A Whiff of the Calculus

I think we can now say that all saber's have been well and truely rattled. It remains to be seen how the various parties will weigh up whatever values each assigns to the component interests comprising Stalin's infamous statistics.

Let us all hope that the actual governments involved have more reliable reports from which to work and less callous analysts upon which to rely. Fear is the absolute worst emotion that can be allowed to color an assessment of a possible action. A dissertation that actually sought to stimulate discussion of a given option's practicality would have been written with far less fatalism then is evident in the J-Post article linked above.

I have previously suggested that an alternative course of action would achieve the desired near-term security without the short- and long-term disadvantages the extreme nuclear option would impose on all the world to varying degree. Such an action may arguably be more humane then the J-Post's nuclear tactic, but I'm certain it is an equally human behaviour that offers more subsequent alternative action from which to select as time passes. That's the problem with escalation, once a step up in agression has occurred, the more dangerous it becomes for any participant to attempt anything less, what with the extremity of retaliation the previous escalation might justify.

Shame on Elie Leshem for such a public surrender to fear, and shame on you Professor Reynolds, there is no "right" to be found here, in any sense of that word's accepted meaning.