. When my son was eight, he and the neighbor's son decided to poke a stick into a yellow jacket nest. Disturbing the nest brought forth massisve destruction (including several yellow jackets attached to private parts). So to the Middle East when we are provoked.
And in response to the previous post, if nuking Japan was immoral, how can you support two groups (Palestinians and the IRA) whose methods are morally repugnant?
Regards
Joel: Well, once again, I guess we disagree. Killing in the context of war is fundamentally different than killing in civilian contexts, even the Bible is pretty clear on this.
I wrote that I sided with the Catholics and the Palestinians, not that I approved of their methods of resistance. The fact that they responded improperly doesn't lessen the fact that the British and Israeli occupations were/are immoral and illegitimate.
If war has no rules at all, then we will engage in never-ending and escalating cycles of violence. Eventually, we would have to kill off most of the world's population. I believe that Christ's Gospel message moves beyond the Old Testament world of unlimited violence. The intentional killing of civilians is a gross denial of God's sovereignty, in my opinion.
Merry Christmas, Michael.
Joel: Artificial, unenforcable rules aren't preventing the world from descending into a never-ending cycle of violence. That's already happening. The only question is how fast we're moving, and who the targets are. I'd prefer they're not me, my friends, and family.
Michael, thank you for the link. I was trained as nuclear targeting analyst. I understand MAD rather more completely than you give me credit for. But your own field of view is far too narrow.
You are wrong that "murder" and other such terms have no meaning in war. Just war is not murder, but can easily become nothing but murder. Nuking Arab cities would be wholesale murder that could only condemn us before God and man - and should.
Do you think that nuking any Arab city would make al Qaeda stop attacking us with every destructive means at their disposal? How many millions of innocents are you prepared to immolate before you try something else? Except then there will be nothing else to try.
Michael, NO ONE would take our side on this. No one would rationalize the destruction of a third-world city and its people the way you so smugly do. There is no act we could take that would isolate us more, enrage the entire world at us more, make more, uncountable new enemies, and convince billions of ordinary people around the world, not just Muslims, that America must be destroyed.
Take off your blinders, Michael, and try to think strategically. A nuclear response by us would completely destroy not only countless innocent lives (or do you actually condemn all Muslims, of any age or disposition? Do you?) but every alliance we have in the world. NATO would dissolve. The UK would withdraw all support wholly; Blair's government would fall immediately, to be replaced by the most virulent anti-Americans in England. We would lose all basing rights in every country in the world - Japan, Korea, Europe, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, Turkey, Central Asia, all the rest. Americans across the world, including Europe, would be dragged from their homes or attacked on the streets and killed; scores of our embassies gutted. Muslim populations in Europe and the Americas would riot relentlessly.
Every Iraqi would turn completely against us; our forces there would come under constant attack from everyone, and in Afghanistan also. Pakistan would turn wholly Islamist. The entire Muslim world, not just Arabs, would be convinced that what bin Laden has been claiming is indeed true - that the US wishes either to colonize or destroy Muslim nations and destroy Islam itself. Tens of millions of new fanatics would sign up for al Qaeda's jihad against us.
I can't begin to list the nations that would sever diplomatic relations with us and expel our diplomatic staff, even the UK. All the intelligence relationships with the UK and other European nations - the most valuable we have - painstakingly built up since World War I would be aborted instantly. Same with Asia-Pacific countries. China would begin militarizing faster than ever. Russia would re-target American cities because its people would demand it.
The world's economy, including America's, would plunge into the deepest depression in history with the consequences too horrific to imagine - social disolocations, fall of governments (their replacements rabidly anti-American), civil wars on every continent except, maybe, North America and Australia.
Not only is MAD today a "strategy" of failure, it would be the means of our self destruction.
I would add that I to wonder whether you have considered how America's use of nukes against an Arab city would harm the cause of Christ in the world. Far from convincing the Muslims that their faith is bankrupt, it would cause untold millions of people in the second and third world to abandon the Church altogether. Christians in the third world, already under severe persecution in many places, would suffer immensely and the Church would be outlawed in places it is now gaining converts.
Donald: Frankly, I'm sure you understand MAD more than I do, which is why I was surprised you'd describe deterrence the way you did.
If the US were forced to retaliate with nuclear weapons, I have no doubt that there would be dire consequences, similar if not exactly like what you describe. But the question in my mind is, are those consequences worse than allowing another US city to get nuked? I'm not convinced that they are.
