111–120 of 223 posts
The scary thing for me about wars is that the soldiers aren't the ones making the decisions. Some group of people in comfortable offices look at a map, says "yeah, I think this option is more favourable to us than peace". Then a war happens. It is all about incentives and capabilities. One of the lessons from being a Stallman watcher for many years - people are profoundly evidence based . If there hasn't been a war i…
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That's very simplistic view on military. Think of a corporations that make all decisions at top level vs corporations that at the top level mostly worry about creating correct environment for the individual contributors and low level managers to be able to make right decisions, individually. US military won the IIWW war because it created that right environment. Mobilizing people (people who are not interested in ach…
The US military did not win the war, at least in Europe. They pottered around in Africa, Italy, and Belgium while the Soviet army won the war. Ten of the ten biggest battles were on the eastern front, while a tiny fraction of axis assets held off the West for years. Western bombing (despite huge losses) had negligible effect on German industrial production, which increased right up to 1945. (US industrial imports to…
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That's very simplistic view on military. Think of a corporations that make all decisions at top level vs corporations that at the top level mostly worry about creating correct environment for the individual contributors and low level managers to be able to make right decisions, individually. US military won the IIWW war because it created that right environment. Mobilizing people (people who are not interested in ach…
The US military did not win the war, at least in Europe. They pottered around in Africa, Italy, and Belgium while the Soviet army won the war. Ten of the ten biggest battles were on the eastern front, while a tiny fraction of axis assets held off the West for years. Western bombing (despite huge losses) had negligible effect on German industrial production, which increased right up to 1945. (US industrial imports to…
"Causes of Civil War are also, that the Wealth of the Nation is in too few mens hands, and that no certain means are provided to keep all men from a necessity either to beg, or steal, or be Souldiers." - William Petty While this is a quote about civil war, it points out a key fact. A country with a strong middle class is much less likely to send its children to war over stupid things. Even the USA barely sent 177,000…
Richer folks also tent to study more and have say more options to expand their mind to various views, cultures and places. Far harder to manipulate/outright brainwash those into some patriotic bullshit about defending your home from those evil bad guys. Unless you force drafts with hard punishments for those avoiding of course, but such an army would have very low morale not only these days.
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when you can just trade Peacetime commerce requires free waterways. Everyone can "just trade" because the U.S. Navy has guaranteed free navigation of the seas since Bretton Woods[1]. When America withdraws from its security obligations, others will fill the vacuum, with all the uncertainty that implies. A national leader who fears being cut off from essential resources will very logically view war as an option. Edit:…
Pardon my colorful language and preaching. > the U.S. Navy has guaranteed free navigation The sea has never belonged to anyone but this statement implies that the US has ownership rights with regards to ocean usage that they now let others use at their whim. The only word I can use to describe that is hubris
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I don’t think what the GP found disturbing was civilian control of the military, but the distance between the decisionmakers choosing to go to war and the people bearing the cost, which is not significantly different in systems which lack civilian control of the military than those that have it.
This is perhaps an argument to have more veterans in politics. Former Czechoslovak president Ludvík Svoboda, a general who fought in the WWII and went through some of the bloodiest battles involving Czechoslovak forces [0], was known to be very wary of militaristic ideas later. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Dukla_Pass
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Act_of_194...
There are notes in Sapiens proposing that war (the violent kind) is no longer useful / does not produce outcomes because the global economy has shifted from one of physical resources to knowledge based. That it no longer makes sense to fight over things that aren't worth as much these days, like land, oil or gold, when you can just trade. Most of money comes from peace time commerce. This seems accurate, but time wil…
> [...] because the global economy has shifted from one of physical resources to knowledge based ...except for that tiny detail where we're still critically dependent on raw materials that can only be economically extracted in certain parts of the world. Maybe mathematicians only need a blackboard and some chalk to do their work, but the remaining "knowledge based" economy needs computers, of which many parts are pro…
That’s a contingent, not a necessary fact. The Haber-Bosch process was invented to provide nitrogen for German armaments faced with the same kinds of difficulties. If you really need something the fact that it just got ten times more expensive matters very little.
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I don’t think what the GP found disturbing was civilian control of the military, but the distance between the decisionmakers choosing to go to war and the people bearing the cost, which is not significantly different in systems which lack civilian control of the military than those that have it.
This is perhaps an argument to have more veterans in politics. Former Czechoslovak president Ludvík Svoboda, a general who fought in the WWII and went through some of the bloodiest battles involving Czechoslovak forces [0], was known to be very wary of militaristic ideas later. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Dukla_Pass
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Natural selection isn't good . In terms of “bad things to do to humans”, it comes in just behind eugenics, and that's only because we haven't worked out how to do that without horrible horrible crimes against humanity (yet). (Yes, natural selection is legitimately bad enough that “make eugenics less genocidey and then do that instead” is actually on the table – I am so glad the problem can probably keep for another c…
Whether humans like it or not and whether we want to admit it or not, wars do end up with mostly the fittest (not just in terms of physical ability, but also intelligence, cunning, etc.) surviving.
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In what way do nationalistic drive have everything in common with how wars start?
For a war to be supported by people (soldiers, and in democracies, civilians as well), they need to view the other side as the Other side. The Enemy . The Others . Nationalism is about building a strong us/them split, about having people internalize clear categories of Our Nation and The Others. This directly facilitates war.