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If you want peace, study war

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Re: If you want peace, study war

#151

Post by bluGill »

lmilcin wrote: post #102
ncmncm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Hey, wars are messy business. Usually if there is so much disparity in power that the outcome is known beforehand it does not come to war. US had declared Axis powers to be the enemy and then the enemy was defeated. Nobody questions that US was key to winning WWII. It seems impossible that soviets would hold if Nazi Germany was able to send all their resources to eastern front. Even with the help on the western front…

It was a joint effort. To claim any single entity won alone is wrong. There are alternate history questions, but they will never be conclusive.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#152

Post by jjk166 »

vagrantJin wrote: post #48
Scramblejams wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The fact that the sea does not belog to anyone is exactly why the US guarantees free navigation. If someone tries to seize your property in a nation's territory, you can go to that nation's government for restitution. They'll police their territory and prevent would-be thieves or other bad actors. At the very least, you can bring a suit against the bad actor and the government will force them to comply with the court's decision.

However on the open sea, there is no such authority. What's to stop someone from sailing up and seizing your crew and cargo? You don't know the nationality of these pirates, and even if you did you have no way of forcing their government to do anything about it. Indeed they may be working for that government. You could try to defend yourself, but then the pirates will just better arm themselves and the odds of violence escalating dramatically increases.

Someone needs to prevent piracy and unlawful seizure for international shipping to be possible at its current scale. Having a single power guarantee free navigation allows ships to cross the world while avoiding complicated jurisdiction divides (if one nation won't give you permission to sail through its waters, you can go around) and eliminates jurisdictional overlap (Country A says Country B's ship is committing piracy and vice versa) which could lead to conflict. It's also just more efficient as the vast majority of nations don't need to duplicate the infrastructure to maintain a navy that can protect assets on the other side of the world - which also means countries don't need to enter arms races to protect themselves from their neighbors' defensive fleets "just in case" they aren't really that defensive.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#153

Post by Balero »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #137
chmod600 wrote: post #5

I have a theory that offensive weaponry advancements produce peace, while defensive advancements produce war. If you're in a castle, it's easier to send armies around, knowing that you'll be safe. But if there are nukes and ICBMs, just stick with the status quo. Any validity to this theory?

I think it is the other way around. Cavalry could beat pretty much any group of non-cavalry unless they had a massive numerical advantage, so castles/walled settlements were the way to defend against that, but they only arose by necessity. Carol Quigley's theory is that technology changes the balance of power, sometimes favoring centralized power other times favoring decentralized power. Cavalry/knights/castles favor…

Cavalry could absolutely not beat 'any group of non-cavalry'. Cavalry was a very specilised, powerful and effective tool. But the real world wasn't what the English guy said in Braveheart ("We have the heavy cavalry, we win"). Many knights fought on foot as well.

Cavalry could not break many infantry formations. You were safe in a square.

Cavalry was great at harassing supply lines in raids, and importantly running down fleeing infantry.

This is all purely a European perspective, steepe cavalry was very different, but many of their benefits were at a larger scale than a single battle.

Generally the whole thing is too complicated to draw some simple conclusion from. War is, and always has been complicated and messey, not a game of chess.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#154

Post by bluGill »

arethuza wrote: post #78
ersii wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way do nationalistic drive have everything in common with how wars start?

"Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in American, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and i…

Historically that is false. The common farmer might want to come back to the land - but his younger brother needs to leave the farm because it can't support him! Thus those younger brothers have nothing to gain by coming back to the farm. Their gains can only be found in being really great at something the city needs (cities are less than 5% of the population because farms don't have enough surplus to support more than that, so this is worse than farming), or winning a war and making a farm on the enemies land. If the war is fought to a stalemate, but only one of the two brothers returns back to the farm that is okay too.

The sexist language is historically correct. Sorry ladies, history wasn't kind to you in general.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#155

Post by bluGill »

8fGTBjZxBcHq wrote: post #114
saiya-jin wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I guess you aren't in the US because we're possibly at the early stages of a civil war led by a brainwashed bourgeoisie.

Both sides have their extremists. The media loves to make them seem worse than they are. That doesn't make them significant.

Of course time will tell.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#156

Post by zaptheimpaler »

roenxi wrote: post #14

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…

> The fading of WWII in the public memory could be argued as the biggest single risk that society faces. There are too many people who just won't understand how bad and how possible total war is. There is a huge background risk that the age of abundance ends and then things get dicey.

Perhaps this is really what peace means. It is the security of being able to live and plan a life or a business without ever once worrying about "but what happens if there is a war?". The collective impact of that on psychological security and the free movement of goods, people, ideas across the world is huge.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#157

Post by lovelyviking »

sudhirj wrote: post #123
sudhirj wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without condoning it, that wasn't an all out war. It's a really complicated situation and seems more like a political action. Less people were killed than in the Capitol breach, don't think anyone is referring to that as the second civil war.

I assumed the post was referring to the annexation of Crimea, that was mostly bloodless.

It would be not bloodless if Ukrainian soldiers would not try by all possible means to avoid the shooting, trying to treat russians as former brothers and stop russia’s hostile actions by negiotiations.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zIbGpSvtuGY

Re: If you want peace, study war

#158

Post by SllX »

clairity wrote: post #138
Danieru wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The scary thing for me about wars is that the soldiers aren't the ones making the decisions. Letting Soldiers & Generals control the military is the exact mistake which lead to Japan's military aggression. Keeping the head of the military a civilian/politician is perhaps one of the few ideas everyone should be able to agree is smart.

note that it's not that they're in the military, it's that they're too close and invested. distance fosters dispassion, so the leader not being part of the military specifically, rather than simply being a civilian, is what makes decisions more rational (also, as others have noted, that dispassion can also foster war because the civilian leader has no real skin in the game).

Yes, but when the leader is a politician, he has skin in a different game: getting re-elected.

It doesn’t stop them from going to war, but it makes it less likely.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#159

Post by krapp »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #156
roenxi wrote: post #14

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…

> The fading of WWII in the public memory could be argued as the biggest single risk that society faces. There are too many people who just won't understand how bad and how possible total war is. There is a huge background risk that the age of abundance ends and then things get dicey. Perhaps this is really what peace means. It is the security of being able to live and plan a life or a business without ever once worr…

Forgetting the past is what dooms us to repeat it.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#160

Post by dctoedt »

clairity wrote: post #138
Danieru wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The scary thing for me about wars is that the soldiers aren't the ones making the decisions. Letting Soldiers & Generals control the military is the exact mistake which lead to Japan's military aggression. Keeping the head of the military a civilian/politician is perhaps one of the few ideas everyone should be able to agree is smart.

note that it's not that they're in the military, it's that they're too close and invested. distance fosters dispassion, so the leader not being part of the military specifically, rather than simply being a civilian, is what makes decisions more rational (also, as others have noted, that dispassion can also foster war because the civilian leader has no real skin in the game).

> note that it's not that they're in the military, it's that they're too close and invested

My strong impression has been that the Japanese military in the 1930s was a catastrophically-extreme illustration of Dunning-Kruger syndrome when it came to understanding international affairs and in particular understanding the psychology and industrial capacity of the United States.

(Admiral Yamamoto was a noteworthy exception: Having spent considerable time in the U.S, he strongly favored friendly relations with the U.S. and opposed going to war. When he was overruled by the militarists in the Army, he planned Pearl Harbor and Midway as a roll of the dice for what he judged to be Japan's only hope of success, namely by striking hard blows and trying for a quick negotiated peace. It didn't work out that way.)

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