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Because it blows the cover of diplomacy. Sovereign nations not at war aren’t supposed to conduct hostile ops against each other. Diplomacy and international re

by pm90 6y ago

Because it blows the cover of diplomacy. Sovereign nations not at war aren’t supposed to conduct hostile ops against each other. Diplomacy and international relations are sort of their own universe with their protocols, traditions etc. Admitting to the attack would mean that the US appears as the blatant aggressor, and may have to make concessions. Plausible deniability is often safe and has no consequences.

macspoofing 6y ago
>Sovereign nations not at war aren’t supposed to conduct hostile ops against each other. Says who? When was that ever true in the history of civilization? The only peace humanity every knew was within the border of some empire. Otherwise it was constant war.
- wahern 6y ago
  Says international law, including the United Nations charter (reciting the Westphalian doctrine), which every member state signs onto. Of course, there are large grey areas in international relations, and nobody can reasonably expect perfect compliance, anyhow. But beyond any specific practical, tactical, or strategic reasons for maintaining plausible deniability, refusing to openly admit to a violation still reflects a degree of obeyance to the law. When large nations start openly flouting norms w/ a giant "F-U", that's when you know the international order and world peace is in trouble. Plausible deniability of military ops is the nation-state equivalent of the polite fiction in cultural anthropology--an important, useful tool providing resilience to the normative system.
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    >Says international law, including the United Nations charter (reciting the Westphalian doctrine), which every member state abides by. And who enforces this law?
    - wahern 6y ago
      Not who, but what--self-interest, the natural human predisposition to obey cultural norms, biologically innate concept of "fairness", etc. A cultural norm is also a mechanism for streamlining cooperation--whenever some person or entity breaks established norms, you don't need to convene and deliberate to decide whether it was wrong, it's just per se wrong and members can instantaneously begin acting accordingly. It keeps everybody aligned. Not perfectly, but to a much greater degree than when the particular invisible boundaries don't exist. And that's one reason why it's in everybody's self-interest to substantially promote obeyance to such norms, and avoid harming the norm. Some norms are more important than others. In the context of international relations, sovereignty is perhaps still the most important one. Unless you're prepared to conquer the entire world, anything you do that harms the principle harms yourself as other nation-states are less likely to respect your own sovereignty. Balancing these interests (e.g. short-term gain vs long-term harm) is complex, but as I said upholding the principle of sovereignty is one of the most sacrosanct. And so when it's violated it's quite understandable why even super powers like the U.S. and China remain circumspect, invariably resorting to plausible deniability or pretense justifications that at least nominally avoid openly flouting the principle.
      - macspoofing 6y ago
        You're spinning in circles. 'self-interest, the natural human predisposition to obey cultural norms' are abstract ideas, not international enforcement bodies. >And that's why it's in everybody's self-interest to substantially promote obeyance to such norms, and avoid harming the norm. Oh yeah? If that's the case, why does a thing like 'tragedy of commons' exist? Is it because without a central authority to enforce order, the rational action to take by each actor is to cheat and to take as much for themselves because if they don't, someone else will? But don't believe me, look at all of history. Peace only existed when an empire was able to enforce it. Circling back to Iran. Iran has their sovereignty, they just are pariah state because they chose a policy of antagonism against a super-power - that policy hasn't worked out for them at all.
        wahern 6y ago
- userulluipeste 6y ago
  "The only peace humanity every knew was within the border of some empire. Otherwise it was constant war." This is a bold claim on a very much debatable subject, where it would come down to what "war" is, if it is the same with armed conflict/incident (like opposing force against a robbery), and so on. There are many countries, even neighboring ones (like Serbia and Romania), that say that have never been in a war against each other. As to the commendation of living within an empire, that is just helplessness against empire's overpowering forces, which is far from the general idea of "peace" as in Wikipedia-defined "societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence".
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    >This is a bold claim on a very much debatable subject, where it would come down to what "war" is, if it is the same with armed conflict/incident (like opposing force against a robbery), and so on. No. It's not debatable. Show me an example of an extended peace between nations outside of the borders of an empire. This is almost a tautology to say that you need a central authority to have a monopoly of force. Otherwise you're in the 'tragedy of commons' scenario. >There are many countries, even neighboring ones (like Serbia and Romania), that say that have never been in a war against each other. Certainly they don't want to, but that's immaterial, they aren't allowed to. They are within the sphere of American order. >As to the commendation of living within an empire, that is just helplessness against empire's overpowering forces, which is far from the general idea of "peace" as in Wikipedia-defined "societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence". Well ... OK ... that's all we have.
    - userulluipeste 6y ago
      "Certainly they don't want to, but that's immaterial, they aren't allowed to. They are within the sphere of American order." If we are referring to the Serbia-Romania example, the peace track record is way longer before what you call American order to be a thing (and even longer if we'd count peace between their people, before statehood), then afterwards it's safe to say that they kept their peace despite America's interests: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia

by pm90 6y ago

macspoofing 6y ago

>Sovereign nations not at war aren’t supposed to conduct hostile ops against each other. Says who? When was that ever true in the history of civilization? The only peace humanity every knew was within the border of some empire. Otherwise it was constant war.

