Why don't I take military funding? (2004) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)

#131

Post by bassman9000 » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 6:56 AM UTC

orf wrote: post #90

bassman9000 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, yes, they would. The whole point of the article is that people with the technical knowledge to maintain and improve the US miltary shouldn't do it. Luckily, reaching a critical mass of scientists and engineers with such attitude, enough for basic defense systems to fail, seems unlikely. But there's such an horizon. I wonder why the Russians are not launching invasions of several resource rich African c…

> If Russia and China can get away with that, the US being vastly superior from a military standpoint, what world destabilization, or plain open war would happen if the US just a bit weaker? Ok, so if I'm following this logic, which is if you're not the strongest then someone is going to invade you, then the USA is going to start invading everyone because it is the strongest. Or, if not, could there possibly be other…

then the USA is going to start invading everyone because it is the strongest.

That's where the values matter: US ones are better than Russia/China's. And before the barking: not perfect, just better. Good enough not to grab Ukraine or the South China Sea.

Let's fund this with a reduction in our standing army

False dichotomy. It is not the only way to fund it. Besides, OP article wasn't a funding issue, it never is, as you point out, with military spending. It's a moral one, and the author decided in 2004 that virtue signaling was more important that defending the aforementioned values against internal and external enemies. 14 years later we (the West) seem to be behind in information warfare.

Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)

#132

Post by gaius » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 8:52 AM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #115

gaius wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm, because there is no such thing as a time machine? Any serious proposals have to start with the state of the world as it presently is.

A century of fighting would suggest that most violent methods have been tried. What is your serious suggestion?

Spend say 10% of the war money on development of alternatives to oil. Then cut off the money supply to Saudi Arabia et al, confiscating financial assets in the West, and cordon off the region. There would still be some force required to enforce the blockade but that’s all.

Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)

#133

Post by lostlogin » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 5:12 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #132

lostlogin wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A century of fighting would suggest that most violent methods have been tried. What is your serious suggestion?

Spend say 10% of the war money on development of alternatives to oil. Then cut off the money supply to Saudi Arabia et al, confiscating financial assets in the West, and cordon off the region. There would still be some force required to enforce the blockade but that’s all.

Staking everything on the ‘oil alternative’ shifts solving the problem into the future by an unspecified amount. This time machine of ours is going to be busy.

Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)

#134

Post by philwelch » Thu, Dec 27, 2018, 6:32 PM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #127

philwelch wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US wouldn’t necessarily be overrun, but Syria already almost certainly will, and a unilateral disarmament and withdrawal by the United States would also put Taiwan, South Korea, and every NATO member immediately bordering Russia at risk. Over the ensuing decades, the free world would gradually be eroded away by autocratic regimes until, at best, the US and Canada are isolated between two oceans and surrounded by…

> Taiwan, South Korea, and every NATO member immediately bordering Russia at risk. Over the ensuing decades, the free world would gradually be eroded away by autocratic regimes until, at best, the US and Canada are isolated between two oceans and surrounded by a world of despotism. Right, this is all a fight against despotism. Which is why the US helped Kai-Shek in Taiwan, propped up Rhee for South Korea, and include…

All four of those countries became democracies.

But yes, admittedly, the United States has supported autocratic regimes due to strategic concerns elsewhere. In many of those cases, it was a calculated tradeoff between allying with a single military regime such as Turkey—which would not have turned democratic had they not been included in NATO—in exchange for gaining a crucial advantage over a despotic superpower with a history of aggressive expansion and a stated ideology of world domination.

Of course, the biggest example of this policy going wrong was American support of the Soviet Union during the Second World War, but there are plenty of reasons that doesn't get mentioned. Most people in my position would likely agree it was a mistake for the US to support Stalin as much as we did; if the Soviet Union came out of the Second World War in a much weaker geopolitical position due to a lack of food and industrial aid from the United States, the ensuing half-century would have been considerably better for the rest of the world.

The other reason it doesn't get mentioned is because your argument is a very old and worn-out Soviet propaganda talking point, and not only do Soviet apologists not want to admit that US support was vitally important to the Soviets during WWII, but they also don't want to admit that the Soviets themselves are the single worst autocratic regime that the US has ever allied itself with. Such an admission would underline the crucial importance of curbing Soviet domination over the rest of the world and justify exactly those actions that one seeks to criticize.