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Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

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Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#141

Post by andsoitis »

toast0 wrote: post #127
marshray wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then how did the US trick Putin into invading Ukraine? That's the simple question that nobody who espouses this silly set of beliefs can ever answer.

Just because the US wanted a fight with Russia doesn't mean the US tricked Putin into it. Make hay while the sun shines and all that. And take care of inventory management and get the military industrial complex rolling again.

> Just because the US wanted a fight

There you are repeating that claim without any evidence.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#142

Post by dash2 »

mikewarot wrote: post #124
kube-system wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US navy guards international shipping lanes all over the world. Gotta keep the economy rollin’.

That was our bribe to the rest of the "first world" to stand with us as cannon fodder against the USSR (the second world) during the Cold War. Now that it is over, the US public has slowly but persistently pushed back on continuing that arrangement. We don't really need trade anywhere near as much as our trading partners overseas so. So we've scaled our fleet down. :I strongly suspect I'm about to learn I'm wrong abo…

You may not need trade as much as, say, Holland, but you would be much, much poorer without it. US isolationism is not a rational world view.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#143

Post by bawolff »

nomilk wrote: post #4

Something I'm unsure about is what does and doesn't trigger wars. Russian jets downed a US drone over the black sea in March 2023, I thought for sure there'd be a commensurate US military response. But there didn't appear to be one. Was it because no human was aboard the drone (so no response was justified), from fear or escalation, or something else? In any case, if a large cargo ship were sunk, would the US or othe…

Like all things - wars are a combination of rational self-interest, emotions and random chance.

The action itself matters less than the consequence. The typical example is that USA gets away with shit other countries can't because nobody wants to invade usa.

My understanding is that in this particular situation - yemen is a humanitarian disaster after their civil war. Any country that invades is going to be seen as responsible for fixing that mess, and nobody wants responsibility for that.

I think the other factor is that israel is not a popular country in most of the middle east. Even if these ship attacks screw over most of the countries in that region (probably hurting egypt more than anyone else) many of the regimes in the middle east dont have a super solid grip on power and are afraid to do anything that might be seen as helping Israel (even if really they are mostly helping themselves) lest it leads to popular discontent locally. Countries further away are less keen to get involved because middle east is a continual powder-keg that nobody really wants to get sucked into.

[Im definitely not an expert on this, just one uninformed opinion]

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#144

Post by maeil »

wolverine876 wrote: post #113
nomilk wrote: post #4

Something I'm unsure about is what does and doesn't trigger wars. Russian jets downed a US drone over the black sea in March 2023, I thought for sure there'd be a commensurate US military response. But there didn't appear to be one. Was it because no human was aboard the drone (so no response was justified), from fear or escalation, or something else? In any case, if a large cargo ship were sunk, would the US or othe…

I read a lot of professional international relations material (but I'm not an expert in any way). IME what may differ the most between 'popular' takes on IR and professional ones is the response to incidents. Arguably the #1 priority of professional IR is to prevent wars (with occasional exceptions, such as Russia or Hamas recently, but even they want to control when, where, and how). Wars can and do happen whether y…

> Another mechanism that causes warfare is a lack of flexibility, a lack of options. Popular takes on IR love to urge that a 'line in the sand' or 'redline' should be drawn - another tough, angry way to feel powerful and safe. You don't see professionals say it however.

One of the two biggest global superpowers, the PRC, bombastically announces a dozen or so redlines per year.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#145

Post by mikewarot »

dash2 wrote: post #142
mikewarot wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was our bribe to the rest of the "first world" to stand with us as cannon fodder against the USSR (the second world) during the Cold War. Now that it is over, the US public has slowly but persistently pushed back on continuing that arrangement. We don't really need trade anywhere near as much as our trading partners overseas so. So we've scaled our fleet down. :I strongly suspect I'm about to learn I'm wrong abo…

You may not need trade as much as, say, Holland, but you would be much, much poorer without it. US isolationism is not a rational world view.

We in the US may be relied upon to do the right thing, but only after we've tried all available alternatives first.

Look at our electoral politics, do we seem rational to you?

