The Warden Collection (merged thread)

[Rank amateur]

Ken makes some good points.

For a war of choice - like Iraq or Grenada- the two relevant questions are:

What's the worst case scenario?
Are you prepared for the worst scenario?

When you're attacked, pride pretty much demands that you respond.

Complicated analysis is only required when you get in a game of chicken: Iran. Diplomatic factors must be considered too. Since the cost of war is high, there is almost always a deal that is better for both sides than war, but obviously some governments are too stupid or too egomanical or too deluded about their military abilities or too idealogical or have other agendas, to take it.

[Ken White]

...For a war of choice - like Iraq or Grenada- the two relevant questions are:

What's the worst case scenario?
Are you prepared for the worst scenario?

When you're attacked, pride pretty much demands that you respond.

Complicated analysis is only required when you get in a game of chicken: Iran. Diplomatic factors must be considered too. Since the cost of war is high, there is almost always a deal that is better for both sides than war, but obviously some governments are too stupid or too egomanical or too deluded about their military abilities or too idealogical or have other agendas, to take it.

First, three questions:

Is Iraq a war of choice or is the attack on Iraq simply an operational intermediate objective in a broader conflict?

In determining the "worst case scenario" are errors of commission or omission, even egregious ones, possible?

With respect to being prepared for the worst case scenario, if the best professional advice is that one is prepared and that turns out to be incorrect, who is at fault?

Plus a couple of comments:

There are reasons other than pride to respond to attacks. Not least of these is that a series of probing attacks eliciting no or little response can give the attacker a false image of the probability of eventual success and thus encourage the attacker to increase the tempo and strength of his attacks.

Accepting that "the cost of war is high, (and) there is almost always a deal that is better for both sides than war..." is true, it is possible that "...obviously some governments are too stupid or too egomanical or too deluded about their military abilities or too idealogical or have other agendas, to take it" is also true. The question that arises is what action should be taken if one side, NOT a government, will not deal and proves this by making 'demands' that are beyond the power of the nominal opponent, a government, to grant, if that side has no population or infrastructure to protect or steer it through votes or opinion and if it initiates hostilities by attacking that nominal opponent over a period of years, it would seem there should logically be a point at which the nominal opponent ceases to accept such attacks and takes some action of one kind or another.