Two words: Mayberry Machiavellis

Posted September 18, 2006 1:54 PM by Greg London

One phrase: Reprisal in Iraq.

Posted September 18, 2006 2:11 PM by Terry Karney

Oh @#$%^&*!!!

What part of "NO!!!" are they not understanding? Do they have a clue what can, will, happen if they do this? Do they really seriously want the entire world mad at us, possibly to the point of saying 'you can go to hsll now, thankyouverymuch'?

Can we have the black UN helicopters come in and take over, please, now?

Posted September 18, 2006 2:12 PM by P J Evans

Is there no end to the folly of this administration?

Is that a trick question?

Posted September 18, 2006 2:21 PM by Serge

If you look at the Iraq war timeline, and see how many times the administration claimed "Nobody is considering a military option at this point" all the while they're planning military options to invade Iraq, you might get the sinking feeling that they've not only planned this out, but they've figured out that launching it just before the elections would be a boost for Republican politicians.

Never mind that if they do this, the US won't exist by the swearing in ceremony. Just annoying details there...

Posted September 18, 2006 2:33 PM by Greg London

That means they’ve already decided on the military option.

They probably decided on it back in 2001 when they were planning the invasion of Iraq. All they have to do is roll across the border, right? Right?

Oh, and put me down for $40 on waves of anti-American hatred. From everywhere.

Posted September 18, 2006 2:39 PM by Harry Connolly

Well, if they go for it. something tells me a draft should follow quickly. After the elections, of course...

Posted September 18, 2006 2:48 PM by Serge

Are the professionals trying to remind tha amateurs about logistics?

Of course I have a blog

Posted September 18, 2006 2:53 PM by David Dvorkin

"Do they really seriously want the entire world mad at us[?]"

Ever meet -- maybe at a convention, or on a city bus, or waiting in line at the DMV -- a irritating, irritable, weird-affect chip-on-his-shoulder dork who seems to revel in others' disdain for him? Whose core identity comes from some offbeat belief or ideal, and seems to believe that having others attack him for it is all the more justification for holding it?

I think we've got a bunch of guys like that in charge.

Posted September 18, 2006 2:59 PM by Stefan Jones

I gotcher October surprise right here.

Posted September 18, 2006 3:14 PM by Lizzy L

What about the folks in the Administration who really want Armegeddon? The Pre-Millennial Dispensationists? Are we really sure that that isn't the whole point?

Posted September 18, 2006 3:15 PM by theophylact

And of course Time goes with the cover illo of the scary guy who doesn't actually have anything to do with Iran's military.

Posted September 18, 2006 3:20 PM by Avram

I wholeheartedly agree with your assesment about war in Iran. Best case scenario: it hardens relations between the "west" and the "moslem world" (not to mention the fact that the two are by now completely intertwined, and thus we have trouble at our doorstep, in our living room and everywhere else). Worst case scenario: oh. My God.

But I had a question: you said bombing campaigns do not slow down industrial production. Is that really true? It seems intuitively and historically not to be the case: stuff is destroyed, production slows down. My understanding of the WWII bombing campaign on Germany was that it did slow down production. Am I wrong, and if so, why?

Posted September 18, 2006 3:24 PM by Martin GL

War with Iran would be both a complete failure and a massive disaster for everyone involved.

1) Oil prices would quickly rise to $100/barrel, with US gas going to IMO $4.00+/gallon.

2) If the goal would be to stop Iranian nuclear research and production, it would fail from the start. The Iranians have been busily digging deep under their mountains to put their facilities, and even if we could destroy them we have no idea where they all are.

3) Iran is a big place; some ground troops would have to be needed even if it were just SF types to provide ground surveillance and BDA. How will they be supplied and protected?

4) If Rumsfeld and Co. thought that fighting "terrorists" in Iraq kept them from going somewhere else, he has no idea what awaits if they go after Iran.

5) Iran may not have all that great a military, but they damn sure have a better one than Iraq and they've invested heavily in air defense (learned a little from Iraq War I and II). Going after their sites won't be easy or cheap.

Not to mention the total loss of any remaining worldwide goodwill even from allies, and outright opposition from neutrals and rivals.

Posted September 18, 2006 3:29 PM by John

Two points:

1) We are so considering the military option. It is a standard of every branch of the military, even the Coast Guard, that they have contingency plans for attacking, invading, and holding every point on the globe. We have an invasion plan for Canada, for gods sake... Invasion plans for Iran have been kept updated since WWII, and have had special teams working on them since the hostage crisis of 1979. Exit strategies, of course, cost extra and are not included with the basic package.

2) You cannot prevent a nation from gaining nuclear weapons if it, A) Has lots of money and, B) Has access to the information needed. Iran has both. Information from other "rogue" states is flowing in, and it is known that several top nuclear scientists from the old Soviet Union have been employed by Iran. We would be far better off planning to contain Iran instead of preventing it from gaining an arsenal.

It is my opinion, from both tone and wording of Iranian statements of the past few years, that Iran is not trying to develop a nuclear weapon, they are trying to reproduce one. I think they have acquired at least one from the old Soviet arsenal. It is well known that not all Soviet warheads are accounted for. Russia claims they are all there, but poor record keeping makes it appear that as much as 5% of the stockpile is missing. I'm willing to bet that N. Korea and Iran could account for at least a couple...

Posted September 18, 2006 3:30 PM by Edward Oleander

It's counterintuitive, but German industrial production in general increased throughout the war. The supporters of air power say "Yes, but it didn't increase as fast as it would have if we hadn't been bombing!" but this strikes me special pleading.

Even at the end, the German people didn't rise up and overthrow Hitler. (Nor did the British rise up and overthrow Churchill, or the Japanese rise up and overthrow the Emperor.) The idea that bombing by foreigners will make the people rise up against their government is a fool's dream.

Posted September 18, 2006 3:45 PM by James D. Macdonald

Invading Iran while we are fighting in Iraq strikes me as eerily similar to when we invaded China while we were fighting in Korea.

Posted September 18, 2006 3:51 PM by TomB

Edward Oleander writes: "We are so considering the military option."

'Considering' implies that the decision hasn't been made. I don't think that's the case. They considered it, and now they're preparing for war.

Posted September 18, 2006 3:53 PM by Jon H

Martin GL: (#13)

Germany managed to increase the production of airplanes, and tanks, throughout the war.

There are still arguments about the how, and why; which those who favor Douhet style theories saying the cause was Germany not having production ramped up in the way needed for modern war, and so all they were doing was creating the production train they should have made before the war (which would, of course, have been destroyed).

This fail to take into account that it means they managed, in the face of all out (round the clock, by 1943) bombardment to build new capacity.

The other argument is that, in the face of the attacks they dispersed the production lines and that the bombing was a wasted effort (other than it's advantage to morale on the Allied side; which could point to things being done) which diverted production from things which would have been useful during the invasion.

What really hurt Germany was the bombing of oil fields, and other restrictions on fuel.

Stats on production

Armored vehicle stats

Posted September 18, 2006 3:58 PM by Terry Karney

#14 (John) writ: War with Iran would be both a complete failure and a massive disaster for everyone involved.

Yowsa. And let us not forget that in order to push back Iran's nuclear capabilities several years, we'd undoubtedly need to bomb nuclear facilities. You know, the ones that enrich Plutonium or Uranium. How can we possibly expect that anyone wouldn't be mad at us for the fallout from that idiocy.

