Of course terrorism cannot be stopped that way. State sponsorship of terrorism can however be stopped by oblierating the ability of any State that does so attempts to do so. Invade, destroy any infrastructure required to do this and generally wreck unlimited havoc , until that State realizes that if they do not stop this, they will not only fail, they will die. But of course the prospect of death will not stop all of them. The prospect of the utter destruction of their nation / political structure might. If it doesnt? Oh well, they will be too dead to do much.
Rinse and repeat until there are no such States left and until nobody dares try set up another one.
Of course terrorism cannot be stopped that way. State sponsorship of terrorism can however be stopped by oblierating the ability of any State that does so attempts to do so. Invade, destroy any infrastructure required to do this and generally wreck unlimited havoc , until that State realizes that if they do not stop this, they will not only fail, they will die. But of course the prospect of death will not stop all of them. The prospect of the utter destruction of their nation / political structure might. If it doesnt? Oh well, they will be too dead to do much.
Rinse and repeat until there are no such States left and until nobody dares try set up another one.
If only that worked. Do you actually have any evidence of any country resolving terrorism that way? Ireland, Spain, India, any evidence whatsoever to back up your claims, not that it would be moral (Peikoff already did that) but that it would actually work?
The attacks on America back in 2001 were, as far as we can know, carried out using Saudi sponsorhip, some Sudanese, Pakistani, I believe some other countries, and actually German infrastructure. That’s a lot of turf to cover.
Yes. Evidence that supports the claim that is how you end *state-sponsored* terrorism. Read “Nothing Less Than Victory” by John David Lewis ( there are other books that help with this, cannot remember the names off the top of my head, I think one is "Winning the Unwinnable War " by [I forget the name]).
What I am talking about here is how to wage a war which has the long-term effect of removing the will of the people of a nation ( this includes the leadership by t he way ) to engage in such actions. You know, like what was done to Germany at the end of WW2. Different situation I know, but I see every reason why the principles discussed in the book would apply here.
The book talks about in the context of starting wars etc, but if you read the book you can easily see how this applies here too.
If anyone has failed to make such nations do this in the past, I bet its because they did not do it properly. As detailed in the book.
I am familiar with that content, both the essays you refer to and the books, and in fact it does not provide evidence of a real world scenario where it actually happened, it always falls back to World War II and the obliteration of Japan and the will of the Jap Purist zealots. The Germans Fascists and the Japanese were logistically the opposite of a distributed guerrilla-like warfare like modern day terrorism is.
By the 1960 warfare had changed and Vietnam was not won by destroying the country as you described but by withdrawing and making them manufacture our shoes 30 years later.
By 2010 conventional warfare as you described does not promise to curb terrorism, at least no evidence of it. Ireland and Spain resolved terrorism in other ways. India tries to squash the Maoist and Tamil terrorist through many measures (like distributed attacks, typical counter insurgence attacks) not by obliterating, say, the state of Orissa.
Of course it often falls back to WW2, it is one of the BEST wars which can be used to provide evidence for the thesis of the book.
Sorry, warfare has not changed such that t he lessons of the book become invalid when appliede to modern warfare. If you think that, then you dont understand the nature of warfare, its root causes, how to morally and properly end a war and did/do not understand the book.
I never said warfare of any sort “curbs terrorism”. However I did say that waging war against *state-sponsored* terrorism would if done properly, be an effective way to eventually stop this happening. Obviously terrorism is not completely stopped, but at least states would not be knowingly funding it anymore.
. State sponsorship of terrorism can however be stopped by oblierating the ability of any State that does so attempts to do so. Invade, destroy until that State realizes that if they do not stop this, they will not only fail, they will die. But of course the prospect of death will not stop all of them. The prospect of the utter destruction of their nation / political structure might. If it doesnt? Oh well, they will be too dead to do much.
You seem to be confusing State and their subjects. Who is going to be much too dead? the state that sponsors terrorism?
Terrorism is carried out increasingly by private individuals who can move, reside and be citizens of different and multiple countries. That’s what I meant by the complete opposite situation as in WWII.
You seem to be confusing State and their subjects. Who is going to be much too dead? the state that sponsors terrorism?
