> “I actually am a progressive,” he said. “I want less war. You only stop war by having the best technology and by scaring the bejabers — I’m trying to be nice here — out of our adversaries. If they are not scared, they don’t wake up scared, they don’t go to bed scared, they don’t fear that the wrath of America will come down on them, they will attack us. They will attack us everywhere.”
But, amongst those options, you should have the intelligence to choose the least bad.
“The United States is the world's biggest terrorist”, is IMHO almost a meaningless claim. It is true, arguably, but in that case it is irrelevant.
Based on this interpretation, the US is far from the worst powers in our world. In fact it is above the median.
IMO one of the primary ways the US terrorizes is by bombing with impunity. According to its own record keeping, the US has dropped 337000 bombs in the last 20 years, or 46 bombs per day.
Can you imagine living in one of the countries that the US keeps bombing? Every time you hear an airplane you have to think if you're about to die, or someone you know is about to die, or a school is about to be blown up, or a water treatment facility.
The issue with the "scared" approach is that all it takes is one country with that ideology for escalations to occur and everyone else to adopt that mindset.
That's haunting indeed to the naive minds who imagine the world must run on political correctness, rainbows and unicorns, but that's not how the real world works or has ever worked, and nobody can say that he's wrong though just because he's not sugar coating it. You only have peace if everyone is scared of you. Why do only small guys get bullied and not the tall muscular jocks? Why does Russia bully the EU and not the US?
Being pacifist doesn't assure you any peace if you're weak, as eventually, inevitably, someone hungry and greedy will build their strength to come for your lunch and you'll have to defend it if you want to keep it, as per human history in the last infinity years. Ask Belgium or NL how their pacifism worked out in WW2 in face of the Nazi army.
He should have just said: "Better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war" if he wanted something that sounds nicer.
How can we increase trust? Both internationally, but also nationally?
it's naive to think that the wars of the 20th century were caused by lack of trust, or the 21st
So when the police is happy to fine you for any technicality while people are free to do drugs on the streets (due to bad policy) this brings trust down - like in SF
There's your answer right there.
Trust only works locally throughout family and closely knit communities, but globally trust is like fiat currency, on a large global scale it is completely worthless on its own, without any higher form of enforcement through violent means to defend and enforce the relationship where the winner dictates the conditions and everyone else has to follow.
Countries don't trust the US government, but they trust and use the USD because they trust the US will do everything militarily to protect it. That's as far as trust goes.
The Chinese are just preventing terrorism in Xinjiang, right? And the Russians are just scared of NATO expansionism.
This fake fear is the veiled language of conquest.
You are free to give up your arms first in a race for world peace. Lead by example. Now do you think US, China and Russia will then follow you or will they just say thank you while they take your lunch and let you starve?
>This fake fear is the veiled language of conquest.
The fear isn't fake because the conquest isn't fake either. The entire societies, borders and economies we live in today have been agreed upon through violent conquest and you need to be capable of violence to defend or change them. Humans are greedy, tribal creatures, and conquest has been at the core of human behavior since time immemorial, and it's not going away just because you want to be a hippy.
Clearly its not for liberty or human rights, so at that point why should the population even support it?
How does your theory explain the 30 European nations that have been at peace with each other for decades? Is Poland simply too afraid of Lithuania due to Lithuanias military supremacy? Does France not invade the Netherlands because the Dutch army can field so many tanks?
How much of a percentage is those decades of peace out of the 200k year existence of the entire human race that has been defined only by war and conquest? You're cherry-picking the one exception the proves the rule.
Secondly, peace amongst EU countries was due to the US world nuclear power having established occupation of Europe after WW2, and then EU countries have allied together not out of fondness for one another (which doesn't exist even today), but out out necessity of survival, since that was the only way they could stand up to USSR threat. The enemy of my enemy is my friend basically.
Thirdly, conquest is at the core of EU too, except it's bureaucratic, political and economical, not military. Just because you don't see bullets being fired, doesn't mean the spoils of the economic pie doesn't get split up between victors.
This makes the peace they enjoy even more impressive, no?
> And secondly, EU countries have allied together not out of fondness for one another (which doesn't exist even today), but out out necessity of survival, since that was the only way they could stand up to bullying from US, Russia and China.
This is so inaccurate it would take an article long comment to refute. Maybe you should avoid explaining the history of places to others online if you clearly do not live in them.