Posted September 18, 2006 4:06 PM by Casey

message #8

Posted September 18, 2006 4:16 PM by Greg London sees possible spam

Something no one here's mentioned yet (that I noticed - my bad if I skimmed too quickly)... For y'all who are discussing "strategic bombing", remember this: this is also an administration that has pushed aggressively to destigmatize the concept of nuclear use and 'first strikes'.

Just thought I'd toss that out there.

Posted September 18, 2006 4:21 PM by protected static

What really hurt Germany was the bombing of oil fields, and other restrictions on fuel.

I think Rommel was in africa, headed towards the oil in the middle east. Yes?

Posted September 18, 2006 4:21 PM by Greg London

Greg: #8 looks okay to me - he seems to be using a 'sig' line, which might be a breach of bloggy norms, but still - not spam. Also, he's posted (one) previous comment...

Posted September 18, 2006 4:26 PM by protected static

"Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Idiot fights a war on twelve fronts."

They're just getting started...

Posted September 18, 2006 4:49 PM by Zander

Speaking of oil -- how much of the world's oil comes from Iran?

Answer: lots.

What's the rest of the oil-producing world going to do if we bomb Iran? Whatever they do, watch the prices shoot up.

What's the rest of the oil-utilising world (i.e. every developed and developing nation) going to do if that happens?

And oh, yes...Bombers run on oil.

A five year old could understand this. So what am I missing?

Posted September 18, 2006 5:04 PM by Lizzy L

Many years ago I read a Fletcher Pratt story in which the rest of the world simply got fed up and combined to invade America.

Maybe I should find a copy and send it to Bush.

Posted September 18, 2006 5:09 PM by Farah

And oh, yes...Bombers run on oil.

Actually, I just saw something on the news the other day about an Air Force biofuel program. They're looking (fast!) for an alternative to petroleum for their aircraft.

Posted September 18, 2006 5:10 PM by protected static

I can just see it now, George announcing the 'coalition' he will have built for the Iran war: Tonga, Fiji, Belize, Mauritius, and Grand Fenwick.

Posted September 18, 2006 5:15 PM by Fragano Ledgister

protected static @ 28:

'looking for an alternative fuel' remeinds me of one of the Foreigner novels, where a party of people is described as 'consuming enough alcohol to power an airplane into orbit'.

Posted September 18, 2006 5:15 PM by P J Evans

Thanks for the replies. Interesting.

Posted September 18, 2006 5:21 PM by Martin GL

Fragano: You forgot Poland.

Posted September 18, 2006 5:24 PM by protected static

When it comes to nuclear weapons, possession is a meaningless statistic. All that matters is using them.

Class of one, my friends, a class of one.

Which is why you can't tell the world 'We're wise enough to have them, you're not'. Give them up and you might stand a chance talking to Ahminadinijad. Threaten him and it is a dialogue of the deaf. He wants you to kill him. He wants to be a martyr. He wants to go to Paradise.

Mr President, he just isn't frightened of you. You can't shock him and he definitely isn't in awe of you.

Militarily, there is only one army that could reasonably consider invading Iraq with any prospect of not getting their arses severely kicked, and I don't see the Peoples Republic putting their 7m men at Mr Bush's disposal. Do you?

Posted September 18, 2006 5:34 PM by Martyn Taylor

A five year old could understand this. So what am I missing?

A nice fat portfolio of oil stocks.

Posted September 18, 2006 5:42 PM by TomB

Something no one here's mentioned yet (that I noticed - my bad if I skimmed too quickly)... For y'all who are discussing "strategic bombing", remember this: this is also an administration that has pushed aggressively to destigmatize the concept of nuclear use and 'first strikes'.

Tristero is convinced that this is the plan: Link

Posted September 18, 2006 5:44 PM by DonBoy

DonBoy: Days before I read that piece by Tristero, I learned that my brother-in-law's Air Force squadron was being suddenly and quite unexpectedly mobilized for parts unknown. I am also convinced that it is the plan, but then I've got a doom-and-gloom streak. I'd be glad to be proven wrong.

Posted September 18, 2006 6:08 PM by protected static

From the mother jones Iraq war timeline:

June 2002: "Operation Southern Focus" begins, a US bombing campaign intended to lay the groundwork for invasion. During these 9 months leading up to the invasion, the military admits it flew 21,736 sorties against Iraq. Four months after it starts, October 2002, Bush tells the public that he hopes to avoid the use of force.

These people are so full of shite that their eyes are brown.

I believe nothing from this administration tells me, about Iraq, Iran, or anything else.

Posted September 18, 2006 6:14 PM by Greg London

#18 'Considering' implies that the decision hasn't been made. I don't think that's the case. They considered it, and now they're preparing for war.

I think that, instead, it's Bush and his political cronies, who have already decided on war with Iran. That leaves it far from a certainty. The military commanders, as well as the bureaucracy, will work to avoid it. Bush will be bothering the generals to keep their invasion plans current to the minute, just like he did before the Iraq invasion.

But to say the issue is resolved already gives too much credit to Bushy Squirrel's ability to cohesively lead his own government. He rammed his Iraqi misadventure through on the strength of 9/11, but this time he'll have a lot more trouble. After all, the Bush policy of "wishing will make it so" can only go so far. Even the most gung-ho general knows we will need to reinstate the draft to invade Iran...

Having said that, I am willing to bet that there are plans for air strikes that could be implemented on a moments notice, and that no amount of common sense could prevent. I could see some generals being happy to push that idea in hopes it would sate the Shrub for a while.

Posted September 18, 2006 6:15 PM by Edward Oleander

Remember, remember the fifth^H^H^H^H^H seventh of November

Posted September 18, 2006 6:20 PM by Stefan Jones

I note with interest the frantic smoke signals coming out of the British military for the past six months ("the engine's overheating! She cannae take it, cap'n!") and the actual formal ruling-out of British involvement in military action against Iran some months ago.

Translation: even Mini-Me (Blair) isn't stupid enough to fall for the same trick three times running. Bush is on his own this time (except possibly for Olmert).

But enough about the reality-based community: what are the domestic US political implications if the POTUS decides to Bushwhack Iran?

I see three possible scenarios here, one of which (a land invasion) isn't going to happen outside of the neocon's fevered think-tanks. The other two are conventional airborn strikes, and a pre-emptive nuclear strike.

The pre-emptive nuclear strike is ... well, I'd say it's horrendously risky, but that'd be an understatement. Expect any such strike to collapse what's left of the international non-proliferation framework, not to mention goosing that nice Vlad fellow in the Kremlin. Right now, he's sitting on an immense possible profit centre that he's kindly refrained from exploiting, namely the ability to sell off-the-shelf strategic nuclear deterrents (dual-key, come with en-suite commissar to prevent re-targeting on Moscow, comrade) to all comers. Betcha if the US nukes Iran he starts selling SS-18s, one previous owner, full service history, as-new, even before the fallout drops. And that's before Pakistan joins in! Ooh, the fun and games we'll have if the NPT implodes and Russia goes back to the big swinging dick business! (And if this is to be believed they're already 80% of the way there. Their economy's been growing at upwards of 9% per annum ever since they gave Yeltsin the heave-ho, and the price of oil is only helping; before long they'll be back up to USSR levels of productivity, only re-tooled with modern tech and management skills and without the deadweight of the Near Abroad to hold them back.)

