Here's a 2-year-old (9/21/01) post from Reason by Jesse Walker. I think it still stands up pretty well.
When the military prepares for action, the public debate is usually a simple either/or: Will there be peace, or will there be war? Not so now. Fresh from the bloody assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, there are at least six choices before us, each with its own subgenres and mutant variations. None is perfect, and one is actually insane. But each is worth examining, if only to understand what people actually mean when they call for war, peace, or some other path they can't quite articulate.
Here, then, are our choices, beginning with the least violent and ending with the most:
The Ghandi Option
The Kojak Option
The Bronson Option
The Bugs Bunny Option
The Caesar Option
The Strangelove Option
And we seem to have gone for The Caesar Option, with maybe a nod back towards "Bugs"
It would be interesting to categorize the current Presidential candiates on these six options. Comments?