On Civilian Casualties
As a country grows stronger militarily, you can
choose where and when to deploy forces to minimize or eliminate civilian
casualties. But no military budget is unlimited and every military planner has
to say at some point, that's too far fetched. If the enemy does that then
civilians are just going to have to die.
Military planning has some very macabre traits.
It always has. Like any safety system, there is a point past which threats are
considered too unlikely or too far off to budget for and create a defense.
Opinions legitimately vary on this which is why the UK is much more interested
in searching for catastrophic meteor impacts than the US is. There is no right
or wrong answer on this because nobody really knows when such a thing might
happen.
Unfortunately, some of these
'far fetched' attacks happen and then people die. The World Trade Center and
Pentagon attacks on 9/11/2001 were one spectacular example of such an unlikely
attack.
Posted: Tue - October 7, 2003 at 12:52 AM