The "conventional" air strike is much less likely to rock the boat and should play mostly as well in Peoria. More importantly, I suspect the recycled Cold Warriors in the Bush cabinet (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice ... need I go on?) may have second thoughts about poking the sleeping bear with a sharpie even if their geographically-challenged figurehead thinks that immanetizing the eschaton is the best way to energize his base in time for the election.

To add to the fun, Eid ul-Fitr falls on October 24th this year. Now that's the kind of October surprise we can live without, right?

Posted September 18, 2006 6:57 PM by Charlie Stross

Wait a minute. Just a few days ago, a few republicans (can't remember who) were proposing 4 heavily fortified bases in Iraq.

My guess is that the plan is to abandon most of Iraq to Iranian funded terrorists after a strike on Iran, fortify a few bases inside the country, and create a few "green zones" based on oil production.

Bush has been advised on what would happen in Iraq if he invades Iran. He's got plans for an invasion anyway. It all fits. Think about it.

Posted September 18, 2006 7:01 PM by Josh Jasper

Hate to remind everybody of this, but figuring out and planning for consequences aren't this (US) administration's strong suit. Plus, they have that business plan Wolfowitz wrote out for GHW Bush.

Posted September 18, 2006 7:01 PM by Steve Buchheit

IIRC the PNAC was written after GHWB lost.

Nuking Iran is suicidal, not that this is likely to dissuade the "decider", because it not only makes getting nukes more attractive, it puts a premium on being able to deliver them to distant targets.

China doesn't want her oil interrupted, but Russia would like to be able to push south into Iran (warm water ports baby. Not gonna happen, but they can dream). Certainly they can try to connive access in exchange for keeping us away).

I just hope the guys who'd be flying the payload will refuse.

Posted September 18, 2006 7:15 PM by Terry Karney

Speaking of oil, how much of China's oil comes from Iran? Lots.

What happens when you choke China's economy? They get pissed and firesale US debt.

What can the US do about it? Nothing. China has nuclear weapons and ICBMs.

What happens to the US? We die.

Posted September 18, 2006 7:18 PM by Erik V. Olson

Eric at 44: yeah. I was goin' there. Except, no I don't think we die, if by that you mean we get nuked or invaded. But it's possible we get cold, poor, immobile and chaotic very fast.

Greg, I seem to remember that somewhere recently you were trying to come up with a doomsday scenario. Don't wish so loud.

Charlie Stross, nice riff. "I suspect the recycled Cold Warriors in the Bush cabinet (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice ... need I go on?) may have second thoughts about poking the sleeping bear with a sharpie even if their geographically-challenged figurehead thinks that immanetizing the eschaton is the best way to energize his base in time for the election."

Posted September 18, 2006 8:13 PM by Lizzy L

I've been worried about this for a long time, but the recent signals are genuinely terrifying.

So the question: what can we do? I'm pretty convinced that the answer is "nothing" but I'd sure like to be persuaded otherwise. But given the mindset of the people in charge, and the time frame, and the existing structures of control... what? (It ain't like they're going to listen to protests. Or Congress, even if they were on the side of sanity.)

Posted September 18, 2006 8:35 PM by Stephen Frug

you were trying to come up with a doomsday scenario.

hm, I was? Lemme check.... No, no shortage of doom in the ol' scenario cabinet. Cripes, I just added a whole manilla folder just for the Pope's recent comments about Islam that appear to be pouring magnesium on the fire. ... I got so much doom and gloom that I make Eoyore look like Mary Poppins. ... Are you sure it was me?

I do recall trying to think of a scenario that civilians are familiar with, that isn't hyped as all raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, that would evoke a more realistic view of the cl*st*rf*ck that war is. An anti-A-Team scenario, as it were. I believe I settled on a forced quarantine of an entire city in response to a virus scare. Not something you do on vapor-intel.

But I got so many doomsday scenarios already, I can't imagine I was actually looking for more. In fact, I could use a chance to purge the cabinets, if you'd like to take some for me. As far as I can tell, we're six ways and a hair's breadth from from toppling this civilization into the next dark ages. And we've got to hold the powerder keg together till 2009? While Piglet is running around, using a stick of dynamite as a candle? Tigger's got a shotgun? Rabbit's drafting an army of rabbits? And Owl is conspiring to take over the 40-acre wood?

Is that my tail over there? Not that it really matters.

No, no shortage of doomsday here.

Posted September 18, 2006 8:53 PM by Greg London

They want to employ the Truman script. "Spare our army the invasion of Iran," etc.

Posted September 18, 2006 9:39 PM by sara

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/13/AR2006091302052.html

U.N. inspectors investigating Iran's nuclear program angrily complained to the Bush administration and to a Republican congressman yesterday about a recent House committee report on Iran's capabilities, calling parts of the document "outrageous and dishonest" and offering evidence to refute its central claims.

Officials of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency said in a letter that the report contained some "erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated statements." The letter, signed by a senior director at the agency, was addressed to Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, which issued the report. A copy was hand-delivered to Gregory L. Schulte, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA in Vienna.

Posted September 18, 2006 10:12 PM by James D. Macdonald

Stephen (46) --

You are the Sovereign People. These idiots work for you. Their only legitimacy stems from your consent. You can fire them.

Martin GL (13) --

Airpower is good for three things, in this order of importance -- reconnaissance, long range artillery support of ground operations, and interdiction of the other fellow trying to do the two important tasks.

Major institutional problem -- the USAF road to promotion is through being a fighter jock, which is the least important airpower job; in consequence, the USAF's institutional priorities have had Beelzebub bugger them blind with a bale of basil lo these many long years.

There are three kinds of targets -- area, fixed, and opportunity.

Area targets are big bunches of distributed, interconnected something where you can't identify the truly important bits, so blowing up as much of it as you can is as well as you can hope to do. (Rail yards, formations of troops, unobserved road junctions are examples of area targets.)

Fixed targets can't move -- bridges, port facilities like drydocks, power generation facilities like dams and generator houses, any kind of hardened installation like a command bunker -- and are generally defended, hardened, or decoyed as much as practical. This is the sort of target that causes substantial losses to the attacking forces and which provides the use case for conventional cruise missiles.

Opportunity targets are things that you want to blow up but can't find without going to look; moving vehicles, ships at sea, advancing formations of troops, trains (as distinct from train tracks), aircraft in the air, and so on. Opportunity targets are short decision loop targets, require an observer (this is what forward air controllers do) to designate them, and are generally what you would traditionally expect tactical air/close air support to do.

Both area targets -- oil fields, train yards -- and fixed targets -- ball bearing factories, power dams, oil refineries, canal gates, bridges -- can be considered "strategic air targets" in traditional uses of the term.

It turns out that you can hurt the other guy, even critically, by pounding the logistical infrastructure, particularly the high capital investment, long lead time items like road and rail tunnels in mountains, hydroelectric dams, and major road and rail bridges, in conjunction with other attack. (This mattered enormously when the Allies were advancing through France after D-Day, frex. (The Red Army used a different doctrine with greater emphasis on tube artillery.))

What you can't do is significantly cut industrial production -- it distributes -- or public morale -- people get more pissed at the people dropping HE on them than at the people responsible for getting them into the war, even if they think their leaders did in fact start the war for bad reasons.

The other thing you can't do -- we're back to that first job again, reconnaissance -- is effectively evaluate how good a job you're doing against pretty much all targets, especially hardened targets.

