Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 400 posts

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#221

Post by digianarchist »

21 wrote: post #54
kobrad wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect some incredibly stupid reason. Post-brexit UK tries to nuke somewhere in the EU, or the USA decides we need to get Jesus here faster, or actually anything on this spectrum of insanity. Right now it seems like science fiction that anybody will try doing anything about the climate. So, in reality we'll probably see a failing ecosystem and the strongest military killing the rest of us.

> Post-brexit UK tries to nuke somewhere in the EU What is stopping pre-brexit UK trying to nuke EU? The EU treaties?

The Trident weapons system is in need of renewal.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#222

Post by mistermann »

GavinMcG wrote: post #156
mistermann wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not only nationalism. Current conflicts are rooted in the same prejudices as a hundred years ago. The root cause (this idea that somehow my nation/religion/race/etc is superior) Honest question: is it possible in your opinion for someone to not believe "my nation/religion/race/etc is superior" yet still be opposed to globalism? To me, this is what nationalism means, international cooperation while unequivocally mai…

Not the person you asked the question of, but I think there are reasonable anti-globalist positions that don't have anything to do with superiority. A sort of Ludditism could do. And I actually do think people can be strongly attached to identity without a belief of superiority. Couldn't non-democratic societies be nationalist? Was nationalism off-limits to Imperial Japan, for example?

> A sort of Ludditism could do.

Is it necessary? Is primary Nationalism, but with a willingness to trade and cooperate internationally in a mutually beneficial manner, inherently worse than enthusiastic globalism with no regard for the well-being of one's own individual country? I hear most everyone talking this talk on the world stage, but I don't see a lot of people walking the walk (for example, everyone seems to bargain quite strongly in a self-beneficial way in trade talks, even though that is apparently considered immoral).

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#223

Post by raprp »

tomohawk wrote: post #203
NotAmazin wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot to mention Israel's aggression on adjacent countries Lebanon and Palestine. Would Israel's constant belligerence start a war?

I'm not aware of Israel making it a matter of national policy to annihilate Iran or any other country. However, that is Iran's stated policy, and what they've said they'll do when they get nukes. https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2018/04/21/Iranian-g... Iran is training proxies in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine to attack Israel. And that's what they're doing. They just launched a missile barrage, the largest eve…

Hamas is bombing Israel, not the Syrian Army.

Hamas chose Saudi Arabia's and Qatar's side on the Syrian conflict and that lead to Assad breaking relations with them.

Syria took it as a betrayal so I doubt they would do anything to help Hamas.

Israel is not bombing Syria to defend itself. Syria never had and nor will have the capability to do anything to Israel.

The reason Israel have been bombing Syria is the same reason Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, USA, UK, France, Australia and the rest of the coalition are doing it too: regime change.

They want to replace Assad with a puppet, like Hariri in Lebanon, so they can all push their own agendas in the region.

And on the other side Russia, Iran and Hezbollah jumped in Assad's rescue to counter that move.

They are ALL pushing their own interests at the expense of Syrian lives so please drop this outrageous "defending itself" narrative and admit all actors of both sides are war criminals with blood on their hands.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#224

Post by ip26 »

mistermann wrote: post #139
kiliancs wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only nationalism. Current conflicts are rooted in the same prejudices as a hundred years ago. The root cause (this idea that somehow my nation/religion/race/etc is superior) hasn't been resolved, only more or less patched, and thus these conflicts are bound to reappear and escalate sooner or later until we recognize that that despite the valuable diversity humanity is essentially one and align the political and e…

> Not only nationalism. Current conflicts are rooted in the same prejudices as a hundred years ago. The root cause (this idea that somehow my nation/religion/race/etc is superior) Honest question: is it possible in your opinion for someone to not believe "my nation/religion/race/etc is superior" yet still be opposed to globalism? To me, this is what nationalism means, international cooperation while unequivocally mai…

Wouldn't that just be anti-globalist?

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#225

Post by ImprovedSilence »

azernik wrote: post #189
NotAmazin wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot to mention Israel's aggression on adjacent countries Lebanon and Palestine. Would Israel's constant belligerence start a war?

