# A modern military defense strategy **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 22, 2012, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-military-defense-strategy/644846 "2012-12-22T16:47:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-military-defense-strategy/644846/21 "2012-12-26T19:57:57Z")
I can see the economic and even moral attraction of directly threatening decisionmakers rather than the hapless cannon fodder they use to do their bidding. That said, I am concerned about its effectiveness. I’m particularly struck by your phrasing here: > [@Stoneburg](#): > > Now if MY politicians decided to start a war of aggression against another nation and they got whacked. I’d say “They got what was coming to them. Now let’s elect some new politicians who wants peace.” What do you mean by “wants peace?” Because a recurring problem in history is that, quite often, you can’t have “peace” without giving up something to an aggressor…or _everything_ to an aggressor. To make up a case, when Hypothetical Aggressive Norway decides to roll over Hypothetical Assassinating Sweden, Sweden’s “peace” might be Norway’s “we get all your land and resources.” At that point, _you won’t get to elect anyone_, for or against peace. That’s one of the most common problems in statecraft – one side wants something the other side cannot tolerate, or cannot afford to give up without losing its own identity. Sometimes, in some situations, it’s driven by individuals…who _in theory_ could be murdered by the Swedish Bikini Team Assassins. But often it’s an entire polity, ethnic group, or population that considers your land their lost homeland, or their natural _lebensraum_, or hates you for some transgression that took place in the 1300s. Are the assassins going to depopulate those enemies? Isn’t that uncomfortably close to genocide? At that point, isn’t it arguably worse than a full-scale military occupation, which certainly wouldn’t kill everyone? ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-military-defense-strategy/644846/22 "2012-12-26T20:40:59Z")
> [@Stoneburg](#): > > I am not aware of the US pursuing a tactic such as the one I outline in my OP. AFAIK there has historically been plenty of successful assasinations of high profile politicians, performed with various degrees of professionalism as well as with access to various levels of resources. 😕 Saddam Hussein was a specific target during the brief duration of the 2003 invasion beginning on March 19 and continued to be one until he was finally taken alive on [December 13](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein#Capture_and_incarceration), after evading capture for 9 months in a country fully occupied. Osama bin Laden was on the FBIs to 10 most wanted fugitives list back in 1998 for his role in the US Embassy bombings, and was the most wanted man in the world after Sept 11, 2001. It took 10 years of trying to kill him before it was [accomplished](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Osama_bin_Laden). Surely you are aware of that. I can’t help but notice that this is the only point of mine of the flaws in your plan that you’ve addressed, one that wasn’t even in response to you. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-military-defense-strategy/644846/23 "2012-12-26T23:24:03Z")
> [@Stoneburg](#): > > . . . Another thing that came to mind is making a comparison with nuke. Basically the implied threat of nukes is that if you attack us, your whole (or significant parts of) nation will die. Morally speaking, this would seem to be at the bad end of the spectrum. So if you think having a nuclear arsenal is acceptable, it seems hard to argue that any other weapon system isn’t. What is amazing to me is how very acceptable so very many people felt nuclear war would be. The phrase “Better dead than Red” was prevalent among an awful lot of people. I have talked to people who honestly believed it was better to incinerate human civilization than allow Communism to take over Europe. I think that the morality of the idea of war by assassination is generally nice – beats the hell out of what we’ve got now. Someone could just kill Assad, and the whole mess in Syria is over, right? Except… What keeps assassination from replacing elections, too? What keeps it from becoming the new “form of government” worldwide? Only the fact that it doesn’t work could possibly keep it contained. If someone had a Star Trek type spying/assassinating weapon…humanity would devolve into either tyranny (if only one person has it) or decay (quickly) into a new stone age (if lots of people have it.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modern-military-defense-strategy/644846.md?page=1)