You can usually tell that you blew the bridge up; what you can't tell is what you did to the bridge pier foundations, which is what tells you how long that bridge will be out of service. Against something like a bunker, where you didn't know for sure that you had a bunker there to target in the first place, it's hellishly difficult to tell how badly damaged it was.

The best single example of this sort of problem I can think of is Tirpitz, repeatedly attacked (at high cost and risk) after the ship was disabled because there was no way for the aerial reconnaissance to tell that previous attacks had been successful.

And that's an anchored ship, one of the simplest possible candidates; bunkers that have been deliberately hardened have also been deliberately concealed, decoyed, and duplicated. An attempt to bomb Iran's nuclear program would be based on a long chain of maybe, and could very plausibly do no damage whatsoever to that nuclear program.

Immense damage to the US, though -- you have to consider that the scenario of an offensive use of nuclear weapons failing to destroy the objective has a indeterminate but significant probability, purely through bad targetting.

Posted September 18, 2006 10:17 PM by Graydon

How many countries can we unite in anti-American rage?

We're first in the line to be voted off the planet, I suspect. We have one party that's busy stoking the fire with things like 'head-in-the-sand liberals' (have they noticed who's trying to stop this oncoming trainwreck? It ain't the conservatives). We have another party that is, at the top, most of it so afraid of scaring the train crew that it isn't going to do anything useful. We have a whole helluva lot of pissed off people who can see said trainwreck coming, but are being told to STFU because, well, we-the-people aren't supposed to be able to see the trainwreck coming.

We are SOOO screwed.

Posted September 18, 2006 10:51 PM by P J Evans

#27 Many years ago I read a Fletcher Pratt story in which the rest of the world simply got fed up and combined to invade America.

Nah, that would be silly and completely unnecessary. Much easier for China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, etc. to simply dump billions 'n billions (trillions actually) of US dollar bonds and make the towering mountain of Bush debt drop like a, well, like a nuclear bomb actually... 1929 and 1987 would be "minor market corrections" in comparison.

"True conservatives" would love it as it would cut the federal government down to size - to nothing in fact. Millions would starve and five digit inflation rates would rule, but who cares when a favourite economic theory is at stake!

Still, perhaps George will prove better at handling economic depressions than hurricanes, democracy and keeping gas prices down...

Posted September 18, 2006 10:55 PM by David S.

Greg @ 47: while Christopher Robin tiptoes out of the frame, muttering, "There's a hell of a good universe next door, let's go..."

Posted September 18, 2006 11:04 PM by Lizzy L

sara:

They want to employ the Truman script. "Spare our army the invasion of Iran," etc.

I think there's a big difference here. When I took "History of the Atomic Bomb" in college I did a paper on Truman's decision based on the information he had at the time. I think he really believed the figures he was given about five million dead and maimed on both sides if the U.S. invaded Japan to end the war. As far as Bush and his neocon advisors go, I think they believe if they can hit Iran hard enough they'll get their "New American Century" and Iraq will be a minor footnote. One is an attempt to stop a predicted slaughter, the other is an attempt to get out of a hog-wallow by molding a world to match your mindset.

Posted September 18, 2006 11:13 PM by Bruce E. Durocher II

You are the Sovereign People. These idiots work for you. Their only legitimacy stems from your consent. You can fire them.

But what we're talking about is an attack before the election -- or, perhaps, after the election but before the seating of the new Congress. How can we "fire them"? It's all very well to repeat the noble sentiments of Jefferson et. al., but practically speaking I can't see how it might be done.

Not to mention the possibility that, even if they wait for the new Congress, even if we win in November... they may not think that they need to care. The doctrines of John Yoo et. al. imply they don't. And these actions might not be "legitimate", but they would be no less damaging for that.

Posted September 18, 2006 11:25 PM by Stephen Frug

Satire someone needs to write:

An illustrated guide on draft dodging for Young Republicans, with sections on sneaking into Canada, the safest place to shoot yourself in the foot, and how to cross-dress convincingly.

Posted September 18, 2006 11:25 PM by Stefan Jones

The biggest problem with nuking Iran is that you'd irradiate the oil, negating the reason for going there in the first place. This would be the textbook definition of pyrrhic victory.

Posted September 18, 2006 11:55 PM by Glenn Hauman

Graydon: "You can fire them."

You may also want to think about having security escort them out of the building before they have a chance to clean out their offices.

Posted September 19, 2006 12:00 AM by j h woodyatt

To add to the remarks of David@52: If the Chinese want to hurt us, for any reason, the debt bomb is certainly in their arsenal. I'm not sure they weren't planning to drop it anyway.

The Chinese clearly do plan as a government with a pretty long horizon. Over the past few years, they've signed energy contracts far and wide. (In addition to the rogue's gallery they've now got an interest in propping up --- Iran; Sudan, home of the Darfur genocide; the increasingly worrisome Putin regime in Russia; etc. --- their willingness to cut a deal with anyone that owns an oil well has also gotten them into a deal with those nice folks from Canada). Part of this planning has got to be their structuring of their debt load. They've got economic wizards groomed nearly from birth to manage their debt holdings, and I find it difficult to imagine that they are blind to the consequences of their purchases. So, for example, when they decide to buy mortgage bonds, I expect they do so with a full awareness that their purchases help to run up the U.S. housing bubble --- running up the damage when it inevitably pops.

When you talk about stuff like this with economists of a traditional bent, they will respond quite rationally that if the Chinese engineered a collapse of the U.S. economy, they would hurt themselves in the process. And why would they do that?

Well, they do have declared ambitions to be a superpower, which requires cutting down the U.S. a notch, if not two. If the alternative, in their minds, is an actual war...

Posted September 19, 2006 12:05 AM by "Charles Dodgson"

#49 (Article from the Washingon Post about UN nuclear inspectors) -- I see the tiniest bit of a possible glimmer of hope here. If the Post is reporting this then at least someone is actually publishing real facts this time, not just repeating the Bush party line. Part of the problem with the last big mess was that no one in the media came forward and said, "You know, it looks like there might not really be WMD in Iraq, and could you explain again why we're invading?"

Well, I said it was a small glimmer. But maybe some people in the media don't want to get fooled again.

Posted September 19, 2006 12:16 AM by Lisa Goldstein

Via Atrios, we have this little bit from Think Progress highlighting one expert's opinion that we are already operating in Iran:

BLITZER: You think it’s possible there is a little psychological warfare being played on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to rattle him. To spread the word. To put out this kind of information. To get him nervous, perhaps a little bit more agreeable to the diplomatic option.

GARDINER: It’s possible. It’s also possible that this path was selected a long time ago. You recall that even before Gulf II that a time when the president said we have no plan. I have no plan on my desk. In the summer of 2002 we began bombing Iraq. Operation Southern Focus, without congressional approval, without the U.N. sanctions, we went ahead and began bombing.

BLITZER: The argument at that time is if there were violations of the no-fly zone, U.S. war planes were flying in the north and the south and there were rockets or anti-aircraft fire going up, they could take those out.

GARDINER: Yes, but it was a campaign to begin the war before the war began. You know, I would suggest the evidence is there.

BLITZER: You see a similar pattern right now.

GARDINER: Exactly.

Posted September 19, 2006 1:38 AM by protected static

I wonder if the Congress would go along with an invasion of Iran. The Iraqi war isn't popular any more, and elections are coming up.

I don't think the Chinese are likely to drop the debt bomb deliberately--it would be devastating to them. The real risk there, I think, is the unforseen event.

