Ed Kyle wrote:
Jake McGuire wrote:
Did killing 3000 people in New York make the US
reconsider it's policy of keeping a military presence in the Middle
East, or did it make them look for something to smash?

A bit of both, actually.

"http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/newsletter/saudi-relations-interest-8-30.html"

"U.S. officials transferred control of portions of Prince Sultan Air
Base to
Saudi officials at a ceremony Aug. 26. ... The last Americans will
complete the U.S. pullout in early September."

Right. But there are a hell of a lot more U.S. Soldiers tramping
around a hell of a lot more mosques than there were before.

You are right about the historical results of strategic bombing.
But I wonder what the difference would be between today,
when the U.S. can attack at will with little fear of counterstrike,
and a future when more and more potential adversaries will
be able to counterstrike. And not just a one-day attack, but
over and over again for days and weeks and months. This will
shift, though maybe only slightly, the balance of world power
I think, because it will limit U.S. actions.

I guess we'll just disagree on this one. Hezbollah, as a non-state
actor, could manage to launch a bunch of artillery rockets at Israel
because they were cheap, and precisely because they didn't cause really
serious damage. Non-state actors don't have the ability to scrounge up
ICBMs, and launching ballistic missiles at another country is a full-on
no-kidding act of war that prevents any sort of "oh this was all a big
mistake" climbdown and makes those who produce JDAM tailkits very
happy.

Nuclear weapons with ICBMs work as deterrents, because even if the US
can destroy your country in retaliation, we'd rather have Chicago
intact, and so can't shrug it off. I think that the number of 5-ton
explosive warheads delivered to have the same effect is larger than the
number of ICBMs in existence.

It'd be a "they won't ACTUALLY shoot those things at us", followed by a
"how DARE they attack the US!", followed by a "well, surely no one will
make the same mistake again."

-jake