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Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

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Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#321

Post by kamaal »

hef19898 wrote: post #307
ekianjo wrote: post #247

Earlier 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.

Different times, back during the higjt of the british empire war and colonization have been normal things to do. Even the British were quite aggrez, but still not out of the norm. This whole land grabbing kind of war ended to be a thing with WW 2. So you can still be as aggressive as the British back then, it just manifests itself in different ways. Also, nowadays it is a lot easoer to control countries by economic m…

>>Different times, back during the higjt of the british empire war and colonization have been normal things to do.

Indian here. Colonization is just a placeholder term to describe resource grab. There is no real chance England could have annexed India.

Why do all this annexation business, and offer the other country free citizenships? All you have to do is militarily control the country while you can take their resources and ship to your homeland.

>>This whole land grabbing kind of war ended to be a thing with WW 2.

Territorial control often has further ulterior motives. Like grabbing useful land, or creating buffer zones etc.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#322

Post by [deleted] »

poof131 wrote: post #317
yongjik wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#323

Post by rhacker »

We won't have another giant war because: the internet. i don't know about anyone else but I spent some of my childhood travelling distances. Every time I did there was a cultural identity associated with the places I went. Post internet culture has changed nearly every place I've been. Everywhere I go everyone is the same now. They are all connected. People are connected to people in other countries like never before. There is so much connectivity that any "warmongering" king/president can't nearly control the flow of information like they used to. That all being said, how do we explain things like Crimea, issues with North Korea, the middle east? Well, Crimea, I can't fully explain. But North Korea and the middle east definitely practice tight control over their internet.

That all being said, I'm not saying it's impossible, but that we're so connected now that I just don't see a great war because too many of our soldiers will have brothers, sisters, best friends in the war we're going up against.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#324

Post by CobrastanJorji »

rhacker wrote: post #323

We won't have another giant war because: the internet. i don't know about anyone else but I spent some of my childhood travelling distances. Every time I did there was a cultural identity associated with the places I went. Post internet culture has changed nearly every place I've been. Everywhere I go everyone is the same now. They are all connected. People are connected to people in other countries like never before…

Even if you're absolutely right that Internet access changed everything, all it would take for a Great War would be if there was a major world military power that tightly controls its Internet, and that's China.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#326

Post by kamaal »

EthanHeilman wrote: post #130
robbiep wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately the answer to the economic value of Rome destroying Carthage was that Rome became the undisputed ruler of the Med for 500 years. Up until not that much time prior to the Punic wars, it wasn't at all clear that Rome would become the power that it did. Obviously the animosity between the two played a huge part in the desire to salt the fields of Carthage, but that is almost exactly how The Entente and the Ce…

> neither of them could stomach laying down their arms, because so much blood had been spilt. Lets hope sunk cost fallacy doesn't doom our global civilization. =/

Unfortunately politics works exactly that way. See how far Japan got in WW2, knowing very well what could be the end of it.

In fact the most scary situations in the entire WW2 was the time between the first nuclear weapon and the second nuclear weapon drop and the time after that till surrender. Here is a paragraph from the statement of Emperor of Japan.

Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan

Now imagine if the emperor had thought, they might as well endure a little further and let it continue.

Then you have no other option but to the bomb the earth to biological extinction.

Its very dangerous to posses a powerful weapon(like nuclear weapons), what's more dangerous is an enemy country deciding to be oblivious of it.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#327

Post by kamaal »

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?

>>Maybe all of these were really about resources?

Of course? Though nuts always exist, but as whole do you seriously think people fight for Jesus, Allah or Karl Marx?

Its always Oil, Gold, Wheat or Highway taxes or some thing like that.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#328

Post by fit2rule »

rhacker wrote: post #323

We won't have another giant war because: the internet. i don't know about anyone else but I spent some of my childhood travelling distances. Every time I did there was a cultural identity associated with the places I went. Post internet culture has changed nearly every place I've been. Everywhere I go everyone is the same now. They are all connected. People are connected to people in other countries like never before…

>We won't have another giant war because: the internet.

I used to think that, but then I realised that the Internet is mostly just a porn-delivery device.

Plus, there's the 4-chan factor, as in: if there is going to be another world war, it'll start because of something someone posted on 4-chan ... I mean look how easily the Internet was usurped to provide the "but Russia!" narrative, eagerly embraced by many a hawk as a means to a violent end ..

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#329

Post by fit2rule »

goatsi wrote: post #290
AlanSE wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Due to morbid curiosity or whatever, I can't get enough of these arguments. Yes, the initial superiority of one military is greater by a large margin and will remain that way for some time to come. But I think it's misleading wording to say it "has room to improve its lead", simply due to the fact that emerging powers are improving a greater rate, and it's economically unreasonable to believe otherwise. Plus, no indi…

Carriers are not invincible, submarines have gotten clear views of them before in military exercises, let alone missile swarms. The strongest defense a US carrier group has is the fact that there are 10 other carrier groups distributed around the world. I think anyone who thinks that inflicting a sharp defeat on the US in the pacific would crush public morale and push it into a negotiated peace would have to be a ver…

It takes a single Sunburn [0] to take out a carrier. There is no defence - yet. Of course, when the railgun and lasers are deployed, this all changes again, but in the meantime the US' carrier fleet is principally a policing tool, and would be dead in the water during an all-out war - assuming the US chooses to go against an enemy that has the Sunburn in its arsenal.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-N-22

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#330

Post by acqq »

ctchocula wrote: post #310
Bendingo wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

[3] is an opinion piece, [4] says that he was exonorated. However, the wikipedia page says: "After Milošević's death, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concluded separately in the Bosnian Genocide Case that there was no evidence linking him to genocide committed by Bosnian Serb forces during the Bosnian War. However, the Court did find that Milošević and others in Serbia had committed a breach of the Genocide…

Note that the parent didn't make argument about Bosnia at all.
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