Posted September 19, 2006 2:13 AM by Randolph Fritz

Ask yourself what would happen if the U.S. were tied up in Iran/Syria/Turkey/Iraq/Afghanistan/Gulf/FooBarBaz when the PRC finally decided to bring the Taiwan province into a more harmonious relationship with the mainland.

I keep asking: do they really mean to give up Taiwan in exchange for their ExcellentAdventure™ in Iran? The answer I keep getting back: they really don't think China will be able to take Taiwan. Everything will be fine. Stop worrying.

Posted September 19, 2006 2:50 AM by j h woodyatt

Graydon: thanks, your reply made a lot of sense. So the problem with strategic bombing of industry is that the industry is much more capable of distributing than we generally think it is. The hammer-and-beehive problem. Thanks for clearing that up.

Posted September 19, 2006 2:56 AM by Martin GL

David S. #52: Isn't that more or less what we did to the USSR? Pushed them into running their economy at a higher and higher deficit until it finally collapsed?

Posted September 19, 2006 3:11 AM by Lee

#65: The USSR basically did it to itself. "We have great economy! We have world's largest microchips!"

The most important things that the West did were to continue to exist, to thrive as much as possible, and to remain as true as possible to its ideals. 'Pushing' the Soviet bloc this way or that was a marginal effect at most.

And we should not discount Gorbachev's contribution of letting the empire deflate peacefully. There aren't too many examples of that in history, and it could well have gone the other way.

Posted September 19, 2006 3:55 AM by Doug

Oh crud. That means we're going to be playing in Iran too... our PM couldn't possibly be left out of any Coalition of the Daft. As someone else so clearly put it: if the US attempted to invade Mars, Australia would send a battalion or two. We're good little colonial lapdogs, we are.

Damn.

I was going to ask why nobody's assassinated this twit yet, then I realised: nothing to get damaged in the head, and the heart is far too small a target.

Posted September 19, 2006 3:58 AM by Meg Thornton

In the mention of the Chinese Debt Bomb, there's something Tom Clancy wrote that comes to mind.

In one of his novels, the bad guys wreck the US stock market mechanisms, so nobody knows what was traded. It looks very contrived as a scenario.

And a part of the political response is to point out that all the assets are still there. It doesn't really matter which speculator owns the shares in the factory, it's still turning out goods to sell.

Well, I'm not sure that works, but that is the position that China is in. They drop the Debt Bomb, and they still have the factories. They're designing and producing computer hardware, even CPU chips. They don't even need Taiwan.

As for invading Taiwan, the logistics are pretty hard. I don't think an opposed landing can work, not without a huge amount of specialised amphibious warfare shipping. It isn't going to be the sort of long-range operation that was done at Okinawa, but I doubt that even the USA has the amphibs to do it from a mainland base.

It's not just nuclear weapons that make another D-Day impossible. Even with all the modern defenses for the ships, what would a salvo of anti-ship missiles do to you? Could the Chinese Navy protect the assault force from a salvo-launch of modern sea-skimmers?

But dropping the Debt Bomb might make a reunion more attractive to Taiwan, maybe more a change of umbrella than actual political union, a sort of EU of the Far East.

But, after seeing some of the sneers from some Americans, who say the EU is a failure because it can't agree to invade anyone, I reckon it's likely that such a scenario is going to be dismissed. They seem to define a nation's existence and worth through the glories of war.

While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind,"
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind,

Posted September 19, 2006 4:54 AM by Dave Bell

#67 ::: -- "I was going to ask why nobody's assassinated this twit yet" [...]

That's the first time I've seen the "a" word used in years (possibly because I move in the wrong circles, or the right ones), even in remote speculation. The short answer seems to be "look at the order of succession". Longer ones would probably include words & phrases like "martyr", "the Club NeoCon", and "a very substantial percentage of the American voters". *sigh* Possibly installing a Spindizzy Drive and sending the entire area inside the Beltway into distant Space at a moment when preactically everyone important is there would work, but I'm not sure it would be a safe bet.

I am as sure as I ever am of anything that if we institute a military strike at Iran (even in response to something on their part that we've managed to provoke) it'll be at least a generation, and probably a century, before the U. S. could possibly regain Major Nation status in the world. At best.

Posted September 19, 2006 5:01 AM by Don Fitch

Assassinating Bush would just amount to replacing the monkey with the organ grinder. And, while I can think of any number of entertaining scenarios that involve members of the Bush regime and the words "organ grinder", that isn't one of them.

I don't know how far down the line of succession you'd have to go before reaching someone sane, but I strongly suspect it has at least two digits, and I even more strongly suspect that phrases like "state of emergency" would start showing up before you got halfway there.

Posted September 19, 2006 5:36 AM by Ross Smith

#16: James D. MacDonald: "Even at the end, the German people didn't rise up and overthrow Hitler. (Nor did the British rise up and overthrow Churchill, or the Japanese rise up and overthrow the Emperor.) The idea that bombing by foreigners will make the people rise up against their government is a fool's dream."

To the contrary: the merciless and repeated fire-bombing of Japan had a huge impact on the willingness of the civilian population to fight, and doubtlessly brought the war to a swifter end, if not a more humane one. Did the Japanese overthrow the Emperor? It all depends on your point of view--the Emperor's word was literally law in pre-war Japan. He has no power under the post-war constitution. The Japanese people seem quite content with this.

Ever heard of Curtis LeMay? He found himself a whole military strategy in napalm. Under the bombing campaign he designed, most Japanese cities ended the war worse off than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Accounts hold that more than 100,000 people died in a single night in Tokyo. The popuation was halved as people fled, leaving no one to work the few remaining factories. By the end of the war, Tokyo had more or less ceased to exist as such. This was such a success, in the opinions of the U.S. military, that they repeated the strategy in Osaka, Kobe, Nagoya, and every other manufacturing center they could hit. In Kobe, they used thermite.

This campaign destroyed most of the urban manufacturing infrastructure in Japan, which was most of the infrastructure in Japan, period. Modernization tends to stay in cities. This didn't merely reduce their ability to produce war materiel: it nearly eliminated it. Why didn't this happen in Germany? Arguably, because they were white. It's a lot harder to justify incurring massive civilian casualities on the enemy when they have the same color skin. See also: internment camps, Japanese-American.

Starving, exhausted, and under-fed people really do start to lose that fightin' spirit. The utter hell that the Japanese went through during the war contributed a great deal to how happy and willing they were to work with the American occupation.

Air power does work. It can very effectively reduce entire cities, population included, to rubble. It has trouble with anything smaller than that, however. Air power, like genocide, isn't a halfway sort of a thing. It's all or nothing. And as much as I'm sure Bush would love to reduce Iran to rubble, I doubt the world would let him get away with it. Again.

Posted September 19, 2006 6:35 AM by Heresiarch

The piece upthread about Russia's nuclear weapons policies (Article here)
does skate over the fuzzy boundary between "strategic" and "tactical" in the classification of nuclear weapons.

I'm not sure that the claim of an 1800-mile range for the sub-launched cruise missile is correct, since some web pages suggest that this applies to a modified air-launched version with extra fuel tanks, making the missile too fat for a torpedo tube.

200 kilotons at a target over a thousand miles away doesn't quite feel tactical to me.

Anyway, I think it's a sign of how the safety of the world has declined. Keeping nuclear weapons at sea, ready to use, is an expensive business, and doing it, when you have plenty of land-based missiles, suggests you expect somebody else to shoot first.

