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Old February 16th 07, 11:55 PM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy
Henry Spencer
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Posts: 2,170
Default Bye-bye INF treaty?

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
What makes it so pointless is that 10 ABMs in Poland are worthless
against a North Korean attack and so would only be of any possible use
against a Iranian attack that overflew Europe on the way to the U.S..
Iran would realize an attack by that few missiles would be suicidal, so
that doesn't make sense either, so what's the point of all this?


We've been through this before, Pat: it makes no sense *if* you assume
that the leadership in Iran (and its neighbors) will always be rational
enough and secure enough that deterrence will work. Unfortunately, it's
easy to think of reasons why that might not be the case. Notably, in
countries where the consequences of political failure often include sudden
death, a leader who's backed himself into a corner may personally have
nothing to lose by playing nuclear Chicken with the US.

As one P. Flannery was heard to say a couple of months back:

You'll say: "But yes! But a nuclear war could wipe out all of our nation."
Oddly enough, anyone it wipes out _after_ me isn't of much concern to me
in any concrete form. :-D

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