Human nature, sadly, is such that "It is better to be a warrior in a garden than to be a gardener in war". You will find similar sentiments with Machiavelli, Zen, Art of War etc.
6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?
121–130 of 218 posts
Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an European taxpayer, I'm certainly concerned that resources are wasted. OTOH, Putin has time and again proved that he's a belligerent crook entirely willing to expand his territory any time his neighbors show weakness. Much as I wish it were different, Europe must be able to mount a credible defense, with or without the USA.
As another European, I am in favor of aligning ourselves in a mutually beneficial economic exchange with Russia and China, which causes interdependence and a diminishing risk of military conflict. Putin, repeatedly, has been shown to be a reliable, and predictable partner - something we cannot really claim about the US, and increasingly less so in recent years.
I think everyone in Europe is keen on "mutually beneficial economic exchange with Russia and China" but I think that recent history demonstrates that Russia and China have different views from us about what mutually beneficial means.
>Putin, repeatedly, has been shown to be a reliable, and predictable partner
Oh come on:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_bounty_program
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Montenegrin_coup_d%27%C3%...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence_movement#...
and many other gigs!
Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?
#123Good example that cooperation between states, doesn't need a Parliament in Brussels or a "Commission".
Not signing up for the same currency, the same fishing laws, the same legislations on trade, borders, etc, does not mean you cannot team up with a few other countries on topics of interest.
Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?
#124War is in part an expression of technological competitive advantage. Nth generation weaponry is expensive because technology requires the best minds, materials, and facilities that money can buy. But what if for the same money, or less, we could buy something even better? How much does peace cost? Has anybody ever costed it? For example, what could $2 trillion have bought in Iraq, Portland, or Jerusalem if it had bee…
>How much does peace cost?
> Has anybody ever costed it?
Depends on what you mean by 'tools' but I would say the Marshall plan, roughly $100B in today's money, would be a good example of this.
Explicit investment to rebuild Europe after WW2.
Some say this was because they learned it worked out badly to leave Germany broke and broken after WW1 (fertile ground for facism). Others might say it was because a prosperous Europe wouldn't be as likely to become communist.
Either way I think it counts as an explicit mega investment in preventing war by peaceful means.
They could have just decided to invest the money in weapons instead.
Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?
#125How is this affected by the new pact between US, UK, and Australia? The news here made it appears as that caused some bad blood between EU and the US/UK.
It’s mostly France with the bad blood, as they lost a lucrative submarine deal.
France discovers that being out of the EU does not mean being "isolated at all"... rather seems the opposite. One more lie of the Remainers.
Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?
#126This is a play to gain entry to the US program and secure not for export versions and subcontracts. If India gets involved then it becomes a serious program, because that will indicate that the US is refusing to play ball and everyone else has to go it alone.
Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We've invested trillions to make tools for advertising, but almost nothing to make tools for achieving peace. I'd argue the European Union was an experiment in peace along these lines, to bind a war-torn continent so close together that war becomes unthinkable. And it's worked - war between France and Germany, or the UK and Ireland, or Denmark and Sweden is unthinkable.
Hang on, I think you forgot something... OH YES! The US has parked an army in Germany for 75 years! I dunno, but could this have been a factor in the "no war between European powers" thing? And when we say "war between the UK and Ireland... unthinkable" do we mean that no-one is going to bomb or shoot people in the UK or Ireland to attempt to achieve a political objective in the relationships between those two countr…
>do we mean that no-one is going to bomb or shoot people in the UK or Ireland to attempt to achieve a political objective
No, that's not what we mean.
War between the UK and the RoI, the actual states involved, is in fact pretty unthinkable.
Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, it's not like nobody has ever thought of that before. The best we've been able to do is deterrence, which requires developing advanced weapons like aircraft carriers, stealth fighters and nukes. I know this isn't what you had in mind, but the world is about to find out what it's like to not have superpowers interfering in their affairs. The US doesn't really have any need for troops abroad: the Cold War is over…
if you don't have hegemony, you have the balance of powers: if you don't have the balance of powers, you have hegemony. if we're getting out from hegemony we'll go into the balance of powers (you can sort of see this in the everyone-surrounding-the-prc's reaction to the prc: everyone gangs up together to balance out the putative new hegemon) you need total consensus down to the last man for pacifism to work. works gr…
What's really weird is it's a world of about 200 "people" (sovereign states), completely without outside authority. Historically it has all been about power, with international law having a minor role - but it seems conceivable that all the nations could police one another and all international law could become much more effectively binding.
It wouldn't be as effective as universal pacifism, just like the police can't prevent all murders - but they can deter them. It could be a future that still has nation states rather than a world government, without any superpowers.
Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?
#129War is in part an expression of technological competitive advantage. Nth generation weaponry is expensive because technology requires the best minds, materials, and facilities that money can buy. But what if for the same money, or less, we could buy something even better? How much does peace cost? Has anybody ever costed it? For example, what could $2 trillion have bought in Iraq, Portland, or Jerusalem if it had bee…
Well, it's not like nobody has ever thought of that before. The best we've been able to do is deterrence, which requires developing advanced weapons like aircraft carriers, stealth fighters and nukes. I know this isn't what you had in mind, but the world is about to find out what it's like to not have superpowers interfering in their affairs. The US doesn't really have any need for troops abroad: the Cold War is over…
Yankees truly defy parody...
> there are going to be a lot more disruptions without the US military to stabilize things
Or, you know...
there are going to be a lot fewer disruptions without the US military to destabilize things
Re: 6th Generation Stealth Fighter: Joint Effort by UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden?
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you have something of value and you cannot protect it, someone will take it from you. That is just how the world works. So how will you protect yourself? You cannot just convert eveyone to zen buddhism. You will have to find a way to protect yourself, so you can say: here is the limit that you cannot cross. Peace can only exist when a powerful entity enforces it.
That isn't "just how the world works", that's how a subset of people in the world behave.
Yes, the vast majority of people doesn't behave like that.
Game theory is a discipline that studies the consequences of a even a small number of actors defecting norms that would otherwise be beneficial to everyone.