Salami Tactics

There used to be a lovely TV series called Yes, Prime Minister which satirised the British political system, with not a little truth. One episode discussed the use of the nuclear deterrant, and explained the use of "salami tactics" in modern warfare. The idea is, you only press the nuclear trigger if you have no choice - but salami tactics mean you don't have a situation where you clearly have no choice. The enemy takes a small slice at a time of apparently reasonable measures until the whole salami is gone.

Basically, invasions are done a bit more subtly these days. The original example looked like this:

• Riots in West Berlin.
• East German fire brigade comes in to help.
• Fire brigade brings police with them.
• East German troops come in with the police, for riot control.
• Russian troops replace East German troops in troop rotation.
• Russian troops "invited" to "help" civil administration.
• Russian army exercises take them across West German border.

What began as a riot control exercise has ended up with a foreign army deep inside a sovereign state, but it's all come about through completely understandable stages, so of course nobody reacts to stop the invasion until it's already happened.

Here's another scenario.

• Israel launches air strikes on terrorist outposts in Lebanon.
• Israel needs to "cut communication lines" between terrorists, and pounds Lebanese infrastructure.
• Israel declares need for ground offensive in South Lebanon to purse terrorists. (I think this is about where we're up to now.)
• Israel claims intelligence of a terrorist retreat North into Lebanon.
• Israeli army sends detachments North to pursue terrorists.
• Israeli tanks move North to "seal off" already "cleared" area and prevent Hezbollah return South.

What began as a terrorist containment exercise has ended up with a foreign army deep inside a sovereign state. Of course, nobody reacts to stop the invasion until it's already happened.

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