🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ewright.726345757@convex.convex.com>, ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:

While extracting your references to nuclear weapons makes your replies look
reasonable, extracting said references changes the tone and context of 
my comments and your response...

>In <1993Jan05.172440.14403@eng.umd.edu> sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu (Doug Mohney) writes:
>
>>	A) Raised the level of tension
>
>Attacking a US carrier battle group is going to raise tensions
>a bit anyway, don't you think?

Use of one or more nuclear weapons is going to invite an escalation which the
attacking force will not wish to solicit, due to the stigma attached to them.
>
>>	B) Invited attack on any space assets you've got
>
>So, how many nations have more space assets to lose (and
>less ability to quickly replace them) than the United States?

It is likely we have a quick-launch replacement capability, either through 
air breathing mysterious aircraft or (more likely) derivative ballistic missile
capability, on land and at sea. 

It is unlikely the attacking third-world country would have an equalivent 
replacement capability for whatever assets it has. 

>
>>	C) Tossed public opinion and the world community off your side;
>>	   NOT a good thing. 
>
>That didn't stop Saddam Hussein from invading Kuwait. 

Sure it didn't. However, the UN voted to remove Iraqi troops by the use of
force and thereby did so accordingly. Had Iraqi troops seized anything less
than Kuwait City, or removed themselves from Kuwait City without committing
anything more than token atrocities, Iraq would not be divided into three parts
today. 
 
It is, by the way, still in three parts, mostly due to the world community
still being pissed off at Iraq's belligerant attitude. 

> A lot of 
>wars might be prevented if Americans came to realize that most 
>of the world doesn't care a fig about "public opinion and the 
>world community." 

Ah. But for anything less than a full-scale nuclear exchange (which translates
to 99.987% of the possible conflicts which will occur in the next 20 years),
public opinion and what individual nations think DOES count.


                    I have talked to Ehud, and lived.
  -- >                  SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU                        < --