"The United States," it read, "has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction— and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively." 2002 National Security Strategy, quoted in DK post.
My view is that the last time such a position made good sense was not 2002, but 1945, at the time we might still have prevented Russia from developing a bomb, and thus prevented further proliferation at its source.
DK sees that such a policy made little sense in 2002 re Iraq:
"This was, of course, the heart of the rationale for the attack on Iraq that began a few months later--even though it turned out that Iraq neither had weapons of mass destruction nor any program to develop them." DK
The same however can hardly be said of 1945. Let's quote that 2002 passage again in full, but now with reference to conditions in 1945:
"The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction— and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively."
Makes a lot of sense re Russia's known, and terribly threatening to our national security and to the world, nuclear program, in 1945.......
But liberal dominated America, and friend of Stalin, was all for international oversight, as Professor Kaiser's post also so clearly points out.
This was actually an excuse, frankly, and was false, because the international feeling, at least in the West, which is all that matters to me, was for preventing Russia from becoming nuclear, and for preventing it from overrunning Eastern Europe (mainly on foot, as Patton pointed out).
We did neither.
DK sees that such a policy made little sense in 2002 re Iraq:
"This was, of course, the heart of the rationale for the attack on Iraq that began a few months later--even though it turned out that Iraq neither had weapons of mass destruction nor any program to develop them." DK
The same however can hardly be said of 1945. Let's quote that 2002 passage again in full, but now with reference to conditions in 1945:
"The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction— and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively."
Makes a lot of sense re Russia's known, and terribly threatening to our national security and to the world, nuclear program, in 1945.......
But liberal dominated America, and friend of Stalin, was all for international oversight, as Professor Kaiser's post also so clearly points out.
This was actually an excuse, frankly, and was false, because the international feeling, at least in the West, which is all that matters to me, was for preventing Russia from becoming nuclear, and for preventing it from overrunning Eastern Europe (mainly on foot, as Patton pointed out).
We did neither.
Think about it.
We have almost always been liberal when we should have been conservative, and conservative when we should have been liberal.
It is a sort of inherent pathology it seems.
Big picture: whether we dropped the bomb on Japan or not, whether it was Kyoto or not, both of these questions meant nothing, paled into utter insignificance, by comparison with having allowed Russia to develop the bomb after 1945, a development we well could have prevented by force, to say nothing of, also, at the same time, preventing Russia from overunning Eastern Europe.
We have almost always been liberal when we should have been conservative, and conservative when we should have been liberal.
It is a sort of inherent pathology it seems.
Big picture: whether we dropped the bomb on Japan or not, whether it was Kyoto or not, both of these questions meant nothing, paled into utter insignificance, by comparison with having allowed Russia to develop the bomb after 1945, a development we well could have prevented by force, to say nothing of, also, at the same time, preventing Russia from overunning Eastern Europe.
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