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Pearl Harbor was an attack by the Japanese military on orders from the Japanese government. The 9/11 attacks were not perpetrated by a government or nation. Mos

• Spooky23 11y ago
  The grandparent shouldn't have deleted the comment. It highlights a nuance that isn't often explored while ruffling some feathers. So, why didn't we go nuke Saudi Arabia? A: It would not have accomplished anything. Morality is absent from the decision making process when it comes to warfare. If killing a million Saudis were the answer, they'd be dead. Technology has made it possible (or necessary) for non nation-state actors to levy something very similar to war against nation-states. In the case of a nation-state in the industrial and post-industrial age, the approach is straightforward -- you engage the enemy in the field AND destroy his ability to make war. The US Civil War was the dress-rehearsal for this, and WW1 explored the limits of what could be done before the innovations of the 20th century were fully baked. Today, you can't have total war, because tools exist to permanently execute a total war -- nuclear weapons. So we fight in the fringes by arming various individuals and engaging in an evolved form of guerrilla warfare. I think that history will conclude that the last decade and a half has been a process of the ultimate, seemingly omni-potent superpower figuring out how to scale down its war machine down as low as the individual actor.