Deterrence : The logic of the last war: Would you recommend trench digging ?

Submitted by Jon - a brit in Euroland (France), Jul 18, 2006 at 11:56

Reasoning in terms of deterrence, or Mutually Assured Destruction feels to me a little like trying to build a Maginot Line. Not that Israel does'nt need fences and walls, but probably we are looking into a future of offensive defence layered onto all the previously accepted models.
The utter destruction of Hezbollah is obviously a good thing, as such it seems also that the leaders of the Arab "world" are looking forward to seing Israel do the dirty work for them. The rolling back of any legitimacy (as seen from the non-arab world) for such organisations is also a good thing, and Israel has achieved exactly this by doing all this by the book, by taking a "first strike" and taking no subsequent nonsense.

The feat of doing this while killing fewer innocent civilians than the average daily toll in Iraq will not go down too badly when the dust settles. Of course all this is highly suspiciouly coincidental with the world's need (also the arab world's need, after all we do inhabit the same planet) to take extreme measures with Iran's leadership and their belligerant position.

Israel's performance in Lebanon, being infinitely more efficient in more trying circumstances than the US's results in Iraq suggest that someone is learning something. I'm sure that the Pentagon is on-net, and learning fast, and soon we shall see the results over Iran before Israel is obligated by the clear threat to its population to do the job itself.

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