Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 400 posts

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#101

Post by geggam »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #83
v_lisivka wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crimea is Ukraine. Donetsk and Crimea were captured by Russia because Ukraine signed contract with Shell to develop natural gas field near Donetsk, and because dispute with Romania about natural field in Black Sea was ended, so Gasprom owners worried about competition at European market. Syria - to stop natural gas pipeline from Qatar’s north Field through Syria on to Turkey and to the EU. Gasprom owners are worried…

Funny how I always heard that Crimea & Syria were about people and terrorists, respectively, whereas Afghanistan and Iraq were about oil. Maybe all of these were really about resources?

What truth is there to the participation of the world banking system tends to lead to this sort of war ?

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#102

Post by soylentcola »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #86
lozaning wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what is absolutely undisputed though? America's love for guns. There are 120 guns in the US for every 100 people. American civilians own 393 million guns, both legally and otherwise, out of a worldwide total of 857 million firearms [1]. Good luck occupying that. Also, FWIW under every circumstance that isn't some kind of military invasion phantasy porn I generally look less positively on our relationship wit…

Yeah. Recently I realized that alien invasion/zombie outbreak movies couldn't possibly have different setting than United States, because no other country on Earth has enough firearms just lying around for survivors to mount an armed defense against the invaders.

There's a rifle at the Winchester.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#103

Post by AimForTheBushes »

jryan49 wrote: post #88
dandare wrote: post #60

We need to take a MUCH harder stance against Russia poisoning the public discourse with conspiracy theories, fake news and alternative medicine/science/history/morality. We have to restore values and trust to the public affairs.

Pretty sure no one can disagree with that, but HOW do you do it? Even harder, how do you do it and respect free speech?

Education!

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#104

Post by nostrademons »

jeffdavis wrote: post #29

What's the point of war in the modern world? Gain land/people? If there's a thriving economy there, war will probably change that quickly. If there's no thriving economy, what's the point? You could try to exploit the people/resources there, but the profits in that seem (at least compared to a world power) pretty thin. Unskilled labor and unimproved land are just not worth what they used to be. Specific resources mig…

Most wars end up being sparked by violations of sanctity, even if the underlying factors that drive them are economic. Some group considers an idea sacred, and their adversaries threaten to profane that idea. Because their belief is sacred, they will go to any length, and any cost, to protect it.

Think of Catholicism vs. Protestantism in the European Wars of Religion. The injustice of slavery vs. Southern honor in the American Civil War. Nationalism and alliances in WW1. The superiority of the Aryan Race in Nazi Germany. Capitalism vs. communism in the Cold War and conflicts (Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Central America) within it.

Nazism was fundamentally irrational (and its irrationality led directly to the downfall of Nazi Germany), but that didn't stop it from plunging the whole world into war.

There are plenty of similar flash points in the world today. The current U.S. government includes numerous people for whom the idea of the U.S. as a Christian country is sacred - hell, the acting Attorney General just said that he could not support secular judicial nominees. Economic development (to the extent that it enriches the secular, heathen, and heretical) is part of the problem there, as it profanes the Christian moral fabric of America. Similarly, the progressive left in the U.S. has their own sacred idea: equality. Economic development, to them, is a net negative to the extent that it benefits entrenched corporations or privileged groups.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#105

Post by cthalupa »

hrktb wrote: post #32
AcerbicZero wrote: post #6

A modern "great war" would require countries of relatively equal military industrial power, so either it would be a great war without the US involved, i.e. China/India, Russia/China (with caveats), etc. In those situations the countries may temporarily forgo the use of nuclear weapons, at least until one side is pressed beyond the point of rational response. I'd also suggest the last time countries were so dominant i…

Another great war could mean at least one country preparing for it and building weapons in advance. As of now the US have the greatest army, but if let’s say China were to prepare for it for enough time in a somewhat stealthy way, couldn’t it bring the USA into a long and dirty foght ?

>As of now the US have the greatest army, but if let’s say China were to prepare for it for enough time in a somewhat stealthy way, couldn’t it bring the USA into a long and dirty foght ?

Well, this is one of the reasons a Great War is unlikely - how are you going to do this? Even if you build things up slowly, you still have to store them somewhere. You have to train people. There is no way to create a military force capable of fighting a Great War in today's age without it being obvious.