> Thirdly, conquest is at the core of EU too, except it's bureaucratic, political and economical, not military.
This is why sovereign countries join the EU by their own volition, clearly!
No. "One bloomed flower does not mean it's spring" - saying from my country.
>This is why sovereign countries join the EU by their own volition, clearly!
Willingness or necessity? If I'm a small weak country and I want to sell something to make money, and the only way is to succumb to the rules of the largest trading block in the world, do I really have a choice? You know the saying, "if you can't beat them, join them". Even Norway and Switzerland still succumb to most EU rules even if they're not members and they might not like all those rules but they have no choice but to play ball if they want to maintain trade and prosperity.
>Maybe you should avoid explaining the history of places to others online if you clearly do not live in them.
OK, I'll stop it here and never answer you again since you're being needlessly petty and not wailing to argue in good faith.
Gee, I wonder how they became that largest trading bloc in the first place without being large enough to be the largest trading bloc.
> OK, I'll stop it here and never answer you again since you're being needlessly petty and not wailing to argue in good faith.
I cannot argue with someone living in a parallel fantasy world. You bring in claims about how EU support is not anchored in the populace which is just entirely fabricated. I cannot argue with this because I cannot argue within the hypothetical world of your lies where your arguments make sense because the reality on the ground is just entirely different. Visit the EU, talk to real people, you might be surprised on how they view the world and there place in it.
From that follows, I would argue, that the EU is the first society that has evolved past crude violence and is the example for the world to follow.
noun
1) a state of intense or overwhelming fear
2) violence or the threat of violence used as a weapon of intimidation or coercion
a regime that rules by terror
especially: violent or destructive acts (such as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands
Wont affect me and USA military power is not to play with.
Yes I support Israel. Gulf War 1 was justified so was Vietnam. Gulf War 2, maybe not but Saddam gone was good. Iran IS our enemy too btw.
Tell that to the Vietnamese, the Afghan, the Cuban, the korean, ... And arguably you might include a lot of eastern european country. Just because the confrontation didn't happen in the country that were "enemy" didn't mean they didn't cause wars.
And if you are speaking about what you guys did and doing in Palestine or any other Muslim nation trust my they aren't afraid of you, they just raise people who despise you and you will cry in future when they attack you at your homes.
Why this needs explaining to presumably educated adults is kind of terrifying in itself
What are you going to do when they appear on your shores to begin the slaughter, enslavement, rape, and pillaging? Write an angry letter? Start an online petition?
It's another to build an Orwellian surveillance state.
So of course the job is outsourced to allies.
Right?
This is the logic behind the old-style Jihad. Also the Chinese emperors used the same argument when conquering smaller kingdoms.
Unfortunately, what happens in practice is that even in one Islamic country Sunni vs Shia terrorists attacks happen. And in the case of China, the price you pay for superficial peace are Uighur concentration camps, Tibetan self-immolations and so on.
1 country in the world won't make you safe from wars. There's a reason why military was and is separated from police. Just think what's going to happen when your soldiers start to kill citizens.
1 country in the world tend to degrade to dystopian regime, and it was researched by multiple books authors, and actually a modern day USA is a good example of a regime on the path to dystopia.
And then in the aftermath faced a Russia which promptly seized a whole bunch of Baltic states.
Or to put it another way: up till this year Canada was not planning it's strategic defence strategy with the US as a possible threat actor.
For example, the same message could be told by referring to respect instead of fear.
"I want less war. You only stop war by having the best technology so much that earns the respect of your adversaries. If they don't respect you, if they don’t respect the might that your army can summon, you. Instead of going along with you, they will attack you at the next opportunity"
To add to the confusion, you can have military intelligence assess your potential target and still fail miserably just like Putin failed in his blitzkrieg. So a little bit of saber-rattling might serve a purpose, I guess.
1. I want peace.
2. a) Therefore I need to be strong enough to deter any attack.
2. b) Therefore I need to be so strong that all my enemies fear me.
2. a) is sound. Nobody attacks if they believe the cost is higher than benefit. ("Believe" is doing heavy lifting here, most wars start when countries belief about cost/value is misaligned)
2. b) is incompatible with 1. Either you believe that a stronger party does not necessarily attack weaker parties, thus peace could also be maintained without supremacy, or you believe supremacy leads to wars, but then your own goal of supremacy cannot be in the name of peace.
