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It's Not Just Ukraine and Gaza: War Is on the Rise Everywhere
- clouddrover 3y agoThe reasons wars happen: https://mwi.westpoint.edu/the-five-reasons-wars-happen/ https://mwi.westpoint.edu/the-five-reasons-wars-happen/
- somewhereoutth 3y agoInteresting analysis. I would suggest the procedure for war goes something like this: - Incompatible aims of the parties (in wars of aggression this may be expansion vs sovereignty) - Miscalculation (failure to understand and accommodate the incompatible aims, if such compromise could even be found, and failure to appreciate the other's resolve to make those aims) - Momentum (war has it's own terrible escalatory logic)
- RetroTechie 3y agoWhat stands out to me (as read elsewhere): Democracies are less likely to wage wars than autocratic regimes. So one way to view this report is as a sign of the world sliding back to autocrats / dictatorships.
- kjkjadksj 3y agoReally? Seems like the US and her allies always have some coalition force fighting at all times to test new military tech.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago> Democracies are less likely to wage wars than autocratic regimes. I think that is just selection bias because pretty much all the democracies were aligned for the last 50 years (see Cold War) But Rome was a republic and Athens was a democracy and they were quite aggressive in pursuing wars.
- citrin_ru 3y agoUntil a couple centuries ago there were wars economically beneficial for an aggressor. In the modern world cooperation if more beneficial and this is what most democratic countries choose. A dictator can start a war even knowing that it would have a huge cost because he personally would not suffer from this.
- catlover76 3y agoI believe the original contention as a doctrine of international relations is that democracies don't go to war with one another But yeah, I agree, selection bias, the particular post WWII era of history, etc. I was thinking about this in the context of the multi-polar world order emerging, and Russia, Gulf Arab Countries, and China pursuing common geopolitical interests. Kind of tangential to war per se, but still touches upon the whole "democracies tend to align and buy into the neoliberal world order" A lot of people would paint this as a bunch of right-wing autocratic regimes grouping up together and see that as one of the more salient things about such alignment. But really, if the Gulf Arab countries were more democratic, they would only be acting more independently of the Western geopolitical sphere. And I think China would also be pursuing a similar course if it were a democracy. The more those populations view themselves as sovereign peoples, the more they wouldn't want to play nice with a world order whose agenda isn't always aligned with what they want or think is right, or which they feel doesn't accord them sufficient respect, etc. For example, they are now all using the current stage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to call out Western hypocrisy, etc. (For China and Russia, this is just trollish behavior, because of course Russia is doing something similar in Ukraine, and China is doing something similar to the Uighurs, and they know it, and everyone knows it). For the Gulf Arab countries, this is hypocritical in the sense that they are beneficiaries of American foreign policy hypocrisy (see, e.g., Yemen) Certainly, as far as the Arabs go here, it is difficult to imagine they would be somehow less interested in doing so were they democracies (though I don't think they'd be doing what they are doing in Yemen if they were) I think the above makes me come across as having some kind of really left view of foreign policy or something lol. But I have mostly liked the neoliberal world order, and I don't think that a multipolar world where Russia/Gulf/China are more powerful is good. I have reasons I dislike all of those countries. Anyone who thinks they are somehow better than the US and that the Western portrayal of their evils is merely propaganda is pretty naive, IMO. However, I do wish the Palestinians and others weren't considered disposable or worse. On that issue, American foreign policy is quite nakedly immoral and senseless, and I do feel it undermines the credibility of the country to the point where I and others are willing to shrug at the American world order's slow collapse.
