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In our view, all-out war promises the least success in achieving the objectives we have outlined. First, it would not necessarily discourage other po… - Paul Nitze
" "In our view, all-out war promises the least success in achieving the objectives we have outlined. First, it would not necessarily discourage other potential aggressors. Defeating Saddam Hussein promptly in an all-out war would send an unequivocal signal that this aggression had not been tolerated. But if casualties were high, U.S. sentiment probably would be driven toward a more isolationist posture. Many Americans would be dismayed by the carnage and resentful that our allies were not paying a similar price. (The seeds of such resentment already exist.) They could be expected to oppose any comparable U.S. role in the future. The message would be that the United States had neither the inclination to work in concert with other nations nor the stomach to repeat the anti-Iraq action. Many of our current collaborators, who are ambivalent at best about the war option, might also lose interest in future cooperation with us. A world of growing brutality and chaos would become a likely prospect.
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About Paul Nitze
Paul Henry Nitze (16 January 1907 – 19 October 2004) was an American politician who served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Defense, U.S. Secretary of the Navy, and Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department. He is famous for being the principal author of the policy paper NSC 68 (1950) and a co-founder of Team B. From 1950 on, he helped shape Cold War policy over the course of numerous presidential administrations from that of Harry Truman to that of Ronald Reagan.
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Paul Henry Nitze
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Additional quotes by Paul Nitze
As for the so-called rogue states that are not inhibited in their actions by the consensus of world opinion, the United States would be wise to eliminate their nuclear capabilities with the preemptive use of our conventional weapons — when necessary, and when we have unambiguous indication of these countries' intent to use their nuclear capability for purposes of aggrandizement. The same principle should apply to any threat emanating from unstable states with nuclear arsenals. By simply having our intelligence services read their mail, we can tell if there is compelling reason to take preemptive action.
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If there is little or no middle ground in the struggle for peace with justice, what resources of will and of national sacrifice are we entitled, or ethically called upon, to put into the effort to cause a system compatible with superior values to prevail? What risks are we entitled to take with the awful hazard of a nuclear war? What guidelines emerge from a comprehensive analysis of the full range of pertinent considerations? The concept of an ethical framework that has objective validity, over and beyond the values of the individual or societal groups and to which man can aspire to have some degree of understanding, seemed to me to be necessary for there to be a well-founded sense of direction to a foreign policy.
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