Somebody specific. Aiming a sub-launched missile at an unexpected target is difficult: it's still hard to talk with a sub.

Posted September 19, 2006 6:36 AM by Dave Bell

#69 -- Don, the timescale for America regaining major nation status depends a lot on definition.

And it depends a lot on internal US politics after the fall. Germany, Italy, and Japan don't have the reputation of being run by lunatics after WW2. What happened in those countries broke the chain; in some senses they're not the same countries.

A USA that does something else insane under Bush, and combines throwing him out with a continuation of the same political system--many of the same people in Congress and the Supreme Court--is going to take a lot longer to regain respect.

The Democratic Party has the big problem that it's never looked like knowing how to be an effective opposition. Especially from the outside, it's hard to see a difference. There's two right-wing parties in America, one looney and one acquiescent, and I rather doubt either would help the reputation of a post-disaster USA.

Where's the political sackcloth and ashes going to come from? Is it going to be, "Yippee, I'm Born Again!", or "Forgive me, for I have sinned"?

Posted September 19, 2006 6:50 AM by Dave Bell

Recently I've thought a few times of the secret behind the collapsed America in Kim Stanley Robinson's The Wild Shore. In some bitter momens I almost think it'd be a good idea for the world as a whole.

Posted September 19, 2006 7:07 AM by Bruce Baugh

Protected Static #32: Somehow, I can't see a Polish battalion (about all that the Poles could send) attacking Isfahan.

I don't doubt that 'Real men' still want Tehran, and I don't doubt that Don and Dick are ready to turn every city in Iran to rubble and then make the rubble bounce (after all, they won't have to risk their precious necks). The problem then will be how will they extract the oil, given that the Iranian people will be even less inclined to be liberated than the Iraqis? What army will the US use to hold down Iran?

Posted September 19, 2006 8:02 AM by Fragano Ledgister

8, 21, 24: Greg, it was definitely appropriate to bring that message to my attention, but it's legit. DD is a minor pro, long known in the SF community.

David Dvorkin, you have inadvertently duplicated a message style and format used by comment spammers. I really think you need to lose the linked .sig line. People are going to continue to mistake it for advertising.

Posted September 19, 2006 8:23 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Y'all are being a little more apocalyptic about the world than is strictly necessary.

True, George W Bush is exactly the type of idiot to whom Londo Molari's advice about the Kingdom of Idiots applies. (BTW, best use of Babylon 5 quote ever, to Zander in #25.) And, he is stupid enough to start an air war in Iran, and is not likely to accomplish any desirable goal with it except by applying a level of genocidal force that, frankly, even he probably can't get away with.

As for the rest, I think the world view being expressed here is excessively pessimistic.

No one will lift a finger to defend Iran, except rhetorically. To the extent that an American war on Iran is rhetorically useful to attack the United States, it will be used that way. The global hostility to war on Iran is simply the belief - well-founded as far as I can tell - that a war with Iran would be worse for international politics than an Iran with nuclear weapons would be. No one will stop the US from attacking Iran, no one will take much action afterwards, except maybe Hezbollah. Rather, most of the world is posturing to make sure that when it all goes to hell (which it will) they can claim that it wasn't their fault.

China has no "debt bomb". Go down to Blockbuster's and pick up a neat little Percy Adlon film called Rosalie Goes Shopping. It has Marianne Sägebrecht from Baghdad Café and the guy who played Bill in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. The film is built around an important economic lesson: When you owe the bank a thousand dollars, it's your problem; when you owe the bank half a trillion dollars, it's the bank's problem.

Russia will almost certainly never be the same kind of threat the Soviet Union was. It can't be no matter how it's GDP improves. The reason is because the Soviet Union - and even less the portion of it that is now the Russian Federation - was never the economic centre of the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet empire was unique in history. Most empires impoverish their periphery to enrich the centre. Russia - even before the communists - enriched the periphery by impoverishing the centre. The economic core of the Warsaw Pact was East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and to some extent Poland. The wealthiest regions in the Soviet Union were Georgia, the Baltic republics and parts of southern Ukraine. Russia was politically the centre of the old communist world. Economically, it was the hinterland. Even if it returns to the level of productivity it had before 1990, it will still be a minor player compared to the economic power the old Warsaw Pact could muster.

Posted September 19, 2006 8:24 AM by Scott Martens

The reason the USAAF didn't firebomb German cities as thoroughly as they did the Japanese ones is multi-fold:

-The German cities had already been bombed to mostly rubble anyway. Only the ones in far SE Germany were untouched by the time the technology made it easier to firebomb them (Dresden).

-Japanese industry was dispersed into homes and residential sections of their cities; small part assembly was done in homes and then sent to factories for final assembly. Germany tended to concentrate the industry in areas separate from the residential portions.

-They tried to firebomb German cities (see Hamburg, Dresden). Until Dresden it wasn't that successful without a lot of effort.

-Japanese cities were firetraps, unlike German ones. They burned very easily and their fire suppression was almost medieval.

Posted September 19, 2006 8:46 AM by John

I think this is one "October surprise" that won't happen until after the election. We still need to soften people up a bit, get them used to the idea. A little infotainment could help...

The thing about Iran is, we need to get people thinking about nuclear war. Get them worked up about the Iranian "threat." And on the other hand -- just in case we need to use those nuclear bunker busters -- make the idea of using nukes a little more thinkable.

How about a "high-concept" TV soap featuring a plucky red state small town with a biblical name surviving nuclear catastrophe while those sinners in the big cities apparently burn in hellfire and disappear? Yeah, new CBS show "Jericho" just might do it.

Posted September 19, 2006 8:47 AM by Madison Guy

Fragano: Sorry, Poland was a reference to Bush's remarks during one of the debates... Kerry ripped the dubious nature of our grand 'coalition', running down a list much like yours - whereupon Bush turned to him and said (somewhat petulantly) "You forgot Poland".

And yes, Poland's contribution was little more than a battalion.

Posted September 19, 2006 9:13 AM by protected static

#76. Sorry. Figures. Clueless noob like me fingers a pro post as spam. (sigh)

Posted September 19, 2006 9:19 AM by Greg London

Protected Static #80: I know. When it comes to projecting its power, Poland isn't much stronger than Grand Fenwick (though, come to think of it, Grand Fenwick did defeat the United States).

Posted September 19, 2006 10:27 AM by Fragano Ledgister

David Dvorkin, you have inadvertently duplicated a message style and format used by comment spammers.

Oops. Sorry. My posts will look like this, from now on.

Not that they'll all start with apologies!

Well, I hope not.

Posted September 19, 2006 10:31 AM by David Dvorkin

I think the a-word was being used about the Aussie PM, not about Shrub. Although there is a joke out there, where Shrub has a series of nightly dreams:

One night GW Bush is tossing restlessly in his White House bed. He awakens to see George Washington standing beside him. Bush looks up and asks, “George, what’s the best thing I can do to help the country?” “Set an honest and honorable example; never tell a lie,” Washington advises, then fades away.

The next night, Bush is astir again, when he sees the ghost of Thomas Jefferson moving silently around the bedroom. Bush calls out: “Tom, please! What is the best thing I could do to help the country?” “Respect the Constitution,” Jefferson advises, and then dims from sight.

