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If you want peace, study war

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Re: If you want peace, study war

#81

Post by jhelphenstine »

XorNot wrote: post #77
inglor_cz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is not always the outcome with veterans though, and veterans experiences are not uniform.

They are, however, informed by experiences in uniform.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#82

Post by im3w1l »

Uberphallus wrote: post #76
im3w1l wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With such a motto, you'd expect them to practice sprinting a lot, but curiously, I've never seen that happen!

Well, you can see the first rule as "try not to use what you learn". Can't speak for all instructors, but mine went directly to technique for those who ran/cycled to the gym and stretched before the class, letting the rest warm up in the meantime... running. Also most demonstrations you can see on the Internet always end with running and most comments make fun of that, so it's certainly included in the practice.

I stand corrected

Re: If you want peace, study war

#83

Post by wolfd »

arethuza wrote: post #60
smokey_circles wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's true, but I'll also admit that the history of the cold war is very muddled and I am no historian. The US's version was written by the white house's journalist. It is not objective and lots has been refuted from calls leaked by the soviets after the fact, and a few of the advisors too. TruTV/Adam Ruins Everything has a take on it [0] (not saying that's the objective history but they raise some eye…

I can strongly recommend "One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War" by Michael Dobbs: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2606779-one-minute-to-mi... For extra nightmare fuel "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" by Daniel Ellsberg: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/25663779-the-doomsday... The latter book literally gave me nightmares.

Additional recommendation: The Fog of War, the McNamara interview documentary. Absolutely fascinating look into the mind of the secretary of defense at the time.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#84

Post by torcete »

I have always found interesting the question of why countries go to war? Obviously, if you need to defend yourself you don't have too many options.

But why the elite of a nation will start a war will all the consequences and the danger of loosing territory. Of course, this elite believes they will never suffer the consequences of war. That's why nuclear weapons are a terrifying deterrent.

However, something I read recently was very illuminating: every time somebody decides to go to war, believes it is going to be short and quick. You don't start a war when you don't believe you have a clear advantage. We can also see that many times this thought was wrong and led to lengthy with a high cost on human lives.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#85

Post by wizzwizz4 »

Razengan wrote: post #80
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wars end up with those best at surviving surviving. The ones best at getting allies to protect them, the ones who keep their children alive even at the cost of thousands of others' lives, the ones who groom an ally to throw themselves on the grenade, the ones who climb the power ladder and then use that power to keep themselves safe from the conflict…

War is a terrible selection pressure, if you value the light and good in this world. (Probably) less bad than the ones genocidal dictators apply, given how indiscriminate (and therefore bad at selection) it is, but it's certainly not in the “good” category.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#86

Post by arethuza »

arethuza wrote: post #60
smokey_circles wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's true, but I'll also admit that the history of the cold war is very muddled and I am no historian. The US's version was written by the white house's journalist. It is not objective and lots has been refuted from calls leaked by the soviets after the fact, and a few of the advisors too. TruTV/Adam Ruins Everything has a take on it [0] (not saying that's the objective history but they raise some eye…

I can strongly recommend "One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War" by Michael Dobbs: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2606779-one-minute-to-mi... For extra nightmare fuel "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" by Daniel Ellsberg: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/25663779-the-doomsday... The latter book literally gave me nightmares.

A quote from the latter:

"The total death toll as calculated by the Joint Chiefs, from a U.S. first strike aimed primarily at the Soviet Union and China, would be roughly 600 million dead. A hundred Holocausts.

I remember what I thought when I held the single sheet with the graph on it. I thought, this piece of paper should not exist. It should never have existed. Not in America. Not anywhere, ever. It depicted evil beyond any human project that had ever existed. There should be nothing on Earth, nothing real, that it referred to."

https://apjjf.org/-Daniel-Ellsberg/3222/article.html

"A hundred Holocausts" - that has haunted me ever since I first read it.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#87

Post by capableweb »

arethuza wrote: post #60
smokey_circles wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's true, but I'll also admit that the history of the cold war is very muddled and I am no historian. The US's version was written by the white house's journalist. It is not objective and lots has been refuted from calls leaked by the soviets after the fact, and a few of the advisors too. TruTV/Adam Ruins Everything has a take on it [0] (not saying that's the objective history but they raise some eye…

I can strongly recommend "One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War" by Michael Dobbs: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2606779-one-minute-to-mi... For extra nightmare fuel "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" by Daniel Ellsberg: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/25663779-the-doomsday... The latter book literally gave me nightmares.

Any similar books that are not written by either born US persons or people heavily influenced by US either via politics or education? Not saying the information in the books are not true, but would love an opinion and summation on the matter from someone not so deep into US politics.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#88

Post by HPsquared »

torcete wrote: post #84

I have always found interesting the question of why countries go to war? Obviously, if you need to defend yourself you don't have too many options. But why the elite of a nation will start a war will all the consequences and the danger of loosing territory. Of course, this elite believes they will never suffer the consequences of war. That's why nuclear weapons are a terrifying deterrent. However, something I read re…

Sun Tzu: "If ten times the enemy's strength, surround them; if five times, attack them; if double, be able to divide them; if equal, engage them; if fewer, defend against them; if weaker, be able to avoid them."

Re: If you want peace, study war

#89

Post by mhh__ »

arethuza wrote: post #39
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.

The Cuban Missile Crisis is another example where if things had been left purely to the militaries of both sides things would probably have escalated very badly.

LeMay wanted to bomb Cuba immediately...

One thing that I cannot find a second citation for but really intrigued me is that there is apparently some kind of parallel-narrative around the double agent Oleg Penkovsky - at first glance he gave information to the west about the situation in Cuba, but on closer inspection some of his antics may be too good to be true (he apparently made it in and out of the Soviet Union alive despite being rumbled). Peter Wright in Spycatcher says that Penkovsky's assessments data of Soviet ICBM accuracy often didn't line up with satellite imagery of their missile testing ranges.

Ultimately we'll never know but its fascinating just how much we don't know about the cold war.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#90

Post by mhh__ »

torcete wrote: post #84

I have always found interesting the question of why countries go to war? Obviously, if you need to defend yourself you don't have too many options. But why the elite of a nation will start a war will all the consequences and the danger of loosing territory. Of course, this elite believes they will never suffer the consequences of war. That's why nuclear weapons are a terrifying deterrent. However, something I read re…

To quote Blackadder: It was too difficult not to have a war.

I think any idea of the noble war between great nations died in the trenches of the first world war, although it was definitely preempted by the Army Napoleon assembled.

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