Which isn't to say that build up can't happen - it's just not going to be a surprise to anyone.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#106

Post by nostrademons »

ufmace wrote: post #90

I kind of agree, but for different reasons. Part of the reason WWI came out the way that it did is that both technology and social organization had changed so much since the last big war that nobody really knew what would happen or what to do with it all. And we find ourselves in that situation again with nuclear weapons, modern air power, drones, and cyber war. I'm thinking that nuclear weapons will continue to prec…

Nuclear weapons likely preclude large-scale direct conflict between great powers, but they raise the stakes a lot for civil wars, civil disorder, and anarchy within great powers. MAD works great up until a splinter group gains control of a launch facility and says "What, you're gonna nuke San Francisco if we nuke Beijing? Be my guest. We hate those hippie libtards anyway."

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#107

Post by gaius »

hevi_jos wrote: post #91
jeffdavis wrote: post #29

What's the point of war in the modern world? Gain land/people? If there's a thriving economy there, war will probably change that quickly. If there's no thriving economy, what's the point? You could try to exploit the people/resources there, but the profits in that seem (at least compared to a world power) pretty thin. Unskilled labor and unimproved land are just not worth what they used to be. Specific resources mig…

>What's the point of war in the modern world? Let's see: Why the US, with the support of Europe supported the coup against the democratically elected government in Ukraine? - Because they could. Because that way they could force Sevastopol out of Russia's hand and remove the Rusia's access to the only not frozen port of Russia. They could also control the Black sea and the gas and oil it has, and more than this, cont…

Russia invaded Afghanistan for the same reason the US invaded Vietnam - an imperative to spread their ideology. Both failed for the same reason too. But natural resources weren’t even in the frame.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#108

Post by jawilson2 »

jbattle wrote: post #68
vvillena wrote: post #44

At this point wars between powerful nations are almost impossible. Proxy wars are the current fashion, and those tend to be controlled in scale by the puppetmasters behind it. I'm more scared about a great civil war in a powerful nuclear nation. Civil wars are a savage affair where no rules apply.

This book was hugely influential in the years just before WW1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion Premise: the large nations of the world are far to intertwined by commerce and culture. Large scale war would be suicidal and the leadership of these countries would never do something so foolish.

> Large scale war would be suicidal

They weren't wrong

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#109

Post by geggam »

hrktb wrote: post #32
AcerbicZero wrote: post #6

A modern "great war" would require countries of relatively equal military industrial power, so either it would be a great war without the US involved, i.e. China/India, Russia/China (with caveats), etc. In those situations the countries may temporarily forgo the use of nuclear weapons, at least until one side is pressed beyond the point of rational response. I'd also suggest the last time countries were so dominant i…

Another great war could mean at least one country preparing for it and building weapons in advance. As of now the US have the greatest army, but if let’s say China were to prepare for it for enough time in a somewhat stealthy way, couldn’t it bring the USA into a long and dirty foght ?

The US has with no doubt the best ground on the planet to defend themselves with. Isolated by two large oceans and bordered by "mostly" friendly nations

Force extended requires significant amplification.

So for China to impact us in a meaningful way they would have to somehow sneak a force large enough to damage across a pretty wide open space, then maintain that logistically.

Ditto for the RU

That said once in the US you have 300 million small arms manned by 21+ million veterans in the US

Not sure China can actually get that many boots on the US soil before the Navy / Air get a poke or two at them

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#110

Post by dwiel »

everdev wrote: post #17
AcerbicZero wrote: post #6

A modern "great war" would require countries of relatively equal military industrial power, so either it would be a great war without the US involved, i.e. China/India, Russia/China (with caveats), etc. In those situations the countries may temporarily forgo the use of nuclear weapons, at least until one side is pressed beyond the point of rational response. I'd also suggest the last time countries were so dominant i…

A counterpoint would be examining each country's idea of "acceptable losses". If losing 1 major city to nuclear weapons is considered unacceptable, then the major nuclear power are essentially on equal footing. Nuclear deterrence seems to be so effective because no nation to date has seemed to be willing to trade 1 of their cities for 2+ of their enemies.

Why just 1?
Post reply on HN