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Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

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Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#381

Post by amanaplanacanal »

stevenwoo wrote: post #275
goatlover wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's not going to get very far before the nuclear option gets trotted out. What good is an invasion force if the other side feels threatened enough to start nuclear retaliation?

I can remember folks in the Reagan adminstration regularly touted the possibility of winning a nuclear war and used that sort of rhetoric in elections. The other part of that is the fundamentalist Christians in the USA who believe in the literal interpretation of Revelations so for them there is greater glory in armageddon that begins with a conflict in Israel. And in power now, John Bolton is one of those guys who t…

I will say it is weird when it seems to make sense to be more scared of the people on your own side than the people on the enemy's side. Perhaps they have folks just as scary, though.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#383

Post by tspike »

zanny wrote: post #250
tspike wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have the means to automate pretty much all work and fulfill everyone's basic needs. We choose not to. As for multi planetary, why? Earth is paradise .

You can make anywhere a habitable paradise with enough energy. You don't even really need specific resources since with sufficient energy can you synthesize elements. A lot of people underestimate what the current projected growth of solar potential will lead to this century given its current pace in how much work you can do when energy is cheap and abundant.

You and I must have very different definitions of paradise.

No matter how much energy you capture, you can't replicate the multi-billion year process of evolution and growth in biodiversity that has led to the incredible present state of Earth.

It is pure madness to invest in colonizing other planets before we figure out how to sustain the ideal place we already inhabit.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#384

Post by tareqak »

mistermann wrote: post #368
tareqak wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see the Wikipedia page for isolationism or any of the other *isms I listed above [0]. To say that there was no beneficial mutual trade in at least some of the cases is probably a stretch. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolationism

So now you do see how nationalism might also include international cooperation?

I think we are misunderstanding each other, but we both agree. My understanding of what you are saying now is that it is possible to have nationalism with international cooperation, but I read your initial comment as nationalism requiring international cooperation. What I am saying is that nationalism and international cooperation are two choices that a nation-state can make that are almost completely independent from each other.

Sorry for any lack of clarity on my part.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#385

Post by v_lisivka »

raprp wrote: post #233
v_lisivka wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a mosquito will bite you into nose, you will crush it with power enough to crush all mosquitoes in the house and more. How many resources you can extract from mosquitoes? Stop repeat the Russian propaganda. USA now is the largest oil producer in the world, so give me reason.

The oil of these nations is extremely valuable for the US not to consume them but to acquire exploration rights with ridiculous terms, generating a huge amount of revenue, propping the US economy up keeping up the American dream. The US has Saudi Arabia and the gulf countries on it's side, Libya in shambles, Venezuela and Iran isolated. That gives the US a lot of power on the energy market. So there it is, control ov…

Spent trillions to steal billions? Numbers does not match.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#386

Post by TeMPOraL »

v_lisivka wrote: post #385
raprp wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The oil of these nations is extremely valuable for the US not to consume them but to acquire exploration rights with ridiculous terms, generating a huge amount of revenue, propping the US economy up keeping up the American dream. The US has Saudi Arabia and the gulf countries on it's side, Libya in shambles, Venezuela and Iran isolated. That gives the US a lot of power on the energy market. So there it is, control ov…

Spent trillions to steal billions? Numbers does not match.

Does if you realize the horizon for politicians in US is at most 4 years long; after that, it's most likely going to be someone else's problem.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#387

Post by madeofmeat »

tomohawk wrote: post #133
mrfredward wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll add trade as an important deterrent to war in the modern world. The more countries' economies become intertwined, the more incentive there is to work things out peacefully. Unfortunately, the wave of protectionism we're seeing undermines this incentive.

France was Germany's largest trading partner at the outset of WWI.

But trade was a tiny percentage of either country's economy: these countries had total annual exports something close to 5% of their GDPs. In contrast, for example the USA now exports about 20% of its GDP; China, about 35%.

Also, industrial goods today have complex global supply chains, unlike in the past. In 1914 perhaps the worst French import that Germans lost was something like luxury foodstuffs. Today it might be more like, nobody can build X smartphone or airplane because one of its critical parts is only made in one place, and building an identical plant on this side of the war border will take several years. There's a multiplier on the economic damages here, because losing the ability to trade for a $5 chip might mean your economy loses a $500 smartphone.

That's not to say this makes a big war impossible, but shutting down trade would be vastly more painful today than back then.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#388

Post by rainDropDropTop »

AlanSE wrote: post #255
AcerbicZero wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can happily go point by point here, but my original comment wasn't intended to suggest I agreed with the current state of world military balance and shouldn't be taken as implicit support of US policy. That said - * The S-400 is an impressive system. The Russians have so built ~300 of them, and like any system, the soft factors are more important than the paper facts suggest. Training, deployment, doctrine, and str…

Due to morbid curiosity or whatever, I can't get enough of these arguments. Yes, the initial superiority of one military is greater by a large margin and will remain that way for some time to come. But I think it's misleading wording to say it "has room to improve its lead", simply due to the fact that emerging powers are improving a greater rate, and it's economically unreasonable to believe otherwise. Plus, no indi…

  "no individual actor made the decision 
   to plunge their mighty military power 
   into the conflagration"
Yeah, that part is really the key to everything.

The big wars were really a form of violent economic panic, writ large, and without descalation channels, partly as a component of monarchy, divine right and authoritarian autocracy, but also horrendously aggrivated by profound leaps of technological power, mostly by way of chemistry and industrial scale production of chemicals.

No one knew it would get that bad, that fast, that way. And during a time when royalty simply would not back down from a fight.

There are hot spots and proxy wars right now. If they go sideways, and spill a hot mess in the wrong lap, could an uncontrolled panic open up and let loose a new kind of conflagration we weren't expecting or have never before considered?

That's probably the hardest riddle. How does one anticipate an unexpected, unplanned atrocity?

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#389

Post by yesenadam »

soylentcola wrote: post #361
TeMPOraL wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walking Dead is a TV show that makes zero sense whatsoever. I dropped watching it after 2.5 seasons, because after season 1 it lost any semblance of a plot, and became a TV-show-equivalent of the very zombies it portrays - mindlessly wandering around. I can't understand why it is so popular.

I agree that it's long overstayed its welcome, but from what I gather, the zombies are mostly irrelevant. You could swap out "zombie outbreak" with any other persistent hazard that causes the breakdown of civilization and provides a constant background threat to the actual focus of the story: the people who have to survive and deal with each other/the environment they're faced with after said breakdown. As much as I…

I read that the goal of the author was a zombie story that didn't end.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#390

Post by Fjolsvith »

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #366
AcerbicZero wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can happily go point by point here, but my original comment wasn't intended to suggest I agreed with the current state of world military balance and shouldn't be taken as implicit support of US policy. That said - * The S-400 is an impressive system. The Russians have so built ~300 of them, and like any system, the soft factors are more important than the paper facts suggest. Training, deployment, doctrine, and str…

One interesting factor I don't see a lot of in these discussions is that the US also has a nasty habit of leaving its military assets out of range of the land they ultimately defend. A hyper-advanced carrier group out in the Arabian sea won't be a lot of help if Mexico suddenly becomes hyper-nationalistic and decides to press their claims on the US southwest

Just consider every airbase in the US to act as a carrier in support of a US-Mexico altercation.
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