Unless, of course, you're a race supremacist, who believes you're so much wiser and more moral than anyone else that only you can be trusted with unchecked power. An idiotic and immoral position to take.
You are at your enemy's mercy without it. They may conquer you on a whim, and there's not a thing you can do about it.
I would much prefer that military supremacy in the hands of the wise and moral, there's nothing idiotic or immoral about that (indeed, the opposite is idiotic and arguably immoral).
- The country already having the largest army in the world, whose internal military branches are larger than most armies in the world ?
- The country that has a ocean to ocean control of its land, with east and west being fundamentally impossible to attack ?
- The country that is surrounded north and south by either allies, or third world countries struggling to even maintain peace within their own borders ?
- The country that is already going down some of the fastest descent into fascism history has seen ?
And how exactly that relates to Palantir, whose goal is not to provide vision algorithms for bombing brown people in the middle east, but to straight up build a file about their own citizens that would have made the Gestapo drool ?
The vast majority of countries that can afford a solid military already do, and neither is at threat of whatever bullshit you're making up here. Even local tensions like Pakistan and India, Thailand and Cambodia are being handled with incredibly small portions of their militaries, despite some pretty deep hatred. The countries that cannot, either have agreements with other powers in the region, or indeed get attacked by a military so overwhelmingly strong for them that even putting 100% of their GDP into it would not suffice.
I'll tell you what "pursuing military supremacy" does though: as it stands, the vast majority of the world sees the United States as a threat, with ever renewed imperialistic needs and aspirations. The United States is always just a single dip towards madness away from being the greatest danger that currently exists in the world. And now, they are suppressing internal protesters. But hey, if you're looking to rediscover how 9/11 was like and why it happened, pop off I guess.
What is the purpose of using Latin in this context?
I actually don't have an issue with the idea of the Iraq war per se. Deposing dictators is always a good thing, dictators have no right to exist.
The problem I have with the Iraq war was the completely botched execution, from start to finish. The start was based on the infamous WMD lies, the plans didn't include any concept on how the country should be run after the war, how to prevent warlords fighting over scraps, how to make sure democracy comes in and stays afterwards, and while the departure wasn't as bad as Afghanistan it wasn't clean either.
I don't buy that for a second. There is always a way to wage war and plan for the future of the invaded country afterwards. The Allied Forces have shown that this is both possible and sustainable with how they treated Germany post-WW2.
I know every situation is unique, and I think one of the advantages is that there was so little shared history, so little room for preexisting animosity, so both sides could say "Yeah, that was an unfortunate time, but we've realized our mistakes and get along now." But it still gives me hope for other seemingly intractable conflicts.
Iraq on the other hand is a state whose lines were drawn by a colonial rule and contains diffenrent populations. Saddam ruled using a minority ethnic group as the ruling class, which created an internal ethnic tension that was not possible to solve with an outside intervention.
Oh yeah right, because those North African and middle eastern countries are doing so much better off now after the west spend decades and trillions to replace the Taliban with ... a different strain of Taliban. Such an improvement that was.
So then when are you also gonna declare war on North Korea, Eritrea, Turkmenistan, Syria, China, Russia and Saudi Arabia to free those people from their dictators? Second time's the lucky charm. Or third, Or fourth. Or 128th, depending when in time you start counting western military interventionism abroad.
Russia only dared invade Ukraine because the US under Obama didn't do shit when Assad violated the "red lines" of using chemical weapons and barrel bombs against civilians or when the "little green men" took over Crimea and Donbas. And it's not Obama alone for what it's worth, Trump was just as bad in cozying up to Putin, and us Europeans didn't care either.
The secret to the relative period of peace after WW2 was that everyone was mightily afraid of getting smacked hard by the US. The first cracks obviously started back with Vietnam, but the actual erosion of the US hard and soft power was the clusterfucks in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yes, strength isn't unimportant. But if that's your only approach you're part of the problem, not part of the solution. May he reap what he saws, preferably with as little collateral as possible.
If history teaches us anything, as soon as some country gets a superior war tech, it immediately leads to them using it to destroy whoever they see as their enemies. And what really stops wars is when their main adversaries have the same power to destroy if being attacked.
Mutual deterrence is what was keeping us from WW3 for several decades. But the recent and growing idea of USA that they can break from this stalemate and crush anyone with overwhelming strength is what makes WW3 closer and closer by the day.
The glass citizen, completely see through to the regime, is being built.
aspenmayer•16h ago