Chris Campbell wrote:
I think they are, because...well, there's just no point to fighting
that way anymore. Our tech is sufficiently advanced that we do battle
now in courts and the marketplace, leaving armed conflicts on any
scale the last refuge of the desperate and the incompetant (nope, no
comment on the current U.S. administration here, nosiree...). The use
of force is sometimes warranted and advisable (the U.S. invasion of
Afghanistan after 9/11, for example), but apart from that...well, why?
Why would we ever go to war with China? There's just no point. And why
would China wage armed conflict on anyone? The whole country has
historically been very insular, and I'm not seeing much reason why
that would change (and ye gads, they're already managing more than a
billion people; why take on the headache of the rest of the world?).
Because you think you can? Not a great reason, of course, but a common
one for a would-be conqueror. Retaliation or punishment is still a
valid and justifiable reason (in the court of public opinion) for going
to war. And all the tech in the world won't allow you to physically
take something (like land). You can shoot it, bomb it, burn it, etc.,
but you need some grunts with rifles to physically stand on it to claim it.
The more I see in life the more I realize that there's just no profit
in large-scale armed conflict anymore. We have better things to do,
and going to war costs a fortune. So why bother? Better to just buy
out anything that bothers you, and let the undeveloped nations of the
world continue to squabble amongst themselves. It isn't *right*, but I
can't really see any reason why a developed nation would do any
differently.
You sorely underestimate the two main reasons for going to war (not
saying they're good reasons). First is the general Pride reason. As in
some form of "you can't do that to us" or "we're not pussies and we'll
prove it" or "we're better than they are" (hate dressed up as pride) or
"if we can't be the leader then no one will be". Yes, no profit in it
but that's not the point in risking your life or the lives of others in
something that final and destructive, right? I mean to even agree to it
is to be far beyond negotiations or risk assessment or rational
thought. The other is the Divine reason. Meaning that you go to war
for the good of those you are fighting against or because you believe
it's the best thing for the world or because you think you have the
right to. And only you are capable of pulling it off (don't want
someone else doing the fighting because then you can't control it).
Now, those are reasons I'm giving for *starting* a war. It has nothing
to do with Pearl Harbor or 9/11 in that those were both responses to
attacks, basically "ok, assholes, you wanted a fight now you've got
one". Very different and much more justified. Well, Afghanistan was
justified but Iraq was not.
I don't know if I'd say I'm a fan, necessarily, but...well, it does
lead to stability. The fight's gone out of Europe, Russia's bankrupt,
China has its own problems to deal with, and the hot issues in the
U.S. are political corruption, energy sources, and terrorism. If
globalization is the price for a world without large-scale conflict, I
can hardly call it a bad thing. We need to do better, mind, but even
still we're heading in the right direction.
You confuse "for now" with "always". Always a new set of players, a new
group of people who think the only way to make things fair is to kill
for what they think is right. Always a new faction that can't win by
the non-lethal rules in place so they say to hell with it, let's kill
them for it. Or threaten to kill them for it but if they call our bluff
we better actually be able to go to war or we'll never recover.
Alfred.
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"Success is not no violence."
- President Bush, on trying to find a way to be able to claim future
progress and success in Iraq without having to achieve the
complete victory he used to state as the only acceptable goal.
Alfred Urrutia - Digital Domain - 310.314.2800 x2267 - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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