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> What would be needed is an intervention force that takes over the entire country and stabilizes it An occupation force is not tenable in the modern era. Per

> What would be needed is an intervention force that takes over the entire country and stabilizes it An occupation force is not tenable in the modern era. Per a Washington Post article from 2004[1], the post-WW2 occupation of Germany had an initial force ratio of one occupying soldier per 40 civilians. At that level, occupying forces could assume direct command of civil structures, without needing to sign deals with the least-bad bandits or warlords in waiting to act on our behalf. Per Wikipedia, Libya's current population is a bit above 7 million. With a similar force ratio, that means an occupying force would require 175,000 soldiers. A Fermi estimate of cost is $100k/yr/soldier ($10k doesn't pay for salary, $1m is implausibly large), giving an occupation cost of $17.5bn/yr[2] before any special funding like (re)building major infrastructure projects. This kind of cost is insupportable in a modern democracy, where voters will rightly ask why 'we' should bother. Libya was not and is not an existential threat like WW2-era Germany, and we're not in the imperial/colonial era where occupying forces could loot the country to pay for its own occupation. [1] -- https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2004/05/09/a-proven-formula-for-how-many-troops-we-need/5c6dbfc9-33f8-4648-bd07-40d244a1daa4/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2004/05/09/a... [2] -- This is also why meaningful intervention in Haiti will not happen, if you believe the calling-for-intervention reports that civil government has more or less collapsed in that nation.

thriftwy 3y ago
Then stop toppling governments[1]. Where you can't do anything, you do not need to want anything. 1. Perhaps one can say that this is already done, since we do not hear of any recent examples. Still, this was not very far back.
- Majromax 3y ago
  > Then stop toppling governments. Not necessarily. A total prohibition there would give free reign to tyrants to oppress their own people or even invade their insufficiently-allied neighbours without fear of consequence. The second world war is widely regarded as a just conflict (on the balance), even if it did topple the governments of the Axis powers. However, my thinking above raises cost-estimation from a practical problem (can we afford the war?) to a moral one. An optimistic belief in a 'short victorious war' gives the intervenor at least partial culpability for the harms of state failure following insufficient occupation and reconstruction.
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    > give free reign to tyrants to oppress their own people Come on, North Korean regime exists for 70 years now and it is relatively stable. You're not going to heal the world. China will continue to do whatever it wants in Tibet and Cental Asia. The only thing you get by doing interventions against the regimes you do not like, is encouraging other countries to do interventions against the regimes that they do not like. You can nudge tyrants into becoming milder and perhaps transitioning power sometimes in the future, and that would also have a benefit of not starting civil wars and having refuge crises.
    - mschuster91 3y ago
      > You can nudge tyrants into becoming milder and perhaps transitioning power sometimes in the future That's incredibly rare to happen. Most dictators leave office by death or being forced into exile.

thriftwy 3y ago

Then stop toppling governments[1]. Where you can't do anything, you do not need to want anything. 1. Perhaps one can say that this is already done, since we do not hear of any recent examples. Still, this was not very far back.

Majromax 3y ago
> Then stop toppling governments. Not necessarily. A total prohibition there would give free reign to tyrants to oppress their own people or even invade their insufficiently-allied neighbours without fear of consequence. The second world war is widely regarded as a just conflict (on the balance), even if it did topple the governments of the Axis powers. However, my thinking above raises cost-estimation from a practical problem (can we afford the war?) to a moral one. An optimistic belief in a 'short victorious war' gives the intervenor at least partial culpability for the harms of state failure following insufficient occupation and reconstruction.
- thriftwy 3y ago
  > give free reign to tyrants to oppress their own people Come on, North Korean regime exists for 70 years now and it is relatively stable. You're not going to heal the world. China will continue to do whatever it wants in Tibet and Cental Asia. The only thing you get by doing interventions against the regimes you do not like, is encouraging other countries to do interventions against the regimes that they do not like. You can nudge tyrants into becoming milder and perhaps transitioning power sometimes in the future, and that would also have a benefit of not starting civil wars and having refuge crises.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > You can nudge tyrants into becoming milder and perhaps transitioning power sometimes in the future That's incredibly rare to happen. Most dictators leave office by death or being forced into exile.