.
A slightly different viewpoint folks.

Few really think that this 'Shoot first. Ask afterwards'. Blow
everything to bits approach will solve anything.

"Killing people never solves anything. But keeps them
out of your hair while you think about what to do."
--VLad Taltos. (Brust)
It would solve the immediate problem. The reaction of the REST
of the world might become an issue at that point, but the reaction
of the target country would cease to be of anything but academic
interest.

And for those who even mutter 'Pre-emptive strike', think! Japan tried
that and look what happened? Hitler too when he tried to take on all
Europe, Britain Russia.

Not an analogous situation. Japan didn't ever have the capacity
to actually conquer the the US. The best they could hope for
was driving us out of the pacific and back from the pacific seaboard,
and then good terms. The US *DOES* have the capacity to
completely destroy the long-range warmaking capacity of
any of the nations in question in fairly short order.
The US really DOES have the military and technological capacity
to actually kill well over 50% of the population of any
of the countries in question. What we lack is the wish to
do so.

Britain really appreciated US help then; and the US inspired and
far-seeing Marshall Plan after WWII helped rebuild shattered countries
which now, more or less, despite two generations later, are allies of
the USA.

WWII was a conflict between nation-states. This isn't.


much garbage deleted

A war of total annihalation doesn't leave
a lot of people left to drive truck bombs.


Also many nations have survived over the centuries despite losses of
huge portions of their populations.

And a lot of nations didn't. The utter destruction of
a people as a people isn't really all that hard, if you're
willing to do it. Timur the Lame managed it. The Romans
managed it. Arguably the catholic church managed it. The
Aztecs did a pretty good job, and there's not much left
of the cherokee nation as a geoplitical entity.

And in none of those cases did the destroying side have
the kind of technological and military advantage the US
has over, say, North Korea, or Iran.

Think carefully; a death rate of only 10% of the US population would be
around 31 million souls. That's you, me maybe, your aunt, nieces,
nephews ................. children, grandchildren etc. And if the
conflict was nuclear in only a few US areas a significant percentage of
CONUS would be unusable/uninhabitable; for 10,000+ years? The Chernobyl
reactor accident would be insignificant by comparison!

Sermon ends! Lets all keep our heads! Now back to that schematic and
something practical and immediate .......

Well said Terry.

Crap. There are a lot of reasons why a war of total annihalation
in the middle-east or southeast asia isn't a good idea, but that
it can't be made to work isn't one of them. Because it can.

--Goedjn