Terrorism is carried out increasingly by private individuals who can move, reside and be citizens of different and multiple countries. That’s what I meant by the complete opposite situation as in WWII.
*rolls eyes*. You seem to entirely miss the point, I am talking aboug STATE-SPONSOERED TERRORISM, NOT ALL ACTS OF TERROISM. In which case we obviously want to stop them doing that ( amongst all the other things they want to do , like invade Isreal, nuke places etc ). That is the context I am talking about. Stop evading / trying to change the context or I will not continue to argue this with you.
Read the damn book, if you have : Read it again and think until you understand. Else this is a futile debate.
Maybe in the case of Israel vs Iran some of those wars among nations could apply (ony that Iran always uses proxy groups by now probably independent from their source)
But it certainly wont help, as you admitted, to curb terrorism or “post modern warfare”. Both Pakistan and the UK would have to be destroyed to be saved.
You think Steves (and my theory too if it would seem ) is LESS likely? Why is that?
Iran has a proven history of fighting proxy wars. All other things being equal, if they have a nuclear sheild I am completely certain that they would step up those proxy wars. I think it is plausible that they would use a nuke if they had one, but I don’t regard it as anything close to completely certain. Either way, plausible is certain enough to justify full-scale military action when the result in question is a nuclear firestorm directed at the US or its allies.
By the 1960 warfare had changed and Vietnam was not won by destroying the country as you described but by withdrawing and making them manufacture our shoes 30 years later.
By some accounts, the US won the Vietnam war as a result of the Tet Offensive, which was a collosal failure. Only weak American resolve allowed the NVA to win. It is true that nobody has stopped Islamist terrorism by brutally waging a war to crush Islamist resolve. But the biggest reason for this is because nobody has tried, it isn’t because the strategy lacks merit. In any case, Islamism has generations of infrastructure that must be dismantled. That means years of uncompromising action, the type of which we haven’t yet seen, toward clearly defined enemies.
Edit: perhaps instead of, “the US won the war,” I should have written, “was in a position to win it.”
Maybe in the case of Israel vs Iran some of those wars among nations could apply (ony that Iran always uses proxy groups by now probably independent from their source)
But it certainly wont help, as you admitted, to curb terrorism or “post modern warfare”. Both Pakistan and the UK would have to be destroyed to be saved.
No, I admitted it would not help as much to curb other sorts of terrorism. But that it would help eliminate state-sponsoered terrorism.
Iran has a proven history of fighting proxy wars. All other things being equal, if they have a nuclear sheild I am completely certain that they would step up those proxy wars. I think it is plausible that they would use a nuke if they had one, but I don’t regard it as anything close to completely certain. Either way, plausible is certain enough to justify full-scale military action when the result in question is a nuclear firestorm directed at the US or its allies.
For sure : Something has to be done in any case. Even if they do not get nukes.
By some accounts, the US won the Vietnam war as a result of the Tet Offensive, which was a collosal failure. Only weak American resolve allowed the NVA to win. It is true that nobody has stopped Islamist terrorism by brutally waging a war to crush Islamist resolve. But the biggest reason for this is because nobody has tried, it isn’t because the strategy lacks merit. In any case, Islamism has generations of infrastructure that must be dismantled. That means years of uncompromising action, the type of which we haven’t yet seen, toward clearly defined enemies.
Of course, this was the point I was making. It can ( and should be done), but has not worked because nobody has done what I ( and the book I mentioned) say needs to be done.
By some accounts, the US won the Vietnam war as a result of the Tet Offensive, which was a collosal failure. Only weak American resolve allowed the NVA to win.
what if America had won that war? Would we now be getting a better deal in our shoe making contracts? Would communism have been thwarted before it fell under its own weight?
It is true that nobody has stopped Islamist terrorism by brutally waging a war to crush Islamist resolve. But the biggest reason for this is because nobody has tried, it isn’t because the strategy lacks merit. In any case, Islamism has generations of infrastructure that must be dismantled. That means years of uncompromising action, the type of which we haven’t yet seen, toward clearly defined enemies.
But islamism also uses British and German infrastructure, should that be dismantled too? Maybe we haven’t seen a 1940s uncompromising attack on "? " because the enemy, much unlike Japan and Germany, is NOT clearly defined. at all.
