The Clipboard: Mutually Assured Destruction and Terrorism

From an article¹:

First of all, the reason mutually assured destruction works is not because of politician's concern for their subjects. If Bush and those in the Pentagon really cared about human life, they wouldn't be sending soldiers to die overseas every day. Mutually assured destruction works because politicians know (a) so many of their subjects will be killed off that the economy, and thereby tax revenue, will plunge into the toilet, and (b) that they will lose all political support, since launching a nuclear attack is such an extremely obvious provocation for the return attack. Thus, for the concept to work, it is not necessary that our rulers care in the least about us, but merely realize the fact that their power and control would be irretrievably damaged by nuclear aggression.

Obviously, isolated acts of terrorism, even blowing up buildings, will never be able to kill off enough people to significantly decrease the tax base or destabilize the economy. Such events can even be desirable occasionally, as they can be used to whip the population into a frenzy of nationalism. So, politicians don't have to worry about losing support either. On the contrary, whoever is in office at the time will likely be looked upon as a hero for his response to the act. Even if the nation's leaders obviously provoked the act, this can be covered up; most voters don't want to believe this kind of thing, and so barring an extremely obvious act of aggression (like launching a nuke) from "our side", they will lay all the blame on those who committed the act. (link)

This provocative article argues that terrorism is not successful as a tactic because the state doesn't really care about the welfare of its citizens as long as it doesn't affect tax revenue. The website describes itself as promoting "market anarchism".

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Complete text of the article, Mutually Assured Destruction and Terrorism, by Aaron James Sutherlin

As I'm sure most readers of this site are aware, the term "mutually assured destruction" refers to the the theory that no world power dares to use nuclear weapons, because of the declared policy of the leaders of other nations possessing nuclear weapons to retaliate immediately and with full force against any nation which should launch a nuclear attack against their country or allied forces. The theory runs that no leader is insane enough to risk killing off most of his population for a military victory. Though every single government that has ever existed has broken treaties as soon as it was convenient for the officials within it, nuclear weapons have not yet been launched since the acquisition of nuclear power by Russia, China, France, and other world powers. Even the United States government has not dared to launch a nuclear attack since there has been any possibility of retaliation. So, in practice, mutually assured destruction seems to be having the desired effect.
From this premise, it would seem to follow that terrorist acts, i.e. a threat against the population of a country to coerce the leaders into changing their political tune, would work. After all, if leaders are kept back from the obvious military advantages of using nukes by the threat of retaliation against the civilian population (I assume the leaders would be able to get away from even a large-scale nuclear attack by the use of large bunkers, such as NORAD headquarters), wouldn't a threat against a smaller number of civilians (say, 5000 or so), cause politicians to think twice about carrying through on strategies that were obviously going to piss off organizations with a long history of terrorism? The answer is no.

First of all, the reason mutually assured destruction works is not because of politician's concern for their subjects. If Bush and those in the Pentagon really cared about human life, they wouldn't be sending soldiers to die overseas every day. Mutually assured destruction works because politicians know (a) so many of their subjects will be killed off that the economy, and thereby tax revenue, will plunge into the toilet, and (b) that they will lose all political support, since launching a nuclear attack is such an extremely obvious provocation for the return attack. Thus, for the concept to work, it is not necessary that our rulers care in the least about us, but merely realize the fact that their power and control would be irretrievably damaged by nuclear aggression.

Obviously, isolated acts of terrorism, even blowing up buildings, will never be able to kill off enough people to significantly decrease the tax base or destabilize the economy. Such events can even be desirable occasionally, as they can be used to whip the population into a frenzy of nationalism. So, politicians don't have to worry about losing support either. On the contrary, whoever is in office at the time will likely be looked upon as a hero for his response to the act. Even if the nation's leaders obviously provoked the act, this can be covered up; most voters don't want to believe this kind of thing, and so barring an extremely obvious act of aggression (like launching a nuke) from "our side", they will lay all the blame on those who committed the act.

No matter how efficient, well structured, and powerful a terrorist organization becomes, the fact remains that those who really make policy will likely never feel the heat, and thus terrorism is not a viable method for weakening the State. Even if such a market-based terrorist organization such as AP could be created, it would not take out the state, for the same reason that Osama bin Laden's current efforts do not. Pentagon officials and others have the benefit of relative anonymity, and will never be directly targeted. Even other countries, with their promises of mutual destruction, do not claim to be able to take out all the top officials of government. Even if Bush was taken out, does anybody seriously believe he is the driving force behind the War on Terrorism? Do you think he wrote the USA Patriot Act? No terrorist organization, even AP, will be able to do more than kill civilians and fairly low-ranking government peons (i.e., those blown up in the Pentagon on 9/11), or occasionally a high-ranking government official like Bush. For the reasons I've detailed above, the destruction of policy-makers can never be ensured, not by other governments, and certainly not by terrorists. Slaughter by anyone but the government will always make the government more powerful... so shouldn't we all be pacifists?

reference=http://www.anti-state.com/sutherlin/sutherlin5.html