My problem with Cedarford’s conception of US policy is that he’s stuck in the 90′s. The 1890′s. Like most Paleocons, he thinks that the Pacific and Atlantic will protect us. Not so, Pakistan, North Korea, and soon Iran will have the ability to kill NYC and DC at least. Perhaps more.
North Korea will sell to anyone, that’s the whole point of “juche” which turned the nation into a giant arms factory and nothing more. Pakistan is a collection of tribes that feud, with a flag and nukes (more than 100). Iran is a weak, unstable, theocratic state run by competing gangs of thugs, short of cash, and beset by internal ethnic/racial/linguistic rebellions.
This is the “axis of evil”: even poor countries getting nukes and no clear lines drawn.
We don’t need to run seven wars at once, but America does need deterrence. Which requires enough men and material, including a much larger nuclear arsenal, AND the perceived willingness to use said arsenal (including nukes) on threats.
Right now, no one in Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea FEARS the US, and China and Russia can play the game of arming these nations and encouraging them to attack us without any come-back. Without FEAR of what the US could do in return.
The Cold War promised annihilation, but produced at least stability through a three-sided competition where each side kept the other two “honest” and strictly limited this sort of proxy-play with nukes. Or bio-weapons for that matter. Proxy nations were kept on a strict leash by all sides (ask Cuba, Egypt, England, France, and Israel) lest conflict spill out of control.
No power currently has the will or ability to keep such a leash on it’s satellites, and proxy nations armed can go fight whoever they want.
The US must declare an “America Doctrine” dictating the automatic, strategic nuclear response (with plenty of weapons in reserve to maintain deterrence against China and Russia) to Pakistan, North Korea, and when it goes nuclear, Iran, that would essentially kill all the people there should we lose a city to a nuke. With removal from the destruction list should a nation dump nukes with US inspection to verify.
This does not attempt to hold back, Canute like, the tide of nuclear proliferation with a technology that is 63 years old. It does however make hostile nuclear states understand, that nuking up brings a huge risk — destruction of one’s entire tribe/race/ethnicity/language/history/heritage, etc. That they can choose or not.
Too much of Western success is based on cooperation under the rule of law and the flaw of our elites is penciling in attitudes and behaviors of Westerners into non-Western nations. The Batman movie (and the depiction of the senseless, “plan-less” nature of AQ-like terrorists who kill just because they like killing) seems to mark a cultural turning point against the Paleocon 1890′s conception and the Leftist John Lennon “Imagine” utopian nonsense.