We could continue to deter Russia and other nuclear nations with the rest of our arsenal, and withdraw our soldiers from around the world if need be. It would obviously be a Bad Thing all around, but would it be worse than losing another US city to another nuke?
Would our retaliation prevent another attack? No guarantees, but it could sure motivate some of our enemies to clamp down on the terrorists in their midsts right quick. If not -- if they're determined to fight a nuclear war -- then we have no alternatives anyway.
As for the cause of Christ, you're undoubtedly correct. I'll have to think about a nuclear deterrence policy that would most effectively serve that purpose. I can't think of one off the top of my head.
Rosemary's original essay had a tit for tat system: IF American City A gets nuked, THEN Islamic City B gets nuked.
That's not moral. We don't know that Islamic City B or their national government had anything to do with it.
It's also not strategically sound. If Iran, for instance, were behind the attacks they would simply attack an American city that we had previously stated would result in a counter-attack on a non-Iranian city.
LJ: Oh sure, the one-for-one nuking policy is silly. It's exactly that sort of exchange that MAD is designed to prevent. Under MAD, a threat to use a nuke is considered equivalent to actually using one, and retaliation is immediate and total.
Not only is MAD today a "strategy" of failure, it would be the means of our self destruction.
Either your scenario is completely wrong or we should just give up right now.
You say: Russia would re-target American cities because its people would demand it.
What about the citizens of the United States and what they demand? Or is it that what we demand doesn't matter because we are Americans and not sufficiently sensitive to other cultures?
What if we had had this exchange with the U.S.S.R.? Would the same thinking apply then? Maybe we should have just given up back in '48. Think of all the people it would have saved!
SQ's point is well-taken. I believe it would be politically impossible not to respond to a devastating attack on an American city.
If Mohammed Atta knew his home town (Cairo) would be incinerated, he would not have orchestrated the attack on 9/11. The residents of Cairo clapped and applauded the attack and Mohammed Atta is a big hero in Egypt.
The cat is out of the bag re the technology to make small portable Hiroshima type weapons. Actually the knowledge is readily available to make much more powerful and highly radioactive weapons. The best way to insure that such weapons are never smuggled in to the US and detonated is the promise that if the US is so attacked, Mecca and Medina will be wiped off the face of the earth within fifteen minutes. We don't have to hate the Saudis, we never really hated the Russians even though they were communist. But we were involved in a dangerous time (during the cold war) and there was really no choice but to show that we had the weapons and the ability to target them and use them.
Now so - called "non state" actors, most of whom happen to be Egyptians, Saudis, "Palestinians," and Pakistanis, and some other Islamic Arabs, have declared war on the West. Many of these people are the elites of their countries. It is foolish indeed to say that a few disenfranchised poor nut cases who have no eduation beyond memorizing the Koran ..it is foolish and a LIE to say that the perpetrators and organizers of the outrages are a few extremists. A very large portion of the Muslim world endorses the violent actions and they go their mosques every Friday and shout "death to America!" -- it is us who are foolish if we think they don't mean it, and that they are just poor third world ignorant folk who can never deliver on their threats.
What the percentage of extremists is among Moslems overall is hard to estimate. My belief from having Arab friends is that the numbers of extremists in Iraq are very low as an overall percentage, because Iraq is a largely secular country. I believe and most Iraquis believe that the "outside" jihadis are the ones who perpetrate most of the bombing attacks on the US forces and innocent civilans...
but in other countries, notably Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and in their ruling classes and among their journalists - the hatred of the US is palpable. They want to see us murdered, destroyed, humiliated. At the same time vast hordes from these countries want to emigrate to the US because of the possibilites of making money here and bettering oneself financially. But whether or not first generation or second generation Muslims can integrate into American society....very dubious. Their programming in hatred for all things western is so strong (except for the secular ones) that they are extremely dangerous people and they are a fifth column within the USA.
So what I am saying in summary is - the US should spell out a policy of retaliation. Al Qaueda exists because several states - notable Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt - have many people in high places , and many people in the middle classes, who are complicit in the actions of Al Quaeda, and in raising money for Al Quaeda. The myth that Al Quade has no state sponsors is exactly that. And these elites and state sponsors should get a very clear message from the US - that if the US is hit with a WMD, they will be WIPED OUT, their families will be eradicated , out to the third cousins. And any western country ) that might provide shelter to rich Saudis who don't want to incinerated should know that they are making themselves targets of very harsh retribution. The only way we will survive and prosper is to tell our enemies what the price of aggression will be, and we have to mean what we say.
Anonymous: Good points, and I personally believe that America has delivered such a threat to the countries you named, as well as to some others.