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August 12, 2006
No Such Luck
Tigerhawk asks what it would take to militarize the West. No such luck, I think, and here is why:
There are only three conceivable military acts the jihadis and their supporters could take that would spark war beyond where we are now: invasion of another country, another attack on the scale of 9/11 or greater, or a nuclear/biological/chemical attack on a Western city. Anything short of these would not be considered sufficient to react to other than as we are now, or as a police matter, in the Western public opinion.
Now, invasion of another country wouldn't be seen as a reason to militarize. Israel and India and Turkey, the pro-Western countries actually threatened by Iran or Syria or Pakistan, are all capable of defending themselves. Wars in Russia — how would they differ from Chechnya? Wars in Lebanon or other Arab countries — how would they differ from the war ending now in Lebanon? Invasion or Iraq or Afghanistan would get our ire up, but let's face it, there are no conceivable conventional military scenarios in either country that couldn't be handled by our military as it now is.
An attack on the scale of 9/11 or greater might provide further impetus to the West to fight as it has been; or it might induce the will to surrender amongst a large percentage of the Western public. Unless it was obvious that the only way to root out such an attack were to heavily militarize and attack multiple Arab/Muslim countries simultaneously (that is, unless there were a large number of these attacks in very close proximity in time), I don't see how that changes the current assumptions. If anything, it should just harden current positions.
A WMD attack on a Western city would also not lead to militarization; it would lead to genocide. Having not taken the war seriously in its breadth (including the multiple lines of domestic political attack against operations in Iraq), we would have no other options than to use nuclear weapons against our attacker, if we could figure out whom our attacker was. If we could not, would we hesitate to respond at all, or would we use nuclear weapons against the various terror-supporting states in a spasm of fear and hate? I suspect the latter.
Frankly, absent a large series of large terror attacks, or a dynamic leader on the lines of Reagan or Thatcher, I simply do see militarization as a likely route in the West. I think, instead, we will muddle along until genocide (ours or theirs) is unavoidable.
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Comments
I'm with you 100% on your pessimistic predictions, particularly that we'll bide our time until a genocidal attack occurs. The likely target, of course, will be Israel. Short of preemptive attack, the West can do little to deter Iran from cobbling together a nuclear device. Once Iran joins that club, all bets are off; it will be a matter of time before the theocracy will use its newly-found weapon. And the same peace-loving folks who decry violence will one day pay homage to the innumerable victims of the Islamic bomb, seeing no connection between their inaction and the ultimate result.
Posted by: kreiz at August 12, 2006 10:43 PM
Rick Moran at Rightwing Nuthouse puts its pretty well in a post captioned "The New Middle East":
"The state of Israel awoke this morning to the realization that their world has suddenly become a lot more dangerous. And that’s saying something. Given that their country is surrounded by enemies that wish to annihilate them, it is hard to imagine how their precarious situation could have gotten any worse. But the sad fact is that the forces representing anti-modernism, anti-Semitism, and genocide are in the ascendancy today over those who represent freedom, tolerance, and civilization."
Posted by: kreiz at August 12, 2006 10:58 PM
At some future date, when things have deteriorated even further, AND assuming that there are people in the West who are in power who actually care about their civilization, they will likely consider lifting the ban on biological and chemical weapons. I'm talking about ugly new creations derived from the merging of nanothech, biotech, and genetic engineering. Also, these future leaders will be forced to take a different view of "civilians" in enemy territory.
Wiping out Waziristan will have a lot more appeal than boots on the ground. God help us all.
Posted by: Roderick Reilly at August 15, 2006 1:02 PM