I think Israel (and, unlike GP, also Iran) are too small-time to start real global war. They're more the potential Bosnias or Serbias - small, belligerent countries that could drag their patrons into conflict.

yeah.... but isn't that how big wars get started... coughBosniacoughwar that ended 100ys ago almost to the day...

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#226

Post by ip26 »

pvaldes wrote: post #171
bsder wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that, even with 393 millions of guns, USA can't stop recurrent fireforests year after year. Not exactly true. The problem is that nobody wants to pay the money to do so--especially the people who live in those areas. In addition, you only get to burn those forests once . After that, they are no longer a threat because there is no fuel.

> After that, they are no longer a threat because there is no fuel. Not necessarily. I bet that the new replacement ecosystem will be, in fact, much more flammable. The water has quit the area.

The succession goes grassland, scrubland, forest. The grass is indeed more flammable, but the fires are much less intense. Dry cheatgrass, for example, flares up with incredible enthusiasm, but burns to ash in literally seconds.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#227

Post by kasey_junk »

tomohawk wrote: post #198
wpietri wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I'd add that it need only be a solution to the person who can start the war. Authoritarian leaders find fights with external enemies extremely useful to quash dissent. Given the global drift toward authoritarianism and nationalism, and especially given how the world's largest military is in the hands of an authoritarian, I think the risk for war is disturbingly high.

Was Obama an authoritarian? What about Bush? What about Clinton (Bill)? The previous few presidents got the US involved in lots of stupid wars. This president has expressly said he doesn't want to do that and has avoided it.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.vice.com/amp/en_us/article...

They are ramping up ‘engagements’ in Africa not lowering them.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#228

Post by ImprovedSilence »

chokolad wrote: post #170
tomohawk wrote: post #148

The thing about war is that at some point, the conditions line up where it becomes seen as a solution (if not the only solution), and its not easy to see the point at which that will occur ahead of time. Will China's big sea grab start a war? So far, they've been able to smother any of their neighbor's push back, and have just ignored any international rulings against them. What about when they invade Taiwan, which t…

Can you please elaborate on Russia's aggression in Syria? Did they annex something there? Tried to depose a government maybe ?

>> Tried to depose a government maybe

I think quite the opposite, I believe they wanted the current leadership to stay, consequences and means of enforcement and human rights be damned. (it's also contrary to the US's wishes, for right or wrong). They want the status quo, cuz it's their only navy base on the Mediterranean. source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_involvement_in_the_Syr...

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#229

Post by [deleted] »

AtHeartEngineer wrote: post #186

We are so close, probably within 50 to 100 years, of having technology far beyond what we can comprehend now. We have the chance to be multi-planetary, automate pretty much all work, and fullfil everyone's basic needs...if we don't destroy everything first. I'm going to be real pissed off if we screw this up.

[deleted]

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#230

Post by gnulinux »

vvillena wrote: post #44

At this point wars between powerful nations are almost impossible. Proxy wars are the current fashion, and those tend to be controlled in scale by the puppetmasters behind it. I'm more scared about a great civil war in a powerful nuclear nation. Civil wars are a savage affair where no rules apply.

It's bizarre to think there are rules in wars between countries but no rules in civil wars. In a civil war every party is still liable to the world as they're in a conventional war. If they use chemical or nuclear weapons they know that it's entirely possible third parties may get involved just because of their dirty tactics. If you're in a country where the West doesn't give a shit, and nobody bats an eye when chemical weapons are used (e.g. Syria) it doesn't make much sense to think that the same wouldn't apply if this were a conventional war (say, Syria vs Iraq). Obviously nuclear weapons are a bit bigger deal than chemical weapons, but what I'm trying to say is that similar dynamics are in play both in civil wars and conventional wars. If you're in the belief that a nuclear civil war can happen when a rogue party can shoot nukes, why wouldn't they shoot it to another country if they come to power? If you think "well then US would get involved so they obviously wouldn't do that" then why would US not get involved nukes being used in a civil war.
Post reply on HN