The third night sleep still evades Bush. He sees the ghost of FDR hovering over his bed. Bush lowers his voice and asks, “Franklin, What is the best thing I could do to help the country?” In that golden voice of his, FDR replies, “Help the less fortunate,” and then he disappears.

Bush still isn’t sleeping well the fourth night. He tosses and turns, and suddenly another figure moves out of the shadows. It’s the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. “Abe,” Bush pleads, “what’s the best thing I can do right now to help the country?” Lincoln pauses, then replies, “Go see a play.”

Posted September 19, 2006 10:50 AM by P J Evans

Scott@77:

WRT Iran: the Iranians are not without retaliatory options of their own, against our troops in Iraq, among other things. Also, consider what such an attack would do to oil prices.

WRT the "debt bomb": We owe billions of dollars to the holders of the bonds in the Bank of China's portfolio. They can sell those bonds at any time. No bonds, no problem.

There would be consequences, of course. The price of dollar-denominated bonds, in dollars, would drop due to the sudden glut --- which is the same thing as saying that U.S. interest rates would suddenly rise. And there would be spillover effects in the currency markets, where the dollar would suddenly wind up being worth a whole lot less than it is now.

But a dollar decline is probably inevitable over the long term anyway --- the most active debate between economists in this field lately is the relative likelihood of a "soft landing", in which the decline is gradual over time, vs. a "hard landing", in which runaway markets force a crash. What professional economists aren't considering, anywhere I've seen, is that the Chinese might deliberately act to cause a crash, when they felt the moment to be right. They aren't considering this for the very good reason that China's economy would be significantly damaged in the process. (After the dollar crashes and the entire U.S. economy tanks, they wind up exporting a whole lot less ot the U.S.!) What I'm suggesting is that the Chinese leadership might be willing to deliberately damage their own economy, if they can arrange to cripple ours in the bargain.

I don't think there's any reasonable debate that the Chinese could hurt us in this fashion. As pure economic management, it would be nuts --- there is room for debate over the amount of damage to their own economy, but it would surely be considerable. As global grand strategy --- these are the heirs of the perpetrators of the Tiananmen square massacre, and hell, it's cheaper than a war.

(BTW, if you're going to do the argument from authority thing, you might want to google around, starting with the terms I've used above, and get a sample of the real debate --- these are somewhat controversial matters, and it's not hard to find someone supporting just about any position with better arguments and credentials than a movie by Percy Adlon, even if Adlon does have the might of "the guy who played Bill" backing him up).

Posted September 19, 2006 10:55 AM by "Charles Dodgson"

#67 -- Megan, the last thing you want is for some fool to assassinate Bush. This would make matters worse, both by who's in the chain of succession and that it would make GWB a martyr.

What would be nice would be shipping the Prez, VP, and some members of his Cabinet (the Secretaries of State and Defense) to the Hague to be tried for war crimes.

Failing that, a nice juicy scandal involving all those mentioned in the above paragraph -- and let it be something that would demand their removal from office, would be acceptable.

Posted September 19, 2006 11:54 AM by Lori Coulson

#67, assassination won't solve anything because, fundamentally, the reason things have gotten so bad is that people have been seduced by Bush's promises of power and cowed by Bush's prophecy's of fear. By all accounts, bush lost the last election but was given the presidency because Ohio hid votes, midirected voters, and subverted the will of the poeple. But the fact that Bush/Kerry was decided by one state, when every state should have kicked the bastard out, says people didn't quite "get" it.

What would be best right now, in my opinion, is for a whole lot of light to be shined on the administration's fuckups from day one, their plotting to invade Iraq from day one, their lies and deceptions to the american people from day one, so that maybe folks won't be so easily decieved next time.

Posted September 19, 2006 12:08 PM by Greg London

This goes way, way back to the beginning of these posts, but....

The US has plans to invade Canada? But we're so peaceful, and friendly, and well, nice.

Even though it's highly unlikely they would ever be acted on, what would the possible use be of drawing them up?

Does this point to an underlying pattern in the way the US military thinks? Or just the knowledge that their government may ask for the strangest information at any time?

Posted September 19, 2006 12:22 PM by Noelle

Get set, ready, go... The propaganda campaign clearly has started. In the words of "Jericho" executive producer Jon Turteltaub, "A nuclear bomb is not as bad as everybody thinks." Yeah, right. Wednesdays on CBS, starting tomorrow.

Posted September 19, 2006 12:28 PM by Madison Guy

Does this point to an underlying pattern in the way the US military thinks?

Noelle @ 88: No. The American military does what its civilian leadership tells it to do, up to the point where it can no longer stomach the orders, and at that point it resigns. Best case scenario. Worst case scenario: the U.S. goes totalitarian, and Bush or Cheney becomes Big Brother. Do I think it will happen? No. Could it? Yes.

Posted September 19, 2006 12:30 PM by Lizzy L

#86 --
This would make matters worse, both by who's in the chain of succession and that it would make GWB a martyr.

I have long thought that the worst possible thing would be for some nutjob to murder the president. Not only because murder is wrong, although that's the most morally important reason for me. I don't believe in capital punishment in any event, and vigilante capital punishment is right out. You are not allowed to kill people just because you don't like them.

The other thing that worries me is, if someone did kill the president, that anyone who has ever said anything against Bush or his policies would become suspect. That is the scenario in which liberals would be rounded up and put in camps.

So I hope to God no one ever tries it.

(This is like the torture discussion. It is morally wrong, even if it did any good -- which it does not and never does, and in fact usually does harm to the ostensible "cause" for which it's undertaken.)

No, we have to defeat Bush and his cronies honorably. This means presenting the evidence of their wrongdoing, uncovering lies and demonstrating incontrovertibly that they are lies, finding some way of shining the light of truth so the whole world can see.

Posted September 19, 2006 12:36 PM by Caroline

Noelle, of course the Pentagon has a plan somewhere in its files dealing with an invasion of Canada. Somewhere in its files, the Canadian military has a plan for war with the US. The unlikeliness of such things taking place has nothing to do with it. When it's not fighting, a well-run army, navy, or air force, and the overall commanders of these forces, concentrate in two things: Planning and Training. The one thing all such groups reliably have in common is the tendency to look at a plan, ask "What if" and then come up with plans for all the What-ifs they were able to think of. It begins to resemble an obsessive-compulsive disorder, and can make a family decision to take a short road trip to visit friends and go shopping in another city turn into a planning orgy that makes the Army-Navy joint planning for the Pacific island-hopping campaign in World War II look loose and disorganized.

I am told by People Who Know that one reason officer training often uses unlikely targets (like, say, a neighboring country your country is on good terms with, or even an imaginary country) is that it keeps the trainees from using what they already know about the plans for the enemy du jour in their own planning exercises, so they have to work from scratch.

Since the alternate to all this compulsive planning is the Bushco tendency to follow the Jiminy Cricket School of Planning (if you wish upon a star...), I can live it with, even if it is occasionally embarassing, or seems ridiculous.

Posted September 19, 2006 1:23 PM by fidelio

I would like assassination to work--it's so much less damaging than war, but afaik, there haven't been any assassinations which have done any noticable good. Unfortunately, we don't know what would have happened if Hitler had been assassinated.

Imho, the reason assassination doesn't do any good is that leaders are much more integrated into their societies than is generally appreciated. It's not just that their successors might continue their policies, it's that a lot of people identify with their leaders. They don't want to go along with what the assassin wants any more than they want to give the country which bombs their cities what it wants.

I also have a notion that assassination makes surviving leaders that little bit more crazy.

