Nuke 'em 'til they glow

I don’t watch a lot of TV, but if I’m going to do so, of course I will watch something like “24”. There is a whole lot about it that is completely ridiculous, but other parts are not so far-fetched, and others that at least make you think, if you’re so inclined…

The episode last night involved (spoiler alert) the launch of a nuclear weapon against a fictional Middle-Eastern country. As of the end of the show it hadn’t impacted, but the choice of target, etc. seems to me wrong.

The chosen impact point was in some scarcely inhabited patch of desert, and this was supposed to be a “show of force” in retaliation for terrorists from that country setting off a tactical (suitcase) nuke in Los Angeles.

Assuming you think it’s appropriate to attack a country in retaliation for something perpetrated by some of its’ nationals (in which case, why didn’t the US bomb Saudi Arabia after 9/11?), there is a question of how to go about it. To my way of thinking, nuking someone’s desert province and “only” killing a few thousand people is like throwing rocks at a hornet’s nest.

It was a move designed to demonstrate resolve, and that the US wouldn’t take it any more (mad as hell, etc.). I think that if you really wanted to show you’d dropped the gloves, you pound at least one, if not all, of their major cities. They already know you have the bloody things, and they assume that they work; hitting the desert only proves that. If you want to teach them something they don’t know, kill a whole lot of them and make it clear that the same fate attends anyone else who messes with you.

Yes, it’s only a show, but it raises an important point about the REAL use of force, as opposed to Rules of Engagement. If you start throwing nukes around, particularly at people who can’t really respond in kind, RoEs are pretty foolish. Nukes aren’t supposed to be used really, but if you start, you don’t stop until the threat is destroyed.

There are maybe two countries in the world who could do some real damage to the US, and that’s giving China a lot of credit at this point. The rest of them really could be knocked back to the 19th Century with a tiny fraction of the US nuclear arsenal, with no chance to retaliate in any meaningful way. If you think the Iranians want a bomb now, they’ll go hell-for-leather for one if one of their neighbours ever gets nuked.

We’re talking real “Fear of God”-type use of force. The Americans tried to do that with the whole “Shock and Awe” thing in Iraq in 2003. That sure did the job, didn’t it? If we take the current situation in Iraq, hands up those who think that Iran (or Syria for that matter) would stop what they’re doing if the US dropped a nuke in the Salt Desert of Iran? They already deny it, and they obviously don’t care that the Americans could turn most of Iran into radioactive glass. They, and the rest of the non-democratic world are concerned about what you WILL do, not what you could do.

Britain has been shown this week or so to be weak and gutless at the political level, precisely because of the lack of retaliation for their troops being seized. I’ve said it before, but what is there to stop anyone from doing this sort of thing to them again? The same country that carried on after taking 60,000 casualties in one day on the Somme in 1916 is now crapping their pants about getting 15 of their people back unharmed.

Of course I don’t view members of the Armed Forces as expendable, but I argue that the “de-escalatory” RoE that British troops were under when they were ignominiously captured suggests that their bosses are more concerned with optics than the safety of their people on the scene. Had those Marines been under orders to defend themselves, the Iranians would have had a fight on their hands, and moreover, they would have known it.

This risk of escalation works in the Brits’ favour, as they know, or at least should, that The Americans are more than happy to back them up should the Iranians come knocking. Besides, if one British Frigate couldn’t dispatch a handful of Iranian coastal defence boats, they’re not good for much.

So, although this seems a digression from my initial direction, it’s all the same principal. I linked to this before, but an excerpt is in order here:


They made a pile of their trophies
High as a tall man's chin,
Head upon head distorted,
Set in a sightless grin,
Anger and pain and terror
Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.

Subadar Prag Tewarri
Put the head of the Boh
On the top of the mound of triumph,
The head of his son below -
With the sword and the peacock-banner
That the world might behold and know.

Thus the samadh was perfect,
Thus was the lesson plain
Of the wrath of the First Shikaris -
The price of a white man slain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back into camp again.

Then a silence came to the river,
A hush fell over the shore,
And Bohs that were brave departed,
And Sniders squibbed no more;
For the Burmans said
That a white man's head
Must be paid for with heads five-score.


Guess who. These days a white man’s head isn’t worth a lot; less, I’d argue than any others. Many things have changed since Kipling’s early days, but other things have not, and never will.

Well, lessons are learned and then forgotten. The Romans knew how to deal with their mortal enemies, and I wonder if the West will remember what we knew 60 years ago. Even the bad-ass guys on “24” (except Jack Bauer, of course) are pulling their punches, so it seems it’s a way off yet.