B'way Baby & The Vice of Virtue

Can I segue from a run in with a Broadway star to a discussion of what we have to do to bring about world peace. It's New year's Day in Manhattan, I get coffee in Hell's Kitchen on the west side in the 50s. I'm doing this because there's a boy involved, well he's a man now but when I got the crush he was still a boy … and I spotted him at a cafe and now I take time to ensconce myself in that same cafe in hopes he'll spot me. I practice affecting a pose of nonchalant availability – no Oscars I can tell you for this performance. So this morning I hang for a while and then take the long healthy walk to 3^rd street and Second Avenue to hang at my favorite coffee spot. This takes me through the theatre district and past a long row of shows where I notice Judith Light is in “Other Desert Cities.” I cut across an alley and the stage door opens, and a slim theatre-looking broad exits without self-consciousness. I'd just thought “Hmmm Judith Light didn't disappear after all from the scene,” and now a moment later here she is in a wide alley traversing the 50 feet to get some coffee. I stop say hello and extend my hand and say something sweet – she knows I'm thanking her for all her intense gay activism she's done over the years – but she takes the love well saying “oh that's so sweet.” I don't want to bother her (anymore than I have) so I wave “Happy New Year” as I scoot away.

Segue? – FAIL? Yeah. Walking makes me think … of idealism and dreams. I cut through Times Square, which is hardly showing signs of what occurred barely ten hours before – there's some colored paper on the ground. I've got a Blog to write. I pour through my short list of peeves I categorizes as insights. Ah, the dilemma of my country's military power and the issue of deterring madmen, rogue regimes, and anything that could conceivably draw us into a general conflict.

Americans don't like war. They want them over very quickly and with virtually no casualties. Perfectly reasonable. Since WWII where the quality of our weaponry proved inferior to that of the German's (and undoubtedly the Russians) we have banked on technologically advanced systems … nuclear submarines, advanced supersonic aircraft, guided missiles, stupendous air sea and ground mobility, automated drones, and the incredible wizardry of the amazingly invulnerable yet lethal Abrams M1 Tank with numerous features classified as top secret. Our forces sacrifice quantity for quality as they must since our people demand a volunteer army/navy/airforce.

I'm going to try and explain something mind-blowing which will explain why America cannot but help getting involved consistently and repeatedly in relatively small localized regional wars – almost whether we want to or not. That is, regardless of the wisdom or perhaps even the sanity of so doing.

Let's start with deterrence. The power of our weapons should make our adversaries think twice about doing stuff we won't like very much. For instance, the North Korean religious fascists would genuinely enjoy attacking South Korea and putting it under its total control. The Chinese are insulted by the existence of a democratic Taiwan. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and maybe even Egypt and Jordan, if they imagined they could get away with it and be victorious, wouldn't mind very much if Israel could be vanquished and eliminated as a sovereign state. If the Turks could march unopposed into Kurdish Iraq, they would be sorely tempted to do so. Kashmir is controlled by China, India, and Pakistan all of whom claim more than they currently possess. If we had invoked Monroe Doctrine,Argentina would have succeeded in capturing the Falkland Islands from Britain. They were willing to risk war to get it in 1982. It is not irrational to assume they still want it and would take it if they could be sure we wouldn’t let the British Fleet sail into our sphere of influence to take it back.

Even with military spending equaling the military outlays of perhaps 20 or 30 of the next-most-powerful nations, we in fact do not deter all actions with which we disapprove. Pakistan and India have nuclear weapons. Russia invaded Georgia. North Korea and Iran threaten to develop nuclear weapons and the missile systems capable of using these weapons against our interests and allies. China is continuously expanding its forces capable of threatening Taiwan and perhaps even our allies Japan and South Korea.

Who have we deterred? Well, China and North Korea haven't attacked Taiwan and South Korea, Russia did not overrun Georgia, Britain owns the Falklands, India and Pakistan have not sent armies into Kashmir to drive out the other from that territory. Fascistic and militarist dictatorships all over the world behave more reluctantly than it can be supposed they would do if American intervention was seen as impossible or highly unlikely.

How come? Well, our advanced weaponry is consistently on display. Our drones are used with impunity in Afghanistan and Pakistan, our Abrams tanks wiped out the Iraq armored forces in no time flat. Our cutting edge helicopters swooped deep deep into Pakistan undetected, carried out a complicated operation, and pulled back without the Pakistanis being any the wiser. Our burrowing missiles cleared bin Laden from an inaccessible mountainous area in Afghanistan that hitherto was not susceptible to any military action.

With each new generation of experimental advanced weaponry that we deploy comes the serious possibility that they will have unknown defects and bugs and thus prove weak or useless under real war conditions. So? Suppose we deploy brand new stealth fighters, tanks, missile-equipped naval ships, a new generation of drones, heat-seeking and infra-red guided missiles, and all manner of new untested weaponry. The longer we refrain from using these weapon systems, the easier it will be for adversaries to dwell on their possible defects and inadequacies. Indeed our own confidence that they would operate effectively and reliably under battle field condition would diminish as time went by. The longer we refrained from intervening, the more likely it would become that an adversary could believe we would refrain from intervening to stop them in a particular case. The longer we refrained from using an untested technologically complex set of weapon systems, the less they would deter an adversary.

Yep. So to deter any potentially serious adversary, we would have to in effect “demonstrate” these advanced systems in battle to ensure the adversary properly understood what it was truly up against. To maintain this deterrent effect, we'd have to conduct demonstrations on a pretty regular basis to prevent any illusions about our capabilities from entering their mind and emboldening their hopes. We'd have to conduct these demonstrations independ of the “merits” of getting involved in a particular conflict – Who cares if Iraq didn't attack us on September 11, 2001, the terrorists will get a excellent look at how well our weapons work and will get a load of how they might be used against them should we be able to locate and pin them down. The idea that we are acting as the world's police force is now exposed as a mere rationalization for our demonstration wars. Even worse, there is probably some truth to the idea that by making a show of how our advanced systems work we thereby do deter at least some further messy and violent actions by others.

We're in a trap, with no way out. Without testing the weapons, they won't scare anybody, if we don't scare the shit out of potential opponents, they are more likely to risk violence for their own ends. Can I figure a way out? Stay tuned.