# What do you think of the new National Security Strategy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 21, 2002, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-the-new-national-security-strategy/128920 "2002-09-21T02:50:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2002, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-the-new-national-security-strategy/128920/41 "2002-09-24T15:15:49Z")
and threaten the rest ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2002, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-the-new-national-security-strategy/128920/42 "2002-09-24T15:20:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Beagle \* > \*\*Not if we can pre-pre-prempt them. \*\* Aha - but what if they pre-pre-pre-preempt you first? (etc. ad infinitum). ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2002, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-the-new-national-security-strategy/128920/43 "2002-09-24T15:34:18Z")
I would hate to find myself in the gunsights of an America that has become (rightfully) frightened out of its wits and striking at anything that appears to be a threat. And these days anyone can be that threat. Strange days indeed ---
**Author:** ![TwistofFate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2002, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-the-new-national-security-strategy/128920/44 "2002-09-24T15:55:57Z")
Zombiesatemybrain: You seem to have a huge problem understanding the basics of the Northern Irish peace process. If you have questions, feel free to start a thread or search the archives for previous threads. Until then please refrain from passing judgement on Sinn Fein without knowing the facts. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2002, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-the-new-national-security-strategy/128920/45 "2002-09-24T15:56:02Z")
“Stop it! You can’t fight in here! This is the war room!” When he was first elected I was convinced that Bush was a harmless dolt, squarely in the pocket of the oil industry. I’m now convinced that he’s a very harmful dolt, squarely in the pocket of the oil industry. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2002, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-the-new-national-security-strategy/128920/46 "2002-09-25T02:04:15Z")
> [@](#): > > It should defend (key word here) itself when attacked. > Not attack all that might possibly pose a threat, at some time in the future. Well, that’s easy to say, and that used to work before. Here’s the big change though - when threats came from nations, you had a lot of tools at your disposal other than warfare. You could engage in diplomacy. You could build up a defense against the military threat. And then you could deter them by threatening retaliatory force. And when two nations go to war, there is lots of advance notice - you can see the troop buildups. In that world, it was fair to say that we should wait until attacked before responding. In today’s world, saying that you can \*never pre-emptively strike someone essentially means you will have NO defenses, because after they have struck there is no one to retaliate against. If the threat from Saddam was that he’d build up an army and invade someone, I’d say, “Great. Build a defense to stop him if he tries.” But if the threat is that he will pass 50kg of Sarin to a terrorist group through three cutouts, and provide them with 10 millions dollars in cash to fund an operation, then just exactly how do you think the U.S. could A) stop that attack, and B) retaliate against it? Nine years after the first WTC attack, we still aren’t sure who was ultimately behind it, but lots of evidence points back at Iraq. There are nebulous Iraqi connections in the second WTC attack. Is that enough to justify an attack on Iraq? Apparently not, since you don’t agree with one. So what WOULD be? If Saddam is always going to use terrorist organizations to launch attacks, just what are you supposed to do? It’s really easy to just say, “Never pre-emptively attack”. It becomes a lot more problematic to accept that if you stop and think through the ramifications of that in a world where there are Saddam Husseins with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2002, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-the-new-national-security-strategy/128920/47 "2002-09-25T11:45:43Z")
Yes, how to defend yourself against ‘unofficial’ attacks is a BIG problem but you are wrong to think that it is a _new_ problem. The phenomenon is reasonably new to U.S.A. but it has been around for ages. Granted, the scale is bigger but the threat of political assasination/ poisoning of wells/bombings, by terrorists, wether or not they are in pay of a foreign nation, has always been with us. Prime example would be the assasination of the Austrian Achduke in 1914. How do you defend against state sponsored terrorism? Well, frankly, you can’t. You can not attack a foreign nation just because they _might_ send terrorists your way. In the same way that you can not arrest someone fore a crime he _might_ commit. You must wait until the act is commited and have proof that it was commited by that person. Isn’t that the basis of all our western judicial systems? Furthermore, if you are not interested in the legality, there are practical reasons as well. If you lash out against anyone you consider a threat, the list of possible threats will rapidly increase. Because now _you_ will have become a very real threat to the national integrity of many another nation. Do you think everyone will sit around waiting to become singled out for your next frenzy? As already mentioned by others, there is a good chance others will preempt your preemptions. A very slippery slope to embark upon. The other form of terrorism, not instigated by another nation but by people who are opressed (or perceive themselves as being so), has also been around since the dawn of times. History teaches us that the absolute worst reaction to that is brute force. You have to be very, very careful in your response to terrorist atrocities, lest you reinforce the idea that you are indeed an opressor. Again, this is relatively new to the general American public, at least they have never seen themselves as being in the role of the (perceived) oppressor. The WTC attack has driven home (or should have) that the US is indeed in such a role and it should do well to study previous (and ongoing) similar situations, of wich there are plenty. The solutions the US are now, haphazardly, coming up with are the wrong ones and **very** dangerous. These mistakes have been made before, learn from them. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2002, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-the-new-national-security-strategy/128920/48 "2002-09-25T14:39:43Z")
The problem with historical approaches to terrorism is that they assumed that the terrorists could do only limited damage. If the best a terrorist can do is bombing a nightclub or something, then yes, you can withstand those types of small attacks indefinitely. Everything changes when terrorists get their hands on weapons of mass destruction. Now you CAN’T let them attack you first - a single attack could kill more Americans than died in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam combined. It’s estimated that the World Trade Center attacks wiped about a trillion dollars from the U.S. economy, including the secondary effects. That’s about half of what was lost during the dot-com meltdown. So a single attack has been responsible for maybe half of our economic woes right now. Now imagine Manhattan being nuked. Aside from the horrible loss of life, what would the economic damage be? The problem now is that terrorists aren’t just a threat to small groups of people - they are a threat to even the largest of nations. In a world like that, seeing a state with a crazy man running it build up weapons of mass destruction while also funding terrorists is simply unacceptable. As for legality and Iraq, let’s just remind anyone that the U.S. has the legal right to attack Iraq, because Iraq is in violation of the cease-fire agreement it signed to end the Gulf War. And in fact, the U.S has been attacking Iraq almost daily for years. So this is not a question of legal rights in this case. In the more general case outlined in the new document, I don’t think regime change is advocated - just interventionist military action again known terrorist enclaves. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-the-new-national-security-strategy/128920.md?page=2)