Iran might be the last state to so openly sponsor terrorism, but as pointed out by everyone they use proxies who could have obtained a nuke in a more secretive way than a years old publicized campaign - if they needed a nuke to inflict terror, which they don’t.
I was the one who was asking the question following question.
I see yours is no. And Eric is also no.
interesting.
Also interesting EC’s absolute evasion of 1) my proposal that oil is finite and essential for at least a window of time, and a disproportionate part of it is in Iran, and Iran’s neighbours.
Of course oil is an important and finite resource. I’m not evading that fact. Although, there is much more oil out there than in other parts of the world that is undeveloped as of now. We just can’t include any nations potential resources when concluding whether or not they are a threat that needs to be eliminated.
I repeatedly acknowledged Iran’s threat as a sponsor of terrorism.
But you don’t acknowledge the threat should be eliminated?
and therefore more complicated as Israel already has nuclear capability and has not preemptively struck Iran yet as it did with Iraq before. Israel seems more preoccupied with the distributed character of “post-modern” warfare (terrorism) which clearly can’t be eradicated by occupying countries ad infinitum.
Who said anything about occupying countries? I’ve repeated that the appropriate response is a (at least limited) nuclear strike that doesn’t put any of our troops in harms way and eliminates the threat. I might be exaggerating a bit with turning the whole middle east into a nuclear wasteland to make a point but that doesn’t change the fact that at least a limited nuclear strike is the best way to eliminate the threat without putting any troops in danger.
If only that worked. Do you actually have any evidence of any country resolving terrorism that way? Ireland, Spain, India, any evidence whatsoever to back up your claims, not that it would be moral (Peikoff already did that) but that it would actually work?
How can killing them all and eliminating or destroying all their infrastructure and/or support not "work’? They come back as ghosts to haunt us? lol
The attacks on America back in 2001 were, as far as we can know, carried out using Saudi sponsorhip, some Sudanese, Pakistani, I believe some other countries, and actually German infrastructure. That’s a lot of turf to cover.
If that’s true, then it’s another argument for the use of nuclear weapons to end the threat.
I never said warfare of any sort “curbs terrorism”. However I did say that waging war against *state-sponsored* terrorism would if done properly, be an effective way to eventually stop this happening. Obviously terrorism is not completely stopped, but at least states would not be knowingly funding it anymore.
I might be exaggerating a bit with turning the whole middle east into a nuclear wasteland to make a point but that doesn’t change the fact that at least a limited nuclear strike is the best way to eliminate the threat without putting any troops in danger.
That’s a horrible thought, and very unrealistic. The US would never nuke the entire middle east.. I’d be really surprised if they used nukes at all (at least in the near future).. and definitely not as a “preventative measure.” Remember Hiroshima, and all that negative press? It never went away; it’s still being propagated in schools that nuclear warfare is bad, and that the US should not have used them. After all, it’s human lives we’re talking about.. not just soldiers with guns & political leaders.
For the US to actually consider nukes, they would need a lot of evidence that Iran 1) is actually creating nuclear weapons, and 2) planning to use them on the US. As for #1, I’m not sure the US should act as a babysitter to other countries and prevent them from arming themselves with weapons that many other countries already have.. unless there is hard evidence that the country in question would use them to attack another country (namely, the US). As for #2, convincing Congress that nukes are really necessary seems like a slim-to-none chance.
Maybe we haven’t seen a 1940s uncompromising attack on "? " because the enemy, much unlike Japan and Germany, is NOT clearly defined. at all.
The enemy is militant state sponsored Islam and it’s proxies.
Iran might be the last state to so openly sponsor terrorism, but as pointed out by everyone they use proxies who could have obtained a nuke in a more secretive way than a years old publicized campaign - if they needed a nuke to inflict terror, which they don’t.
True they don’t need one to “inflict terror” but it’s completely arbitrary to state that any nation that engages in inflicting terror won’t use the most powerful weapon in the history of mankind while doing so if it possesses one. “Inflicting terror” either outright itself or through proxies means that they are consistently the aggressor, and this conflicts with your conjecture that they are trying to develop nuclear weapons just for the sake of discouraging attacks from peaceful nations who have no reason to attack them except to prevent attacks from Iran or it’s proxies.