Quote:
It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union .
-- President John F. Kennedy,
Oct. 22, 1962
Now that's deterrence.
Kennedy was pledging that if any nuke was launched from Cuba, the United States would not even bother with Cuba but would go directly to the source and bring the apocalypse to Russia with a massive nuclear attack.
The remarkable thing about this kind of threat is that in 1962 it was very credible. Indeed, its credibility kept the peace throughout a half-century of the Cold War.
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Excellent article by Krauthammer: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR2006101201668_pf.html
Bush has drawn several red lines with Iran and NK, but has failed to make them stick. Someday, in the near future, when the first terrorist A-bomb destroys Washington, or Copenhagen, or the Hague, or London, or Berlin, or Rome, or Paris... people will look back and see this time as the decisive point where the Western world had the opportunity to act and stop nuclear proliferation, but did not have the will. Bush will be a key figure of blame, but most of Europe and half of America should share the blame for holding him back.