"John Horn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
.... At some point they ran a comment from a person expressing
concern that one side or the other might make a miscalculation and
"the situation might spiral out of control". .... I can think of
situations where a miscalculation caused a war (the first Gulf War
is a good example) but not one that could be described as
"spiraling out of control". ....
You are right. Deciding to go to war is a conscious decision; it
involves lots of order-giving.
As Geoffrey Blainey said in his book "The Causes of War", wars occur
when the two sides disagree over their relative power; when they agree
over their relative power, they negotiate. A war occurs when each
side thinks it will `win' for its definition of `win'.
Power, of course, comes in many forms, else the Vietnamese would not
have defeated the US in the Vietnamese war.
Since espionage and anthropology tell the leaders about other
countries beliefs and relative power, both have become the weapons of
pacifists.
The disagreement over relative power is vividly seen in the views of
the two sides of the US-Iraqi conflict:
On the one hand, in the event of a war, the Iraqi government assumes
it can force the US to stop short of a US victory by imposing many
casualties on the US, its allies, or on telegenic Iraqi civilians.
The evidence they see is that the US pulled out of Beirut and Somalia
when casualties rose, the US stopped short of Bagdad in the Gulf war,
and, for the past year, the US has avoided major unit engagements in
Afghanistan.
On the other hand, officials of the US government think either that
the Iraqi army lacks competence, or else that the historic US
tolerance for casualties, especially of foreigners, will return.
--
Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises
http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.teak.cc [EMAIL PROTECTED]
_______________________________________________
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