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#146

Post by mkii »

andsoitis wrote: post #141
toast0 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because the US wanted a fight with Russia doesn't mean the US tricked Putin into it. Make hay while the sun shines and all that. And take care of inventory management and get the military industrial complex rolling again.

> Just because the US wanted a fight There you are repeating that claim without any evidence.

I had a more charitable reading of GP's comment: supposing, hypothetically, the US wanted a proxy war against Russia, it didn't have to "trick" Russia. This is a perfectly valid rebuttal to GP's parent imo, especially because GP's GP never suggested US "tricked" anything.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#147

Post by bawolff »

wolverine876 wrote: post #129
davidw wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something I'm unsure about is what does and doesn't trigger wars. Probably more in the 'emotions' camp than in the 'concrete facts' camp, even if no one wants to admit it.

Many US wars were triggered by dis/misinformation: The Gulf of Tonkin for Vietnam, and the fictitous nuclear weapons program in Iraq come to mind. For Iraq, the government made an argument something like, 'you can't wait for the mushroom cloud'.

I think there is a difference between how wars are "sold" to voters and why nations actually go to war.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#148

Post by Cupertino95014 »

bruce511 wrote: post #134
wolverine876 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read a lot of professional international relations material (but I'm not an expert in any way). IME what may differ the most between 'popular' takes on IR and professional ones is the response to incidents. Arguably the #1 priority of professional IR is to prevent wars (with occasional exceptions, such as Russia or Hamas recently, but even they want to control when, where, and how). Wars can and do happen whether y…

Well written. An extreme example of this is WW1. Its somewhat reductionist to ascribe the cause to "The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand", but there's a very clear path from that to the outbreak of war. Yes, tensions were high, yes the countries were all predicting a war, and yes all were rearming at a furious rate, but ultimately one event was the trigger, and its hard to see how war could have been averted by that…

I agree with most of that, except for:

> it's hard to see how war could have been averted by that point

when you read the day-by-day activity leading up to the war, you see plenty of missed opportunities. Czar Nicholas, especially, could have NOT mobilized. Wilhelm could have told Austria NOT to declare on Serbia. And Wilhelm could have said to his generals, "You know what? We're not attacking Belgium" in which case England stays out. At least for a while.

Of course they were weak people who'd allowed themselves to be put in that position, so in that sense they perceived no choices.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#149

Post by wolverine876 »

maeil wrote: post #144
wolverine876 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read a lot of professional international relations material (but I'm not an expert in any way). IME what may differ the most between 'popular' takes on IR and professional ones is the response to incidents. Arguably the #1 priority of professional IR is to prevent wars (with occasional exceptions, such as Russia or Hamas recently, but even they want to control when, where, and how). Wars can and do happen whether y…

> Another mechanism that causes warfare is a lack of flexibility, a lack of options. Popular takes on IR love to urge that a 'line in the sand' or 'redline' should be drawn - another tough, angry way to feel powerful and safe. You don't see professionals say it however. One of the two biggest global superpowers, the PRC, bombastically announces a dozen or so redlines per year.

Yes, it's troubling. Also, nationalism might be the leading political mechanism that results in warfare; many blamed it for WWII. China was, at least for years, fanning its flames. It makes me wonder what they are up to, or who is making decisions.

Other countries world-wide, especially right-wing movements in them, have also been fanning nationalist flames. We know well what the outcome often is.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#150

Post by smegsicle »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #52
nomilk wrote: post #4

Something I'm unsure about is what does and doesn't trigger wars. Russian jets downed a US drone over the black sea in March 2023, I thought for sure there'd be a commensurate US military response. But there didn't appear to be one. Was it because no human was aboard the drone (so no response was justified), from fear or escalation, or something else? In any case, if a large cargo ship were sunk, would the US or othe…

It's time to read some Clausewitz. That book outlines the philosophy of how most western states think about war. The short version I would say is that war is a tool of politics, so if there is no political goal, there will be no war, regardless of how bad the supposed Causus Belli is. Shooting down a drone usually doesn't do it partly because of the political implications: it would be deeply unpopular to put "boots o…

meme contraexample of course being the gulf of tonkin incident where us warning fire on vietnamese vessels in vietnamese waters being responded to with actual fire was taken as grounds for war, because war was desired
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