Ireland - Well, let me try and answer your question, which was: "How would you do that LH [*defend a country I was in charge of],what experience would you use whose expertise would you call on? If you had intel of a foreign country wanting to attack yours, would you stike first?

There is no one simple answer to that, Ireland. Every single case is unique.

It is when people insist that there IS one simple answer to a generalized question, one panacea for all cases, that they go seriously astray and become idealogues (or religious fanatics).

So, I would have to access the situation according to its own unique qualities, and decide on that basis what to do.

I would call on the experience and expertise of whoever in my own military, intelligence, and political ranks I most trusted and had confidence in, based on prior experience. I would bear their advice in mind, use my own judgement as best I could, and try to make the best decisions accordingly. Those decisions would depend on the particular situation involved.

If directly assaulted by foreign military forces, I would issue orders for as vigorous a defence as my own forces were capable of...that again would depend upon the unique conditions involved, and I would mobilize the entire country as effectively as possible in every way to resist the attack.

If assaulted by terrorist forces, I would treat it not as a "war" in the normal sense (that is, a war between nations), but as a civil crime...and I would use all possible means of intelligence and police work FIRST to determine who was directly or indirectly responsible, THEN all means of negotiation and peaceful influence with other countries (if necessary) to track down those responsible and capture them...AND...I would try and resolve whatever had caused the overall situation in the first place which led to people having such hard feelings as to resort to terrorism! I would not respond to a terrorist attack by launching a conventional war upon another nation. I don't consider that an appropriate or (in the end) a useful response to terroriam. One may achieve an emotionally satisfying temporary victory and mollify one's feelings of outrage by such means, but one will NOT end terrorism but only encourage further acts of terrorism in the future by so doing.

The last part of your question: If I had reason to believe that another country was planning to attack my country, would I launch a pre-emptive strike (a war) on that country?

Almost certainly not, except in a VERY unusual situation. I would prepare my own defences in the most judicious way possible, to the extent that the other country would be VERY unlikely to even consider attacking me...knowing that it would lead to their own defeat.

Again, however, each situation is unique. If my country were smaller and weaker, then no amount of preparedness might prove sufficient to deter an aggressor (consider the case of Finland vs Russia in 1939...). If so, neither would a pre-emptive strike work. In such a case one hunkers down like the Finns did, prepares for the worst, and fights like hell when the attack comes. The Finns did that, and they seriously embarrassed the Russian army, but lost part of their land eventually to the large foe. They did the best they could. That's all anyone can do under those circumstances.

If you are enormously more powerful than your presumed foe...as is the USA compared to Iraq...then it is not necessary to launch a pre-emptive attack unless your foe is totally irrational and insane, and capable of hitting you hard, and will attack regardless of his own inevitable defeat and destruction. This is a very unlikely situation. So unlikely that it is almost inconceivable.

I do not believe Saddam is that irrational, nor do I think that he is capable of being a real threat to the USA. I do think he is capable of menacing a certain number of people (mostly within his own borders at this point), but so does the USA menace a certain number of people in the world (quite regularly), and the USA seems to feel that it's OKAY when they do it. This is hypocrisy...or it's simply an inability to see outside the "box" of one's own cultural identity.

I repeat, I do not consider an isolated terrorist attack to be adequate justification for launching a conventional war on a small country. I do consider it to be a handy excuse for such a war, however. A very handy one.

As every situation is unique...yes, I can imagine a hypothetical situation where I would at least consider a first strike on a potential attacker...but the reasons for it would have to be FAR more compelling than any that Mr Bush has come up with yet vis-a-vis Iraq.

I have not yet seen a case where such action was justified. The Japanese considered their attack on Britain and America to be just such a "justified" and pre-emptive first strike, by the way. They felt that war had already BEEN launched upon them in 1941 through economic and trade moves by FDR...and in the sense of realpolitik they were absolutely correct in that assessment. This did not, however, justify their launching a military first strike, in my opinion. They were in the pickle they were in due to their own prior aggression upon China, which was no one's fault but their own.

What you are asking for is the moral right to go ahead and do essentially what the Japanese did on Dec 7/41. At least that's how it looks to me...

- LH