First it was the Chinese motherboard implants and now visions of a great war. What's their agenda? Does Bloomberg news represent Michael Bloomberg's agenda/views/paranoia in any way?
Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’
311–320 of 400 posts
Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tell us, what territory was the US annexing in these attacks? And while they were saving Muslims from genocide in the Balkans, what islands did they steal? Not all acts of war are the same.
> they were saving Muslims from genocide in the Balkans If you're referring to the NATO bombing of Serbia, then you are incorrect -- there was no genocide in Kosovo. The justification for the Western intervention (100,000's of people murdered by Serbia) was a lie [1] [2], and Milosevic (the "Butcher of the Balkans") was exonerated of the charges of war crimes, twice [3] [4]. [1] https://www.newstatesman.com/europe/20…
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Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’
#313The thing about war is that at some point, the conditions line up where it becomes seen as a solution (if not the only solution), and its not easy to see the point at which that will occur ahead of time. Will China's big sea grab start a war? So far, they've been able to smother any of their neighbor's push back, and have just ignored any international rulings against them. What about when they invade Taiwan, which t…
USA's bombing list for the last 20 years alone speaks for itself: Sudan 1998 Afghanistan 1998 Yugoslavia 1999 Yemen 2002 Iraq 1991-2003 (US/UK on regular basis) Iraq 2003-2015 Afghanistan 2001-2015 Pakistan 2007-2015 Somalia 2007-8, 2011 Yemen 2009, 2011 Libya 2011, 2015 Syria 2014-2016
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Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’
#314Nationalism. This has been rising up like a plague in recent years and it isn't going away any time soon. When ego and emotion come into play, the question of what is the point because a matter of pride and the point is just to win regardless of the costs.
Not only nationalism. Current conflicts are rooted in the same prejudices as a hundred years ago. The root cause (this idea that somehow my nation/religion/race/etc is superior) hasn't been resolved, only more or less patched, and thus these conflicts are bound to reappear and escalate sooner or later until we recognize that that despite the valuable diversity humanity is essentially one and align the political and e…
> The root cause (this idea that somehow my nation/religion/race/etc is superior)
This isn’t really the root cause.
It is possible and common to think your group is superior without wishing any harm onto others and without trying to control others.
For example plenty of developers believe static typing is superior to dynamic typing but there are only a few that believe dynamic typing should be banned / driven out of the workplace.
Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
Israel has "the bomb", they definitely could start a global war.
What series of bombings might start a global war? I doubt bombing Iran would be enough.
The nuclear bombing of Iran by a state would almost certainly be enough to precipitate the complete collapse of the NPT, which is already wobbly (the latest Review Conference ended in acrimony).
Subsequent nuclear weapons projects in erstwhile NPT NNWS could easily trigger a few regional wars, and from there the escalation to a global conflict is certainly possible.
Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually this is debatable. The USA has the first military power in the whole world and could go and invade a bunch of countries if they wanted to and nobody would oppose them. Since they are not doing so, its hard to call them belligerent. The British Empire was way worse than the USA all things considered.
You're setting a high bar for belligerence. The US is diplomatically & militarily sophisticated enough that it frequently exercises rational restraint. It also is an admirably open society, undergoing strategic policy shifts as internal arguments get won and lost. But no-one (for other than ideological purposes) ever mistook the US for a fundamentally peaceable nation (internally or externally).
Further more, US is so scary they often don't need to do anything. The fact that they make their will known suffices to further their political goals.
War is an extension of politics.
Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tell us, what territory was the US annexing in these attacks? And while they were saving Muslims from genocide in the Balkans, what islands did they steal? Not all acts of war are the same.
US is not annexing Iraq because then US will have to grant US citizenship to Iraqis and they will be free to move to mainland US. Nobody wants that, so instead US bombs the shit out of Iraq, honors its "independence" by erecting a pro-American puppet government, and acts surprised when shit falls apart. So yeah, not all wars are the same, but people suffer all the same.
A puppet government? Hardly. We simply replaced Sunni for Shiite and slightly shifted things in a millennial old civil war. It was naive optimism of the Potomac chess players that we could reshape a country by invading it.[1] Others have mentioned the US supporting heinous countries like Saudi Arabia. This is sadly true and should stop, despite what the referenced article says about “staying engaged”. Ceasing support of tyrants and ending overtly militaristic policies is not disengaging, but reevaluating failed policies.
But the US also acts through a democracy, while the countries mentioned above do not. I can criticize the stupid policies of the US in a public forum. The citizens of the countries listed above can not. Democracy is not the equivalent of an oligarchy or tyranny. The people of a country are different from the government that represents them. Unelected governments are illegitimate and a danger to the free world despite what their minions of propaganda post.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Life_in_the_Emerald_C...
Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
28 Days/Weeks/Months is a good zombie series set in the UK, it was mostly the military doing the fighting. I never could understand how zombies in the walking dead managed to overrun the US military and all their bases, many in the middle of the desert or other hard to reach places. When it comes to zombie attacks pointy sticks seem pretty effective anyway.
Walking Dead is a TV show that makes zero sense whatsoever. I dropped watching it after 2.5 seasons, because after season 1 it lost any semblance of a plot, and became a TV-show-equivalent of the very zombies it portrays - mindlessly wandering around. I can't understand why it is so popular.
Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your post reminds me of some pre-WW1 opinions shared by Dan Carlin in his great podcast on the topic. There were a number of intelligent observers that thought a pan European war could not happen at that time because the economies of the great powers were going so well.
WW1 was monarchies (professional war-makers) still thinking war-making a major wealth gaining activity. 100 years ago they were proven horribly wrong, and ultimately triggered their extinction. After WW1, world learned that industrial activity had taken the crown from war-making. This brought WW2, socialism and democracy to world scene. But within next decade world would realize that democrats/socialists are temporar…
germany had its royal family as did russia. but a lot of the other countries were not so encumbered by stupid or naive leaders. but then you lose your direction - tech are the deserving brilliant money makers or something? and we are too smart to screw it up. ha.
Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’
#320What'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…
This line of thinking is partly what the author is warning about. France’s early war aims in WWI were to recapture Alsace-Lorraine (think Crimea). Germany’s were, basically, to be taken seriously. Britain was fairly anti-war but got talked into by the Germans triggering their treaty requirements invading Belgium (and being horrible there). Austria-Hungry was a monarchy that started the whole thing because of what they viewed as an act of state sponsored terrorism against the regime.
Everyone knew war was a economically foolish action (although many believed “reparations” would cover the cost), but WWI happened anyway. They believed that the war would be cheap and over quickly- the troops deployed in August would be home by Christmas.
I agree with the worrying trends the article notes. There are two countervailing trends that help stabilize the current system though- one is nuclear weapons, which really make clear the potential costs of conflict, and the other is the consistent success of Guerillia warfare and insurgencies since WWII, which all major powers except China have experienced in recent memory, reminding them of the costs of ground warfare.