What I am saying is that while we may as policy declaration leave the possibiluty open, as policy fact we can never use it, except perhaps against a peer nuclear power such as Russia or China.

I can see I have more writing to do about this topic, though.

Whether that deterrence requires the use of nuclear weapons is a different issue. The point of deterrence is to keep rogue regimes from assisting terrorists, or even to coerce them into helping destroy the terrorists.

A suitable deterrent in that case is an unmistakable determination to regime change for every rogue regime that might have been responsible for an anonymous attack.

At that point, the use of nukes or not becomes a question of need and effectiveness. For example, nuclear weapons used to suddenly cripple North Korea's retaliatory capability might be very effective and moral. Nuclear weapons taking out, for example an Iranian city or two would be immoral, both because it would be ineffective and because killing large numbers of innocents must be a last resort, not a first resort.

This leads to the question of why we are not increasing our ability to occupy countries and replace regimes. If we are faced with a nuclear attack by terrorists, the population of the United States is going to demand very rapid action. They will demand both retaliation and prevention, and we are not currently in a position to do the latter. Hence I suspect that our population may demand that we indeed nuke civilians, even more strongly than they supported our mass killing of civilians in World War II.

Frankly, I do not think there is a strategy that will prevent mass casualty attacks in the United States. However, we should be able to prevent nuclear attacks if we are quick and strong enough. I can only hope that our failure to attack North Korea when it kicked out the inspectors was based on intelligence showing that it would be futile, rather than some other motive. Certainly one significant chunk of plutonium was easily targetted for a while, and we didn't do so. Perhaps it was because the North Koreans could inflict as much damage on our allies as several nukes would inflict on any of our enemies! Nuclear weapons are devastating, but a conventional or chemical attack on Seoul would kill far more people than a single nuclear weapon of the size we stock.

In the longer term, we face the specter of bioterrorism. Unfortunately, it requires neither hard to acquire material nor a readily found infrastructure. While not as suddenly catastrophic as a nuclear attack on DC or NYC, ther overall deadliness of a contagious biological weapon puts all other weapon systems to shame.

And I have no idea how to prevent such attacks!

Rosemary's idea is not practical, though it would make a satisfying premise for a Hollywood movie.

All these scenarios have been "war-gamed" out already by various people at military colleges, etc., including the economic and political fallout. It would be VERY interesting to get a hold of one of these, although I assume they are top secret.

This is why I laugh when I see headlines like "Nixon considered taking over Saudi oilfields during embargo". Whether he did or didn't, there is a war plan for that that existed then and now for this scenario. There are war plans for every conceivable (and non conceivable) event - that is part of the job of military strategests (interestingly, the Pacific War with Japan was war gamed out years before Pearl Harbor).

Whether these scenarios are ever used by the politicians in charge when they occur is another question.

If one or more of the regimes fail to comply with the ultimatum, they are to be nuked.

There is one possibile difficulty: we might not have time to implement such a policy. We're going to have to allow them some sort of interval, say one week, to collect and ship the weapons; and it may be possible that one of the regimes, knowing that its fate is sealed, will use that interval to nuke us again, so perhaps this option isn't workable. It's worth considering, though.

In any event, this approach would significantly decrease our risk of being the victims of a future nuclear attack. It would also satisfy the American people's desire for swift, decisive action -- and let's face it, if an American city is nuked, the pressure on our elected officials to respond in kind (and "respond in kind" is most definately NOT limited to a city-for-city, tit-for-tat response; if San Fransciso is nuked, I can easily invision the destruction of Tehran, Pyonyang, Islamabad, and Damascus as a response.)

The question now becomes, what if someone refused to comply with the ultimatum? What if North Korea, for example, refused to surrender its weapons? (In real life, it is unlikely that anyone would be that stupid -- instead, the North Koreans would probably promise full and complete cooperation and then begin employing the deception and delay tactics from Sadaam's playbook.)

But let's suppose that the North Koreans simply refuse to comply. Are we morally justified in nuking them? Sadly, I think the answer is yes.

It has nothing to do with proportionate response, deterrence doctrine, or the making of a statement, however. The fact is that we cannot allow unstable regimes to have nuclear weapons. If they will not surrender them, we must destroy them. Invasion isn't workable against a nuclear power; it would simply lead to the further use of nuclear weapons. For instance, if we go charging accross the Korean DMZ, the North Koreans will likely attempt to retailate against Seoul, Tokyo, perhaps Bejing, and the United States if possible.

If we can't disarm the North Koreans, we'll simply have to kill them. This is a terrible course of action, but what choice do we have?

I liken this to shooting the rabid wolf at the door. It hasn't bitten us yet, but we cannot let it roam around the backyard forever. If we don't have a tranquilizer dart gun on hand, we'll have to use the .30-06. It's unfortunate, but again, we've got to get rid of the wolf. This has nothing to do with revenge or deterrence; it's simply about removing a threat.

If terrorists were to purchase a black-market nuclear weapon from, say, Russia, this would present us with a much more difficult problem. We obviously cannot nuke Russia; Russia is not a rogue nation, and nuking it would be suicidal in any case.

But we'd need to hit back somehow. Public opinion would demand it. In that case, I'd suggest gearing up for total war and invading and occupying most of the Middle East.

What amazes me is how so many of you can seriously rationalize losing up to a million fellow citizens in a single nuclear attack. Issue more ultimatums? Please, stupidity has never sounded so craven...

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