wahern 6y ago
Says international law, including the United Nations charter (reciting the Westphalian doctrine), which every member state signs onto. Of course, there are large grey areas in international relations, and nobody can reasonably expect perfect compliance, anyhow. But beyond any specific practical, tactical, or strategic reasons for maintaining plausible deniability, refusing to openly admit to a violation still reflects a degree of obeyance to the law. When large nations start openly flouting norms w/ a giant "F-U", that's when you know the international order and world peace is in trouble. Plausible deniability of military ops is the nation-state equivalent of the polite fiction in cultural anthropology--an important, useful tool providing resilience to the normative system.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >Says international law, including the United Nations charter (reciting the Westphalian doctrine), which every member state abides by. And who enforces this law?
  - wahern 6y ago
    Not who, but what--self-interest, the natural human predisposition to obey cultural norms, biologically innate concept of "fairness", etc. A cultural norm is also a mechanism for streamlining cooperation--whenever some person or entity breaks established norms, you don't need to convene and deliberate to decide whether it was wrong, it's just per se wrong and members can instantaneously begin acting accordingly. It keeps everybody aligned. Not perfectly, but to a much greater degree than when the particular invisible boundaries don't exist. And that's one reason why it's in everybody's self-interest to substantially promote obeyance to such norms, and avoid harming the norm. Some norms are more important than others. In the context of international relations, sovereignty is perhaps still the most important one. Unless you're prepared to conquer the entire world, anything you do that harms the principle harms yourself as other nation-states are less likely to respect your own sovereignty. Balancing these interests (e.g. short-term gain vs long-term harm) is complex, but as I said upholding the principle of sovereignty is one of the most sacrosanct. And so when it's violated it's quite understandable why even super powers like the U.S. and China remain circumspect, invariably resorting to plausible deniability or pretense justifications that at least nominally avoid openly flouting the principle.
    - macspoofing 6y ago
      You're spinning in circles. 'self-interest, the natural human predisposition to obey cultural norms' are abstract ideas, not international enforcement bodies. >And that's why it's in everybody's self-interest to substantially promote obeyance to such norms, and avoid harming the norm. Oh yeah? If that's the case, why does a thing like 'tragedy of commons' exist? Is it because without a central authority to enforce order, the rational action to take by each actor is to cheat and to take as much for themselves because if they don't, someone else will? But don't believe me, look at all of history. Peace only existed when an empire was able to enforce it. Circling back to Iran. Iran has their sovereignty, they just are pariah state because they chose a policy of antagonism against a super-power - that policy hasn't worked out for them at all.
      - wahern 6y ago
userulluipeste 6y ago
"The only peace humanity every knew was within the border of some empire. Otherwise it was constant war." This is a bold claim on a very much debatable subject, where it would come down to what "war" is, if it is the same with armed conflict/incident (like opposing force against a robbery), and so on. There are many countries, even neighboring ones (like Serbia and Romania), that say that have never been in a war against each other. As to the commendation of living within an empire, that is just helplessness against empire's overpowering forces, which is far from the general idea of "peace" as in Wikipedia-defined "societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence".
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >This is a bold claim on a very much debatable subject, where it would come down to what "war" is, if it is the same with armed conflict/incident (like opposing force against a robbery), and so on. No. It's not debatable. Show me an example of an extended peace between nations outside of the borders of an empire. This is almost a tautology to say that you need a central authority to have a monopoly of force. Otherwise you're in the 'tragedy of commons' scenario. >There are many countries, even neighboring ones (like Serbia and Romania), that say that have never been in a war against each other. Certainly they don't want to, but that's immaterial, they aren't allowed to. They are within the sphere of American order. >As to the commendation of living within an empire, that is just helplessness against empire's overpowering forces, which is far from the general idea of "peace" as in Wikipedia-defined "societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence". Well ... OK ... that's all we have.
  - userulluipeste 6y ago
    "Certainly they don't want to, but that's immaterial, they aren't allowed to. They are within the sphere of American order." If we are referring to the Serbia-Romania example, the peace track record is way longer before what you call American order to be a thing (and even longer if we'd count peace between their people, before statehood), then afterwards it's safe to say that they kept their peace despite America's interests: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia