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Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

bloomberg.com

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Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#331

Post by acqq »

turtlecloud wrote: post #325
fouc wrote: post #296

Has anyone noticed there seems to be a common theme with the related articles on that page? A lot of fear mongering it seems. What is bloomberg's agenda in doing that?

The elites are psychologically prepping people for it.

Almost. Actually the main message of that Bloomberg article is (quoting from the article):

"As Americans consider how strongly — or even whether — to defend the international order their country created against the growing pressures exerted by authoritarian revisionist powers such as China and Russia, this lesson is worth keeping in mind."

Basically, the author argues: "the Americans" should not stop to "to defend the international order" "against" "China and Russia" or... there can be a new World War.

Note the problem: it is not clear how the author imagines that the very insisting on "defending" the "order" by the Americans can't provoke the bigger war than they imagine?

Austrian leaders, at that moment of a huge empire, also just believed they "defended" the "order" when attacking Serbia, which they expected will be a small and easy war, but they actually started the WW I. In spite of the popular belief, also mentioned in the article that "what we would now call globalization had rendered great-power conflict obsolete."

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#332

Post by abcd_f »

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…

>inflicting a sharp defeat on the US in the pacific would crush public morale and push it into a negotiated peace

This would depend squarely on the context and circumstances. Historical precedents are of little to no relevance here.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#333

Post by abcd_f »

AlanSE wrote: post #255
AcerbicZero wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can happily go point by point here, but my original comment wasn't intended to suggest I agreed with the current state of world military balance and shouldn't be taken as implicit support of US policy. That said - * The S-400 is an impressive system. The Russians have so built ~300 of them, and like any system, the soft factors are more important than the paper facts suggest. Training, deployment, doctrine, and str…

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…

>Due to morbid curiosity or whatever, I can't get enough of these arguments.

That's a very civil way to frame an otherwise bona fide flamewar topic, without ruining it :)

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#334

Post by umichguy »

factsaresacred wrote: post #286
dvtrn wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since they are not doing so, its hard to call them belligerent I wonder what kinds of things history will be saying about the United States in 200 years, a nation who probably didn't take the brutish British approach to invasion, but has tripwire forces-I mean "installations" dotted all over everyone else's back yards instead.

Gratitude, I hope. Without the US, the world would be a sh*tshow. The tripwire bases prevent the likes of Russia putting its paws on Eastern Europe or China snatching more islands they claim as there own. Back when the Serbs were genociding their Muslim citizens, Europe was inept while the US saved the day, as usual. The US enjoys the status quo - most military interventions are to maintain it.

I am not a big fan of current US policy, but definitely agree that our presence is a stabilizing factor in the world geo politics. Take the US out of the equation and there would like be a huge imbalance. The UK and other European countries are but a shadow of their past... At least militarily.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#335

Post by abcd_f »

fit2rule wrote: post #329
goatsi wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Looks like these missiles are at least 20 year old. How come there's no defence against them yet?

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#336

Post by Yetanfou »

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…

The US carrier force could be blown out of the water by modern electric submarines [1]. The chance of Sweden starting a war against the US is not all that great - this mouse does not roar - but the same or similar technology (Stirling engines, fuel cells, a boatload of 18650 cells running a sub, etc) are available to parties which might stand to gain more from such a conflict. Replacing a carrier takes years, blowing one up takes a few minutes. Were I in command of the US carrier fleet I would be very mindful of this threat and make sure I always have the fleet dispersed with at least one battle group somewhere behind 'safe' lines.

[1] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/swedens-super-ste... (and many other similar articles elsewhere)

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#337

Post by fouc »

turtlecloud wrote: post #325
fouc wrote: post #296

Has anyone noticed there seems to be a common theme with the related articles on that page? A lot of fear mongering it seems. What is bloomberg's agenda in doing that?

The elites are psychologically prepping people for it.

Less prepping and more priming, trying to make war happen.

For example all the noise about Russia's influence in US election, seemed to me the media was trying to ultimately instigate war.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#338

Post by baybal2 »

ImprovedSilence wrote: post #165
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…

Less bloody perhaps by use of less kinetic weapons directly against people, but the scary part of war is famine for the populace. Just look at Yemen, I heard 100,000 died in the past few years there, basically just because Saudi Arabia has them under siege in their proxy war with Iran. The biggest killer in Russia in WWII was famine. When the supply chain or a weak link in our technology breaks (or is broken) death t…

>also the point of war is simply about power, or to make the other nation/state/population submit to your demands

A point of war is a complete destruction of enemy country, its population, culture, economy, grinding it to all to dust. Enemy being crushed, hunted to the last man, turned into animal by fear. Making enemy fear you more than death — this is the point of war.

You think you know a thing about war? Western people, thinking of war as a ritual sabre rattling with some symbolic bloodshed just to motivate the enemy to accept talks on their terms, know nothing about war.

If Western powers would enter a war with that idea in heads of their leaders, I am afraid to image what the outcome will be. The West is too used to think of wars as wars of politicians. Genghis khan was not a politician, and the next man to follow his steps wouldn't be either.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#339

Post by DoctorOetker »

gaius wrote: post #107
hevi_jos wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

there are still plenty of drivers for such a war besides ideology.

Natural resources, they don't need to be profitable during the war, if the prospect of future peaceful taxation after victory is alluring enough.

Natural resources, the natural resources don't need to reside in the target country, the politicians, war industry etc in the invading country can use their profit to gain a bigger share of the resources and economy at home.

Dick length contest, remember when for one of the missing planes a few years ago how the larger nations refused to share any military RADAR imagery, since it would reveal the state of their art. During peacetime you can develop and test future war technologies, but there is always the paranoia that you don't know how far potential future enemies are. So they need a "playground" and compare genitals, and test systems in practice... but neither power wants to wage war on their own soil, nor risk all-out war with the other power on their soil... so they squash the little powers, especially those that start gaining independence and would otherwise end up paying tax to neither superpower. In this perspective the war is in fact a common goal for the "animous" superpowers...

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#340

Post by raprp »

sxyuan wrote: post #277
raprp wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hamas is bombing Israel, not the Syrian Army. Hamas chose Saudi Arabia's and Qatar's side on the Syrian conflict and that lead to Assad breaking relations with them. Syria took it as a betrayal so I doubt they would do anything to help Hamas. Israel is not bombing Syria to defend itself. Syria never had and nor will have the capability to do anything to Israel. The reason Israel have been bombing Syria is the same re…

> Israel is not bombing Syria to defend itself. Syria never had and nor will have the capability to do anything to Israel. You're forgetting about the Six-Day War [1] and the Yom Kippur War [2]. Yes, there are controversies around those too, and Israel came out on top in the end - but let's not pretend that Israel the modern nation-state hasn't been on guard against being obliterated by its neighbors since Day 1. [1]…

Nobody denied those conflicts and the need of Israel to defend itself.

But sometime seems that only Israel has the right to defend itself, even when its not on the defense but actively bombing countries with far inferior armies / allies and they have to just accept being bombed because of events 50 years ago.

Can Iraq or Syria use the recent invasions as excuse to do whatever they want for the next 50 years too?

The concept of preemptive war has always been an excuse to actually start wars.

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