Jason Ye

October 7, 2013

GVPT 200

Alexandre Debs and Nuno P. Monteiro

   In the blog post “What Caused the Iraq War? A Debate.” By Alexander Debs and Nuno P. Monterio. I disagree with the authors’ argument that the motivations for invading Iraq on March 20, 2003, were to prevent suspected Iraqi nuclearization and to minimize the shift in balance of power between the U.S and Iraq. Also, I disagree with what they argue about “the cost of a preventive counter-proliferation war against Iraq was expected to be orders of magnitude smaller than the expected cost of deterring.”

  In the blog post, Debs and Monteiro mentioned that Saddam’s strategy was considered not to be irrational, which comes off as questionable. The first Gulf war (1991), when he had his military at full strength, he should have seen the result from the first Gulf war that even with his full strength, he could only causes little damage to the U.S military and how could he to expect to cause tremendous amount of damage to the U.S military a decade later when he only has half the force and military power as compared to a decade ago.

  In the second major claim, when Debs and Monteiro talk about how the Bush administration was really sensitive to the low-probability risks because of the 9/11 tragedy. Which in my opinion, the base for this major claim appears to not be supported by a rationalist logic since the Bush administration addressed the same probability before and after the attacks was not the same. To me, it seems like that the Bush administration learned from one low-probability risk event that another low-probability risk event can be happening.

  “By the same token, the effect of North Korean nuclearization would be relatively small, given the limited range of policy options available to the United States even vis-à-vis a non-nuclear North Korea.” I disagree with Debs and Monteiro on this part because if one of the main motivation to have war in Iraq is to balance the power because the U.S suspect that Iraq has nuclear weapon. Then it’s more necessary to balance the power between North Korean and the U.S, since there are clear evidences on North Korean having nuclear weapon.

  The last thing I want to talk about is “the cost of a preventive counter-proliferation war against Iraq was expected to be orders of magnitude smaller than the expected cost of deterring.” Maybe the cost on capital to have a counter – proliferation war is lower than the cost of deterring, but the war costs tens of thousands people’s life, created million or more refugees and caused the Sunni radical group still actively setting bomb and killing people.