“Spelling out if A then B is a useful thing to say.”

It is true that under our current circumstances saying we will vaporize a given set of Lat-Long coordinates of Obama wakes up one morning and the bluebirds are not singing on his windowsill is difficult at best and a bad idea at worst.

But in Thinking About The Unthinkable, we clearly described an overall strategy that gave out adversaries something to think about. Specifically we went for Counter Value – we would Launch Under Attack (not just Launch On Warning) at the other guy’s cities, not at his strategic forces. So the Soviets knew that we would not do a pre-emptive strike that would destroy their ability to respond but rather take out his cities. They thought we were nuts to do that in their own context – since they viewed our cities as the prize in the war. But they knew that our official doctrine was not oriented toward a First Strike, even if we attained the capability. Their early warning and spacetrack capabilities reflected this recognition – they were pitiful by our standards.

The Bush Doctrine essentially avowed a Launch On Warning Pre-Emptive Strike Counter-Force strategy for the WOT. The Left screamed bloody murder about this approach, but even Obama recognizes that failing to pre-empt an identified terrorist attack is at best political suicide for the Democratic Party and at worst a personal trip to the gallows. So while the Administration officially presents such Bush Cowboy Barbarism as distasteful they know they may have to do it and everyone knows that it is likely as well.

So the next thing to do is to state that following either a successful or failed application of the Bush Doctrine that a Counter Value strategy will be used. State clearly that we will act deliberately to destroy the culture and institutions of the states, people, and organizations that carried out or attempted such an attack. That means let slip the dogs of war. That probably means genocide, with either a small or large G.. That means I will see your destruction of the WTC and raise you a few Hiroshimas.

For the War on Terror we need a stated policy that embraces both Counter Value and Counter Force, that embraces not only Preemption but Massive Retaliation. We must use Herman Kahn’s whole bag of tricks.