It's an interesting point you bring up, Somer, that the difference with the Cold War was that the Soviets were working off essentially the same value system Americans were (strong national identity, war a bad thing and to be avoided). I think you're right-- MAD works only when both parties are playing on the same field. Which we were back then. Now, religious zealots who think they're going to be rewarded in the afterlife? That's a different playing field. For a sport I don't ever want to watch.
In a horrible way, can you blame North Korea? Kim Jong Il sees Hussein say, "I don't have any WMDs" and the US goes in anyway. Now North Korea detonates a nuclear device and the US's response is, well... not much of anything. I think, from his point of view, if the US is going to march in regardless, might as well have a weapon. Because if you do, the US clearly won't go in to attack. How stupid do we look now?
So, North Korea has nukes and we have no habeus corpus anymore. You know, Osama wanted 9/11 to help destroy America. And he's succeeding. And he hasn't had to do a darn thing since. We're doing it to ourselves. So who's really winning this war?
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