U.S. Secretary of State Kerry has made statements about chemical
attack and deterrence recently in order to draw in public acquiescence on a
military strike against Syria. The administration seems eager to jump into the
middle of a Shia/Alawite vs. Sunni conflict for 'national interest' as well as
deterrence of hypothetical future chemical attacks.
Deterrence of WMD's was of course a cold war staple. The policy of
mutually assured destruction seemed effective. SALT talks led to limits on
nuclear weapons development and war didn't occur. The same strategies are not
used by the Obama administration today.
Cold war era deterrence policy was largely bi-lateral deterrence
between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. In the present circumstance wherein
Syria and the United States have no conflict at all and where Syria has not
presented a threat to the United States with chemical weapons the overwhelming
conventional and nuclear power of the United States is regarded as the
deterrent; if you use da
chemical weapons we put da hit on yuse. Can America as the schoolyard
enforcer be an effective deterrent to chemical weapons use by governments
engaged in civil war as defenders against international terrorists and
internationally sponsored rebels, some of which are supported financially and
militarily by the U.S. administration?
In error Sect. Kerry enumerated heads of state that have used
chemical weapons citing Adolph Hitler and Saddam Hussein. While Adolph Hitler
is a convenient bad white guy blamable for about anything evil in war, he did
not use chemical weapons. Adolph Hitler hated chemical weapons ending world war
one in hospital in recovery from chemical weapon attack. Hitler had a no-use of
chemical weapons policy for the Second World War because of fear of an attack
with chemical weapons by the allies.
A better list of leaders that used chemical weapons might include
Saddam Hussein, Lloyd George (British P.M.), Woodrow Wilson, the Kaiser and
probably General Tojo or the Emperor for the Japanese in China. Instead of
leadership deterred by the threat of conventional military attack for deterrence
it is perhaps the threat of reciprocal chemical attack that defeats
conventional military forces that is most effective chemical deterrent policy.
The better deterrent for political leader's use against limited chemical
weapons use might be assured war crimes trials and conviction.
If President Assad ordered and developed the chemical attack on a
Syrian suburb killing as many as 1500 people and a court of law confirms that
even if he is tried in absentia a bounty of ten or twenty million dollars and
sanctions might be an effective way to secure his arrest. It is not certain
that Syrian Government forces perpetrated the attack instead of unknown
political p.r. martinets since its so easy to use chemical weapons without
aircraft or anything more than aerosol sprayers and a weapons officer in a
camouflaged chemical protection suit.
With so much of world opinion against unilateral U.S. intervention
in Syria on behalf of the rebels even if the premise of punishing the Assad
military for use of chemical weapons in the Damascus attack and for deterrence
of future use executing a military strike could do harm to the concept of
democratic populism and rule of law. Containment of the proliferation of
chemical weapons attacks is important, yet the question of how that can be done
most effectively isn't plain. War crimes trials can punish political criminals
ordering chemical attacks, and if chemical weapons aren't of a certain scale
and nature that they comprise a substantial military tactic it is dubious that intervention
would reduce the potential for conflict much or prevent loss of life. With
nearly 100,000 killed in the Syrian civil war so far and many of those
civilians the loss of 1500 adds 1.5% more to the casualty numbers. It is all a
tragic loss of life and one that the United States had the opportunity not to
encourage by calling for regime change in Syria for nearly two years already.
President Obama has given the U.S. Congress the opportunity to
debate and reject or approve a mission to launch tens or hundreds of millions
of dollars of cruise missiles and additional air assault delivered force
packages to select Syrian targets. Nothing has been said about war crimes
trials.
A German friend and mentor of Albert Einstein, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber was the
inventor of chemical weapons for the First World War. The inventor standing on
a hill observing the first use against British troops was horrified by the
effectiveness of chlorine gas. Even so during the First World War chemical war
became the norm with deaths rolling up numbers as fast as McDonalds
cheeseburgers sold.
Politicians were happy enough to use chemical weapons or machine
guns when it was necessary. As a tool of war and with war as politics through
other means it is important to keep in mind with a little skepticism belief
about phenomenal illegal weapons use and political string pulling for and
against intervention.
Reich minister
Herman Göring said; "The
people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is the easy
part. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce
the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It
works the same in any country."
Secretary Kerry and President Obama have warned about Syrian
Government chemical weapons finding their way into the hand of terrorists such
that they could be a danger to the U.S.A. as a reason to intervene in the
Syrian civil war. Yet it is the development of the war with U.S. support and
the threat that Syrian Government chemical weapons might fall in to the hands
of Sunni rebels that is the threat. Al Qaeda and most suicide bombing terror
organizations for the past twenty years were generally Sunni sectarians. Like
the distribution of loose nukes from former Soviet stockpiles after the fall of
the Soviet Union the fall of the Assad regime might through into the middle
east the Pandora's box of chemical weapons to a new generation of terrorists
that have perhaps already developed plans to snag particular Sarin supplies
like vultures circling over potential prey.
A better road to deterrence is simple creation of a very positive
social economy and recovering ecosphere that political leaders internationally
want to emulate. With the increase of the Internet access for the planet a
recovering ecosphere with new economic practices reducing the concentration of
wealth is a far better direction of travel than the concentration of wealth,
impersonalization of a broadcast media owned by a plutocracy and authoritarians
and expansion of non-renewable economic practices to the entire world.
Democracy can be a better political method for enlisting full social support for
individualism against the collectivism of corporate and communist assaults on
free enterprise and free speech when gangs of the powerful make individual
efforts futile. Limiting the size of corporations and the number of
corporations anyone can invest in at three would also be a useful development
course for preempting chemical weapons attacks in local civil wars by
preempting the wars and dysfunctional social environment of poverty and pathos.
