A radical shift in US war planning towards preemptive surprise attacks of a purely technological nature (bombing, space weapons) is the subject of a new article by William M. Arkin in the Washington Post. It seems that Washington is moving towards conflict resolution without the messy US casualties that usually force an end to wars. Since the US public seems much more willing to accept unfortunate non-US civilian casualties than it is American Soldier casualites, this strikes me as sound market-based war planning. Would there be much concern in the US if everyone woke up tomorrow to read that Pyongyang had been nuked in a surprise attack? I wonder…
Arkin calls for a public debate on the issue;
though CONPLAN 8022 suggests a clean, short-duration strike intended to protect American security, a preemptive surprise attack (let alone one involving a nuclear weapon option) would unleash a multitude of additional and unanticipated consequences. So, on both counts, why aren’t we talking about it?