At 09:13 PM 6/19/2007, Alfred Urrutia wrote:
Exactly. Divine reasoning might work with radical Muslims, but it
won't work with the bulk of the Muslim population and it won't work
at all with Americans or Chinese.
Sure it would. We've got enough retards in this country who think
Bush is right simply because he's god-fearun'. Fundamentalist
Christians are as afraid of the modern world and of loss of their
influence as the radical Muslims are. Whether they have the balls
to do something about it or not is another matter.
No, we really don't. We have a bunch of them, but we don't have
enough to make something like this happen. Witness Bush's approval
rating; unless he really managed to sell the conflict -- something
like Afghanistan after 9/11 -- it just won't happen (at least not in
the near future, and probably not even within our lifetimes).
Pride might work, but good luck getting the bulk of America to go
to war as a point of pride. The current administration's tried that
approach with Iraq, and it just isn't working.
Legitimate pride could do it. I mean if, say, Iran or Russia said
they were tired of us and threatened us. Or all our allies. And we
were the only ones who could stop that from happening. Hell, I'd
sign up for that if I was young enough.
Yes, but they'd have to be suicidal to challenge us, which is the
problem. You need a country whacked in the head enough to stir up the
hornets' nest, and you need another one hawkish enough to make it
happen. I really don't think that combination exists anymore (not
even with Iran; sure, they might get a nuke, but we aren't the ones
they'd be targetting with it. And frankly, I just don't think they
hate Israel enough to fall on their swords like that. Syria might,
and of course the various radical groups would, but Syria doesn't
have the tech and fighting the terrorist groups isn't really war in
the sense Core was meaning).
No it wasn't. It was a dinky little Middle-East conflict, nothing
more. We're talking superpowers here, don't forget.
We had the U.S. and the U.K. and the French (and others) on one side
vs. the 4th largest army in the world (at the time). No, Iraq was
no superpower but you were talking about there be no good reasons to
go to war in any large scale sense, right? That was a large scale war.
Not in any meaningful sense it wasn't. Yes, the U.K. and the French
and such were there, but that was a matter of face more than anything
else. It boiled down to us vs. Iraq, and Iraq didn't count.
It was a "world" war in the basic sense of having many major
countries in the world participating. I mean WWII was a world war
even though it never hit this continent (America).
It actually involved significant military forces from more than two
countries, though. The Gulf War didn't, at least not in any
meaningful sense of the term.
I can't see it. The hawks have failed miserably in the U.S., and
China has never had the interest. I guess something could happen in
Russia, but I think it's more likely the EU will gobble up former
Russian states before we see a resurgence of something like the Soviet empire.
Ya, and a lot of those former Soviet countries want in on our way of
life. I could see Russia threatening something if the right psycho
got into power, trying to stop all those former Soviet states from leaving.
Low low odds, of course.
Yeah, and the infrastructure is bad enough that I don't think he
could do much. The EU's in better shape than Russia is, so presenting
a credible military threat is probably a no-go (and they'd have to be
antsy with China sitting there, being an unknown quantity). It's not
impossible, I guess, but as you say it's unlikely.
And you say "but we don't know what will happen!" And that's true,
but what we do know is that technological innovation is making war
less and less palatable even for the greedy. The demagogues who
used to run countries and start wars are now running corporations,
and *that's* the battlefield of the future -- boardrooms and
courtrooms. Tanks and such are nothing more than anachronisms.
We'll still have terrorists and police conflicts and the like, but
that's it. Too much money to be lost in anything bigger than that.
Not if you have countries like Iran and Syria and the like choosing
to side with the terrorists in principle vs. having us tell them how
to act (Pride).
But the problem is that they can't really do anything other than futz
around in the Middle East, and as we've already amply demonstrated we
don't really care what happens there. It's a conflict that isn't
really in danger of spreading, because few countries in the region
have any outside allies (and those who do aren't willing to get
involved). So people die in droves and nobody cares and the whole
mess is more or less self-contained.
Or a runaway genocide somewhere in Africa that must be stopped and
politics won't stop it, sanctions won't stop it, and a few
helicopter loads of Rangers won't stop it. Then you have a "we're
serious" invasion roll in, slap the shit out of them, reshuffle the
deck of assholes running that country. Maybe successful.
But nobody cares! We sat and watched as millions of Rwandans died and
did nothing to stop it. Same story with the Congo and West Africa and
Zimbabwe. Right now it's happening in Ethiopia. We just don't give a
damn, so war isn't really a possibility there (Somalia's an exception
here, but I remain unclear on why we bothered).
But always for a reason. If you look at WWI and WWII you can see
the warning signs all over the place. Same with every European
conflict before that, and the U.S. Civil War, and on and on and on.
None of it was a particular surprise to people at the time. But
now...the signs just aren't there. We have small stuff, sure, but
that's it. The big superpowers are all too buddy-buddy on the
global stage to really start a fight.
