Iraqi Forces Overrun Tiny Kuwait

Iraq’s juggernaut occupation of Kuwait dramatically illustrates the ultimate tests of U.S. military strategy for the decades ahead.

First, Iraq typifies the type of adversary that will endanger peace in the world in the decades to come, not nuclear superpowers. Hence, elephantine procurement budgets for such strategic weapons as the B-2 bomber are useless and wasteful.

Second, in the hours when Iraq might well have been deterred by a threat of military counterforce, the United States seemed paralyzed into inaction and unwilling to flex the military muscle which President Bush and others claim is so necessary to ensure peace.

Iraq, then, has demonstrated that tyrannies once again can trample unhindered into a helpless country without fear of military arsenals being used on them because of a history of U.S. unwillingness to exercise force except against such formidable foes as Grenada and Panama.

PAT MURPHY

Paradise Valley, Ariz.