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The United States ended the Cold War the way a master pilot lands a fighter jet, in a sort of ecstasy of precision and the gradual reduction of force. Today, that same jet is screeching around the runway, as our capacity for messy outcomes (Iraq, Libya, Egypt) expands before our eyes. One place where the potential for unparalleled damage has increased is the US. That is because there are more tools available to terrorists, extremists or just plain kooks now than in 2001. How might a terror attack play out? Dr Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a non-profit research group in Washington, modeled such an attack in his book, 7 Deadly Scenarios: A Military Futurist Explores War in the 21st Century. Nuclear explosions are the main feature of his scenario for a terror attack in the US. But he foresees threats as large as nuclear attacks coming from other types of weapons. The point is not for Americans to scare themselves silly. It is to reconsider the antidotes.

U.S. warplanes, Suzanne, ships and missiles have been striking against Libya for more than a week now/.../ While NATO has agreed to take over the mission and take full command, the cost to the U.S. has been estimated at between $300 million to $1 billion so far in Libya/.../ Todd Harrison offers his financial estimate of the cost of the U.S. military action in Libya.

Not since similar no-fly zones were employed in Iraq and the Balkans during the 1990s has the Pentagon committed such expensive resources outside a war zone as it has in Libya. This is very small compared to what we're spending in Afghanistan right now," says Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He estimated the initial cost of a no-fly zone at $400 million to $1 billion, with weekly operational costs from $30 million to $300 million.

The United States ended the Cold War the way a master pilot lands a fighter jet, in a sort of ecstasy of precision and the gradual reduction of force. Today, that same jet is screeching around the runway, as our capacity for messy outcomes (Iraq, Libya, Egypt) expands before our eyes. One place where the potential for unparalleled damage has increased is the US. That is because there are more tools available to terrorists, extremists or just plain kooks now than in 2001/.../

Even in an era of staggering weapons costs, the price tag for a Tomahawk stands out because it's only used once. So, is the Tomahawk worth well over $1 million a shot?/.../ "They are expensive rounds, but they give you the potential to attack heavily defended targets up front," said Barry Watts, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "How do you value not putting a bunch of pilots in harm's way?"

The mission over Libya already has run up a bill in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Though the intervention is limited when compared with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it still costs money -- for bombs, missiles, fuel and maintenance, among other things/…/A study released in early March from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments estimated it would cost between $30 million and $100 million a week to maintain a limited no-fly zone in Libya. The study estimated it could cost up to $800 million up front to take out Libya's air defense systems -- though that estimate could run high since it assumed the United States, now part of a coalition, would bear most of the cost.