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Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

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Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#341

Post by varjag »

soylentcola wrote: post #100
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…

My (admittedly uninformed and probably based on too many movies/novels) expectations would be less about traditional occupation and more about neutralization. I can't imagine the "Red Dawn" scenario of Russian troops invading and occupying US territory. If anything, the goal would be to knock out critical communication/shipping infrastructure to effectively disrupt all normal activity--can't buy or sell, can't get fo…

Judging by contemporary U.S. politics, in a Red Dawn scenario the Wolverines will be on joint patrols with Russians.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#342

Post by raprp »

umichguy wrote: post #334
factsaresacred wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The USA should never be out of the equation. Nor should Europe, China or Russia.

All the actors are needed for a multi-polar world.

What everyone needs is for all of them to stop waging proxy wars, grabbing international waters and deploying nukes around each other.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#343

Post by david927 »

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…

Wars don't happen because people don't get along; they don't happen because people are different and don't understand each other. Civil wars are both common and nasty.

Wars happen because in a set of animals, one member or subset will want the control of, say, the resources of an area, mating rights within the group, etc. Its members will often think that it's acting this way as a form of public service. "Someone has to divide up the meat of the fallen antelope," for example, ignoring what happens with control which is that the spoils, the resources, etc. will start to divide unevenly.

This continues to the point of extreme imbalance, such as just before the French Revolution where the wealthy paid less in tax than the poor, or the leader becomes too weak to maintain control. In all cases, control isn't maintained for long.

Right now, America is the empire in control. The problem that I see is that its generals are preparing for the last war with battleships and big guns (as sort of an "innovator's dilemma", where what has been successful for a company maintains the limelight despite a growing new reality). You can see the control ebbing, weakening. The petrodollar, for example, once so strong and a big part of the country's economic power, is now being replaced with the Special Drawing Right (SDR) -- a diversified basket of currencies.

And that's' the only solution: to diversify control. The peace that's found when an empire has control is temporary; it's the eye of the storm. Until there's world-wide democracy, we will have war.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#344

Post by raprp »

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…

> A puppet government? Hardly. We simply replaced Sunni for Shiite and slightly shifted things in a millennial old civil war.

When I read these type of comments I get truly scared on how the lives of non-western people don't really mean anything to lots of people.

There wasn't as slight shift in a conflict but an all out invasion causing hundreds of thousands of deaths in a few years. Millions if you consider the last 20 years.

> But the US also acts through a democracy, while the countries mentioned above do not.

Crimes committed by a democracy, a theocracy or a dictatorship are crimes all the same. That is how the rest of the world sees it and it's time for the west to start seeing it too.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#345

Post by baybal2 »

mikeash wrote: post #145
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Cuban missile crisis is an example of MAD working as intended. If it weren't for the threat of nuclear war the Cuban missile crisis would have turned into the "Russian tanks in Paris and Marines in Havana crisis"

There wasn’t MAD during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The US had the ability to completely destroy the USSR but the reverse was not true, which is why they wanted to put missiles in Cuba in the first place. If a war had occurred, the US would have suffered enormously, but it would have come out of the conflict largely intact. Think the “get our hair mussed” bit from Dr. Strangelove. The Crisis just shows that war can be…

No it did not. Up until eighties, accuracy of ICBMs was so bad, that they were completely useless against even a brigade sized formation in an open field. There is even a theory that Khrushchev intentionally nudged USA into believing into "missile gap," as a part of diversion.

TBMs were another story, but there USSR had a sizeable lead in them.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#347

Post by swarnie_ »

ekianjo wrote: post #247
qsdevacc wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it laughable that you completely disregarded USA as one of the other "aggressive, belligerent" countries out there...

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.

> The USA has the first military power in the whole world and could go and invade a bunch of countries if they wanted to

We'll ignore Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq (twice) for the sake of this comment?

Also lets ignore all those south american Coup d'états because it helps the narrative.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#348

Post by ionised »

refurb wrote: post #298
vermilingua wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, by disillusioning yourself that any of those things matter. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what god you pray to, because prayer is personal; doesn’t matter what nation you call your own, because emigration is easier than ever; and doesn’t matter what colour your skin is, because it doesn’t define you. Obviously all that is easier said than done, but really if you stop letting any kind of tribal attachment define…

You’re completely ignoring national identity, which has and always will be, a major part of people’s identity.

Speak for yourself.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#349

Post by noir_lord »

acqq wrote: post #47
noir_lord wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but while horrible India and Pakistan lobbing nukes at each other would be on a different order of magnitude to the US and Russia launching a global thermonuclear war. The graph of warheads per country is basically the US, Russia and everyone else combined is a distant third. The UK had ~200 warheads about a quarter of which are deployed at anyone time, two US ballistic missile subs fields more than that (they ha…

> The graph of warheads per country is basically the US, Russia and everyone else combined is a distant third. Once just one single nuclear bomb destroys something significant, all bets are almost surely off. So counting doesn't help, the whole domino-effect constellation is simply too dangerous. The only sustainable solution is to reduce the arsenals the orders of magnitude, if we want to increase the chances for th…

Obviously I'm in favour of reducing warhead counts.

That said I don't think your analogy holds with pre and post nuclear powers.

The escalation in WW1 was complex but from the british side we just expected it to be a short war, we'd nip over there achieve our objectives and be home for Christmas (that was actually said at the time iirc).

Escalation between states with large nuclear arsenals would likely follow a very different path.

I mean the UK is a minor nuclear power but if everyone went collectively insane we could wreck most of western Europe and the US, I mean we'd all be dead minutes later but when you have that kind of capability on the table and more crucially when the people you are firing on have that kind of capability then the "it'll all be over by Christmas" line takes on a much more macabre undertone to those giving the orders.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#350

Post by PavlovsCat »

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]…

> You're forgetting about the Six-Day War [1] and the Yom Kippur War [2].

You using something to deflect from something else doesn't mean anyone else isn't aware of the thing you use to deflect.

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