True. Even when they act mad nobody buys it. Now. You just need
one or two leadership changes, though.
Bureaucracy makes that unlikely, though. In the days of kings it was
a simpler matter, as one mad king could start a war all by his
lonesome. Now we need consensus by those in power, and support by
those controlling the purse strings. Starting a war is a much more
involved affair than it used to be, and this is true in any
industrialized country (not in developing countries, of course, but
none of them are sophisticated enough that war with the developed
world is really possible).
Tech is the reason for this. Now the leaders of countries can
communicate instantly, and they do. Misunderstandings are resolved
before they can spiral out of control, the media tells everyone
everything that's going on as soon as it happens (which makes
obfuscation difficult), and governments are so convoluted that
madmen can't call the shots just because they're in power (Bush
tried that, but it didn't work out for him). End result? There's so
much inertia to overcome when it comes to doing anything
significant that you have to really, really want it before you can
make it happen. And we don't. Simple as that.
True. This whole terrorist/new nuclear players deal is the wild
card, though. Too early to tell. All you need is Israel pissed off
enough to make its move and the retaliation of the Middle East to
force our hand.
Israel doesn't have the resolve to go that far, though. They know
that even suggesting the idea would get them in so much trouble, both
with us and with everyone around them, that they'll never try it.
Iran might try it, but as you say that would be a tremendously
unpopular decision with the populace. So where does that leave us? Status quo.
Terrorism might yet bring nukes into play, but that will be the sort
of thing we saw in Afghanistan -- the "no really, we're not kidding
around, we're going to stop you and we have the whole freakin' world
on our side" idea -- not war per se. It certainly won't be a
protracted conflict, since we can conquer and occupy any rogue state
in the blink of an eye *if we're actually committed to doing so.*
And look what's happened; the international community is royally
pissed at us, the Republicans have fallen apart, the public put
Democrats in Congress even though they still don't have a
recognizable party platform, and Bush is treading water until next
year's elections, trying desperately to find something positive to
mark his presidency. No one's even suggested the notion of invading
Iran, despite the fact that it's more of a threat to us now than
Iraq ever was. It just isn't worth the trouble.
Oh, many people have suggested invading Iran. It isn't worth the
trouble *now* because it's physically impossible. Thanks to
military downsizing we can't really fight a two-front war like the
Pentagon has always insisted we be able to do (for good reason). So
we have almost all our assets committed to Iraq (for no good reason,
all our fault) so if Iran does something very threatening and
stupid, stupid enough for us to react to, we will have to either
ignore it and let them get away with it or pull out of Iraq to deal
with it. Lose-lose, that one. Thanks, Bush.
What we really have in Iraq is all of our liqued assets committed --
the reserve troops we have available for Mickey-Mouse stuff like
rogue states. We still have troops stationed in bases all around the
world, along with our navy and such. So we can actually fight a war,
if we're talking about blowing stuff up. But blowing stuff up and
occupying conquered territory are two different things; the one is
simple, but as we've seen the latter is more problematic.
And that's all due to one pissant little country in the
Middle-East. Can you imagine what would happen if a future
administration tried to manufacture a war with China? The lot of
them would be Impeached quicker than you can spit.
Agreed. And Iraq may have made that possible. To which I guess
that's one small positive from this whole debacle.
And that's a part of history you just can't ignore. With WWII in our
distant memory and Iraq in the here and now, nobody's going to war
anytime soon. A century from now, maybe, if the rogue states gain
some power somehow or if our resource crunch bites us in the ass
before we can mainstream alternatives and we fall apart as a result
(it's possible). But barring some pretty radical events large scale
war as Core described it is pretty much a thing of the past. It's all
terrorism and police actions now, and that won't change.
Africa's just screwed. The Middle East will be a problem for ages,
but I don't think it will escalate simply because everyone there is
so darn good at burning bridges. Israel has no friends outside of
the U.S., and no one outside of the region is willing to stick
their necks out no matter how bad the violence gets (and it's
gotten pretty grim; if we haven't gotten involved by now, we
probably won't unless we have ironclad proof someone has a nuke in play).
All true. I have a couple friends I work with from South Africa and
the stories they tell me, of what their country used to be like
compared to now and how bad Africa has gotten in general, just chills my blood.
South Africa's never been a ray of sunshine. Don't forget, this used
to be a country with state mandated racism that made the U.S. of the
past century look like a walk in the park by comparison. When that
went away, the government of the time (which knew what it was doing,
even if it was morally reprehensible) was replaced by one that was
inexperienced and whose reach exceeded its grasp. As such, chaos.
It's not all bad, though; Botswana and Namibia (in the south at
least) are doing okay. Maybe Tanzania and a couple others too thanks
to all the tourism. But for the most part, eh.
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