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Nowhere is safe

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Re: Nowhere is safe

#101

Post by the_gipsy »

tmnvix wrote: post #81
ACCount37 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there are major unresolved economic tensions between US and Iran or the likes. US isn't, somehow, mad because Iran or Venezuela are suddenly very rich and prosperous and independent - that simply isn't true. The closest to your dynamic would be that between US and China, and those two aren't at war as of yet. Iran is vaguely supported by China, but it's a low level of support, and it isn't China's proxy…

One theory is that control over Venezuelan and Iranian oil is a means of constricting Chinese economic competition.

It definitely is control over the currency in which oil is traded.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#102

Post by rembal »

brianjlogan wrote: post #15

Hmm... Interestingly one does not look at the solutions to de-escalate conflict. Despite the proxy wars we've had a relatively peaceful world since WW1/WW2. Please humor me here, I'm not saying the world is horror free. The emphasis I would hope would also be for improved negotiation tactics, better resource sharing and goal alignment between groups of people. Why is it that we can dream up more conflict but not peac…

That could work if the actors were rational. Unfortunately, they are largely ideological.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#103

Post by pedalpete »

TheGRS wrote: post #71
brianjlogan wrote: post #15

Hmm... Interestingly one does not look at the solutions to de-escalate conflict. Despite the proxy wars we've had a relatively peaceful world since WW1/WW2. Please humor me here, I'm not saying the world is horror free. The emphasis I would hope would also be for improved negotiation tactics, better resource sharing and goal alignment between groups of people. Why is it that we can dream up more conflict but not peac…

Globalization offered the model for this. When the economy is globally linked there is more pressure for stability than conflict. I think that theory still holds. The fallout of the last 10 years is that the distribution of the wealth created in that system has not been even at all, and we are seeing huge wealth gaps. Jobs were redistributed to poorer nations and lost in a lot of wealthier markets. If nations can sol…

I agree with your comment regarding fairer distribution, but I think when we look at globalisation's impact on war, I'm not sure this is really playing out.

Iran has not benefitted hugely from globalisation (unless I'm missing something), however because of globalisation and their ability to impact the global economy, they have an outsized hand to play relative to their GDP.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#104

Post by gpm »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #96
ACCount37 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Tell me about the problems outside of N. Korea that have resulted from N. Korea's ownership of nuclear weapons?

Why are we ignoring the problems inside of North Korea? I take slavery and starving people pretty poorly regardless of where it happens.

That said North Korea routinely acts against the rest of the world in ways that are only possible because the rest of the world is unable to retaliate, with the government sponsoring everything from extorting hospitals with ransomware, to dealing drugs, to counterfeiting currency, to abducting film makers (from Hong Kong).

Re: Nowhere is safe

#105

Post by roncesvalles »

brianjlogan wrote: post #15

Hmm... Interestingly one does not look at the solutions to de-escalate conflict. Despite the proxy wars we've had a relatively peaceful world since WW1/WW2. Please humor me here, I'm not saying the world is horror free. The emphasis I would hope would also be for improved negotiation tactics, better resource sharing and goal alignment between groups of people. Why is it that we can dream up more conflict but not peac…

>The emphasis I would hope would also be for improved negotiation tactics, better resource sharing and goal alignment between groups of people.

The fallacy in the line of thinking that "why don't we all just shake hands, say something nice, and get along with each other" comes from the erroneous belief that everyone in the world just wants peace and material prosperity for themselves and their people. This isn't the case, for countless reasons.

Peace is what you and I want, because we're living in highly privileged lives where maintaining the peaceful status quo (one in which we're on top) for as long as we live is the best outcome for us, and because we have a fairly rational view of life and the world (e.g. we are not convinced that killing a certain people is the only key to an eternity in "heaven", or have bought into some myth of ethnoracial/cultural exceptionalism that needs to be defended by any means). We also aren't emburdened by some great injustice for which we have a burning itch for vengeance (e.g. no one has bombed your whole family).

This just isn't the case for everyone in the world.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#106

Post by cucumber3732842 »

some_random wrote: post #85
TheGRS wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Globalization offered the model for this. When the economy is globally linked there is more pressure for stability than conflict. I think that theory still holds. The fallout of the last 10 years is that the distribution of the wealth created in that system has not been even at all, and we are seeing huge wealth gaps. Jobs were redistributed to poorer nations and lost in a lot of wealthier markets. If nations can sol…

As I understand it, the idea was that there would be winners and losers from globalization but overall the benefit would be more global and outweigh localized drawbacks. This means that you can tax the global benefit and compensate the losers while still having everyone come out ahead! Sounds fantastic right, but in reality there were winners and losers and no one gave a shit about the losers. Detroit and Toledo did…

>Detroit and Toledo did not gracefully transition from being industrial centers to centers of art and culture, they rusted and rotted and were denigrated by the coastal elite who benefited from their place in the world as finance and service hubs.

For people who give such lip service to sustainability you'd think their political policy would have taken longer to run such a course.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#108

Post by gpm »

carlosjobim wrote: post #8
malfist wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the Ukrainian drones are produced in small buildings like homes and buisness, not massive centralized factories. Hard to take out your enemy's production capability if A) you can't find it and B) it's highly distributed.

They're assembled in small buildings, but at least some of the components require sophisticated factories. There are with all certainty weapons in orbit right now, locked on to these crucial factories, ready to fire if needed.

The sophisticated factories they need are basically just for chips. And the problem with chips is that civilian life is just as dependent on them as military armaments.

The rest of the drone is all stuff that can be fabricated in small batches in a garage... of course bigs factories are more efficient at fabricating just about anything so to the extent that's possible it's done, but bombing all the big factories won't stop it.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#109

Post by dontlikeyoueith »

dboreham wrote: post #68
intended wrote: post #46

Drones have upended the unit economics of combat and made older doctrines less relevant. Drones seem to combine the benefits of missiles level payloads, aircraft level control and ability to project force over a distance. I don’t see any technical way we can stop them - but it’s not like we stopped guns. The drone and LLM era are the end of many things we older folk are used to. The information commons are sunk with…

I'm skeptical about the "cheap drones: who knew?" narrative. Such drones have existed since 1944.

There's been a massive step change in their capability per unit cost.

What used to cost millions per unit now costs tens of thousands. That's significant.

It's like saying artillery isn't that big a deal in 1914. After all, it's been around since 1452.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#110

Post by jmward01 »

"The U.S. needs a coherent protection and survivability strategy across the DoW and all sectors of our economy. This conversation needs to be not only about how we do it, but how we organize to do it, how we budget and pay for it and how we rapidly deploy it."

This is all predicated on creating thousands of drones which is a state actor level threat. The first line of defense at this level should be diplomacy. Digging tunnels and the like is unreasonable in peace time and likely not that effective in reality. Standing defenses become well planned targets. The real answer here is to spend the time and effort on diplomacy before there are issues and to stop appeasing countries like the US, Israel and Russia when they act badly. 'Special relationships' that are abused should be abandoned and trust should matter.

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