Have you considered the theory of deterrence ? Shortly after the shooting stopped in Bosnia in the 1990s; NATO regularly held demonstrations of their firepower, taking care to invite the political leaders of all major groups. The idea was to show the locals that if they began shooting again, that NATO could squish them very quickly. The result was that the people of former Yugoslavia realised that smuggling in a few more guns before restarting the fighting was not going to work and everyone got on with trying to create peace instead.
To be an effective message any threat must be credible and demonstrably backed by force.
By very publicly showing surface to air missiles on national TV, the military are trying to tell terrorist groups that hijacking a plane and crashing it into Stratford a la 9-11 is NOT GOING TO WORK.
If someone were to be flying over the London area in a way that looked questionable is it not likely that an RAF jet would take a look first before missiles are fired ?
Last edited by davidjohnson6; 11th Jul 2012 at 22:36.