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Like all things - wars are a combination of rational self-interest, emotions and random chance. The action itself matters less than the consequence. The typica
by bawolff 3y ago
Like all things - wars are a combination of rational self-interest, emotions and random chance.
The action itself matters less than the consequence. The typical example is that USA gets away with shit other countries can't because nobody wants to invade usa.
My understanding is that in this particular situation - yemen is a humanitarian disaster after their civil war. Any country that invades is going to be seen as responsible for fixing that mess, and nobody wants responsibility for that.
I think the other factor is that israel is not a popular country in most of the middle east. Even if these ship attacks screw over most of the countries in that region (probably hurting egypt more than anyone else) many of the regimes in the middle east dont have a super solid grip on power and are afraid to do anything that might be seen as helping Israel (even if really they are mostly helping themselves) lest it leads to popular discontent locally. Countries further away are less keen to get involved because middle east is a continual powder-keg that nobody really wants to get sucked into.
[Im definitely not an expert on this, just one uninformed opinion]
- Aeolun 3y ago> Any country that invades is going to be seen as responsible for fixing that mess Unless the invading country is Israel.
- bawolff 3y agoIsrael gets yelled at by the UN pretty constantly. If anything that statement applies to Israel more than most countries.
- Aeolun 3y agoI guess I read it more as ‘actually holding them responsible’ than occasionally (or constantly) yelling at them, since that is kinda pointless.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> read it more as ‘actually holding them responsible’ What about recent events suggests Israel isn’t held, and does not hold itself, responsible for Gaza’s affairs? The principal complaint is that they’re holding themselves too responsible.
- bawolff 3y agoOn the contrary that type of complaining and soft diplomacy does have a real effect. Israel's isolation on the world stage informs a lot of the decisions israel makes currently and has made in the past that lead to the present day. Its not a "do this or else" sort of thing, but it definitely has had a major effect on regional politics. Arguably one of the main causes of the current war is israel-saudi normalisation. So you could say that this yelling is so important to some factions that arab countries backing away from it triggered a major war.
- Aeolun 3y ago> On the contrary that type of complaining and soft diplomacy does have a real effect. It’s had a mild effect on Russia, and they’re basically a pariah. You can’t tell me it has a significant effect on Israel.
- p3rls 3y agoThey are very much "seen" as being responsible-- it's the reason they have 50x more news coverage of this conflict while thousands of muslims are right now dying allover africa and asia. They'll go to the grave without a peep from the international press or righteous online types.
- pvaldes 3y agoThe hit to its international tourism, and the public image damage has been devastating.
- mlrtime 3y agoThis is why The Abraham Accords were so important for some resemblance of "peace".
- psunavy03 3y ago> Like all things - wars are a combination of rational self-interest, emotions and random chance. You’ve just hit on Clausewitz’s “wonderous yet paradoxical trinity,” which usually gets misquoted as “war is the continuation of politics by other means.”
- bawolff 3y agoEveryone in this thread is mentioning Clausewitz. Sounds like i should add it to my to read list.