The one thing you can do pretty effectively with assassination is make peace more difficult to achieve.

Posted September 19, 2006 1:46 PM by Nancy Lebovitz

I have long thought that the worst possible thing would be for some nutjob to murder the president.

On the other hand, if Bush had run into a tree and killed himself back in his drunk-driving days, the world in general and America in particular would be lots better off right now. Particularly if Rumsfeld and Cheney had been in the back seat.

Posted September 19, 2006 1:52 PM by James D. Macdonald

Maybe if it was an inside job? Where is the Praetorian Guard when you really, really, need them? Those backstabbing bastards.

Posted September 19, 2006 2:06 PM by Greg London

Greg London #95: That is a cure far, far, far worse than the disease. We'd like to avoid empire, not bring on its worst aspects.

Posted September 19, 2006 2:22 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Greg London @ 95

No, you don't want to assassinate Bush, then we'd get Cheney. (He'd probably die of heart failure, then we'd get Hastert.)

First we force Cheney out - making him testify, truthfully, at Libby's trial is a start - and put in a reasonably honest VP. Then take out Bush, or simply wait for him to time out.

You know: first you loot, then you burn.

Posted September 19, 2006 2:34 PM by P J Evans

greg,

By all accounts, bush lost the last election but was given the presidency because Ohio hid votes, midirected voters, and subverted the will of the people.

ohio absentee voter over here! you know, as in "we have no intention of counting the absentee votes"?

sigh. i think about that a lot.

back to your regular discussion.

Posted September 19, 2006 2:35 PM by miriam beetle

#88 - Yes, the US does have a plan to invade Canada. I wouldn't worry much about it, though; read more here and even here if you'd like more information.

Posted September 19, 2006 3:27 PM by Samantha Joy

Fragano at #96: you can't avoid Empire, you've had one since 1945!

(In fact, a lot of the current mess is the end result of the USA's persistent refusal to take responsibility for running its empire. Sometimes nation-founding myths can come back to bite you a couple of centuries down the line; this one's doubtless going in the 3000 AD history books as a classic example.)

Posted September 19, 2006 3:46 PM by Charlie Stross

I wasn't particularly worried about US invasion plans of Canada, more confused that they would spend the time drawing them up. However, these links put things in a better historical context.

I'm not certain any kind of planning is better than no planning. Yet it's clear with this administration that realistic plans are routinely ignored. I just wonder what would happen to public opinion if the media got a hold of realistic plans for a war with Iran. Assuming they actually reported on them.

Posted September 19, 2006 3:46 PM by Noelle

OK, so the military needs guys who can make war plans. And they have to train them to make war plans. And when they make plans to invade canada, or norway or whoever, the purpose isn't so much to have a plan on hand in case we need to invade norway. The purpose is to grade the planner on how well he can make a plan.

Then when we actually need a plan to attack, say, iran -- we pretty much start from scratch with a whole lot of good people doing it. Somebody might possibly look at some of the old student exercises just in case. But they sure don't depend on them.

And when it leaks that they're planning it, they say "We have war plans with everybody. Even canada and norway. It's just what we do."

Last september I heard rumors we were really planning an attack on iran, scheduled for late february/early march. But the war didn't happen. Now I'm hearing those rumors again but the story is it will come in late september/early october. These rumors are unreliable. Just because we're making the plans and moving the supplies doesn't necessarily mean we'll go through with it.

Posted September 19, 2006 3:51 PM by J Thomas

Strategic bombing:

German industrial output did increase during the bombing campaign, but it concentrated on near-obsolete designs. What Albert Speer might have accomplished without the need to disperse production is interesting; it seems to have been the threat of the nightly bombing that allowed him to override industrial interests and push the output increases.

The major impact of the bombing on the German war economy was that soaked up by the defences; 1/3 of the optical industry and 1/2 of the electronics industry capacity was dedicated to the night defence of the realm, as well as tens of thousands of flak guns, which would have been an asset on the Eastern Front as anti-tank weapons.

Graydon: Sure, the fighter mafia now rule the roost, but air superiority is a prerequisite for the effective application of airpower. Under the bomber barons, you ended up with such things as 'fighters' which were really only suited to delivering tac nukes at high speeds.

All this aside, airpower remains a necessary but by no means sufficient condition for military victory. Even in the most successful air campaigns (Gulf Wars I and II), there was a need for ground troops to finish the job. Or not, as the case might be.

Posted September 19, 2006 5:18 PM by Jakob

Before WWII, England kept a War Book, which was not plans for the military but plans for the civilian structure in case of a war. The book was regularly updated (and continued to be, at least up until Thatcher, which is as far as I've read about), and contained plans not only for organizing the bureaucracy but for mobilizing the civilian population, instituting the draft, rationing, getting experts in various fields out of the universities and labs and into, well, the universities and labs but helping the war effort, and all that sort of thing. When they eventually decided that they were at war, they mobilized incredibly quickly and thoroughly.

After 9/11, of course, we in the US used our War Book to get all the people with the skills needed to track down ... oh, hell, I can't even be bothered with the sarcasm.

Thanks,
-V.

Posted September 19, 2006 5:37 PM by Vardibidian

Vardibidian: Of course we have a War Book. It's about a goat.

This has been provided without DRM by Sarcasm On Demand.

Posted September 19, 2006 6:40 PM by John M. Ford

It's about a goat.

Damn you, Mr. Ford, I nearly choked on my pizza from that.

;)

Posted September 19, 2006 6:53 PM by Greg London

#94, on counter-factuals involving persons driving into trees:

Jim, if Ann Richards had beaten Bush for governor or Texas back in 1994, I without a doubt would have attended her funeral yesterday. As it is, I can't help seeing the turning point as having been right then. So I stayed home.

Posted September 19, 2006 6:58 PM by joann

Charlie #100: My passport says that I'm a citizen of the United Kingdom, which hasn't had an empire for over half a century. That quibble aside, I'm not talking about the extent of control of territories beyond the bounds of the United States but the nature of the regime -- a republic versus a state ruled by an emperor -- within the United States.

Posted September 19, 2006 7:27 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Coming in rather late,

Meg #67 I agree that it's almost certain that Australian troops will be sent, as ever, by both major parties, to follow the USA whenever it whistles, as they were to Iraq despite the almost-unprecedented size of the demonstrations against it. If it does happen (as I ever pray it does not), looking at the last few years, it will at least be with far more reluctance from the population & armed forces, and perhaps with an 'exit strategy'.

Don #69, like PJ #84, my interpretation of Meg's "a-word" remark was that it related to John Winston Howard, current Prime Minister of Australia, leader of the presently-governing Coalition of the Liberal Party of Australia and The Nationals (formerly the Country Party), and proud follower in the Coalition of the Willing.
But as has been said, if you wanted to assassinate JWH, what would put you off most is looking at what would replace him. Plus it would provide a huge club to wield against the people who oppose him, what he's done and what he stands for, for decades to come, and a great lever to push all sorts of things "he'd have wanted". (And a bunch of other bad consequences in many areas, e.g. new laws & repression followed attempts on Benito Mussolini's life.)

protected static #80 In the transcript I have: Debate 1: 30-Sep-2004 "Kerry: ... when we went in there were three countries: Great Britain, Australia and the United States ..." "Bush: Well, actually you forgot Poland. And now there's 30 nations involved ..."

Posted September 19, 2006 7:33 PM by Epacris