- jjk166 3y agoTheir analysis seems to grossly ignore the reality of the situation in Ukraine (their primary example) which calls into question the whole argument. 1. Russian views invasion over its relatively indefensible borders as an existential threat, with the most recent example of such an invasion still in living memory, and thus maintaining border states is its number one priority. 2. Russian control of a warm water port on the black sea has been a primary foreign policy goal for 300 years. 3. With the Euromaiden ouster of the previous pro-russian government, Ukraine's shift to the West was all but a certainty barring exceptional circumstances, which would not only create a large indefensible border directly with NATO, but also place Russia's most important naval port in NATO territory. 3. Russia has had consistent success stopping countries from joining NATO by starting low level conflicts in break-away regions within those countries (see Georgia in 2008). 4. Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, Russian land forces were considered first rate, with western analysts predicting they Kyiv would fall within hours if Russia invaded. 5. Russian demographics are terrible, like absolutely fucked, with a massive birthrate crash in the early 90s after the fall of the soviet union compounding pre-existing problems. The late 2010s/early 2020s are the last time in the next few decades that Russia's military, which relies on numbers, would be able to conduct an offensive operation. 6. Europe was reliant on Russian natural gas and mineral exports, and generally at a weak point in its relationship with the US which was strongly focused on China. Based on these givens, it makes perfect sense that in 2014 Russia would try to seize Crimea and support separatists in the east - it prevents Ukraine from joining NATO, it secures Sevastopol, it drives a wedge between Europe and the US, it demonstrates Russian military capability inexpensively, and it does all this while it still has the manpower to spare. This action was popular in Russia and reasonably successful from their perspective. If you ignore respect for international law, it was a rational decision. But between water being cut off to Crimea, stalemate along the Donbass, and persistent western sanctions, the conflict was bleeding Russia white. It could handle this at first, but with impending demographic collapse it needed to wrap things up quickly. With a full scale invasion it could replace the Ukrainian government with a friendly puppet, guaranteeing its long term status as a border state, and legitimizing Russia's previous gains; Russia would demonstrate western division and impotence, once and for all convincing the remaining border states to remain neutral; Russia would demonstrate its military might to make its subsequent bluff as convincing as possible, and it would open the flood gates for China to make moves that would take the US's focus away; and finally Putin would see a surge in popularity at home just as he had seen in 2014. While all of this was of course wrong, it was not the fantasy of an isolated despot, but rather it was the prevailing fear in the West. And frankly despite not being true, it's unclear that Russia really had a better option (from its perspective) - letting the separatists crumble and NATO expand while its demographics collapsed would herald the end of Russia as a great power, and leave it as an untrusted, junior partner in orbit around either Europe or China. Make Putin accountable, the war still happens, as the people he would be accountable to supported the decision. Ideology may have been used as an excuse but it played no role in the actual decision making. Bias, uncertainty, and unreliability, which all seem to be rehashing the same point - that we don't know ahead of time how a decision will play out - doesn't really have any explanative power. Maybe if we lived in a world where everyone was omniscient and brutally rational we wouldn't have war, but I wouldn't describe that as the reason war happens.
- derbOac 3y agoRelatedly: https://www.unhcr.org/us/about-unhcr/who-we-are/figures-glance https://www.unhcr.org/us/about-unhcr/who-we-are/figures-glan... These kinds of phenomena are why I wish there was a better scientific understanding of societal functioning. I tire a bit of public intellectuals arguing about whether or not we should feel optimistic or not instead of how to measure whether or not we do, who "we" are, and what it means.
- plastic_enjoyer 3y ago“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”
- xg15 3y agoIf I remember correctly, that quote is from a (Jewish?) observer of pre-WW2 Nazi Germany. Let's hope it doesn't fit today.
- mbgerring 3y ago[flagged]
- ittybittytitty 3y agoCauses of War from Blarney might provide some perspective.
- hulitu 3y ago> It's Not Just Ukraine and Gaza: War Is on the Rise Everywhere To quote a line from a nice movie: "The decline of the American empire, continues". The American empire expanded too much in the last 30 years and, just like the Roman empire, it ignores its citizens. The greed and the lust for glory already started to take their toll. The funiest part is, that it is the US which is pushing hard for those wars, like they learned nothing from Vietnam, Irak or Afganistan.
- kar5pt 3y agoYou could argue they're enabling it, but not that they're pushing for it. Ukraine and Israel both have more will to fight than the US does.