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I believe this will be an unpopular opinion - but I agree with your article. Conflict and war exists - today as much as ever - and shying away from engaging in

I believe this will be an unpopular opinion - but I agree with your article. Conflict and war exists - today as much as ever - and shying away from engaging in it early doesn't make the war go away, it just makes it come to you. So, in the spirit of "if you want peace, prepare for war", I believe the best way to life in peace is to remain peaceful yourself, but CONSISTENTLY engage in EARLY and AGGRESSIVE action which you see through to its CONCLUSION. And yes, in order to be successful, you have to have all of these four elements. Unfortunately, western democracies repeatedly have fallen short on at least some of these aspects which emboldens everyone from giant countries like Russia or China down to tiny groups like the Huthis.

iszomer 3y ago
Have you never encountered the idea of a proxy war before?
- wolframhempel 3y ago
  what's your point?
  - belter 3y ago
    That the missiles target needs to be 35.7219° N, 51.3347° E
    - jvdvegt 3y ago
      To prevent lots of HN'rs finding where that leads: it's Teheran, Iran.
  - iszomer 3y ago
    When people talk about "diversifying their income stream", whose to say this cannot be applied from a geopolitical or much less an ideological view?
sneak 3y ago
> Conflict and war exists - today as much as ever This is simply not true. With the exception of the recent Ukrainian war, violent deaths on Earth have been massively trending downward for decades. There is much less war affecting many fewer people than ever before. This is no accident, and it is the result of hard work by people who don’t espouse these sorts misguided of “more aggression is better” beliefs. :(
- wolframhempel 3y ago
  > violent deaths on Earth have been massively trending downward for decades. Right after they spiked to an all time high during WW1/WW2/Stalin/Mao reign. I know what you mean and I don't want to dismiss it outright - a lot of the small conquests that dominated Europa for millennia have indeed vanished and the motivations for war in a knowledge economy are very different. But I think we've mostly switched lots of small wars between small countries for fewer big wars between bigger countries - with bigger intervals in between. The trending downwards for decades statement requires to take measurement only in very specific timeframes and regions. If we take the last 100 years as a whole, they certainly have not.
  - sneak 3y ago
    The first and only use of nuclear weapons in war, ending the largest war in history, serves as a useful objective demarcation point. There is indeed much less war now than then. It seems that the doctrine of mutually assured destruction is working, for better or worse. Cold wars, proxy wars, limited in scope and scale wars - these are better than what came before.
  - prepend 3y ago
    > Right after they spiked to an all time high during WW1/WW2/Stalin/Mao reign. But it wasn’t an all time high, if you look at proportions, as we should. Pinker has talked a lot about this, and going far back in history [0] has estimates that 15% of people died from violent deaths compared to 0.15% during the peak of ww2 Germany. [0] https://longnow.org/seminars/02012/oct/08/decline-violence/ https://longnow.org/seminars/02012/oct/08/decline-violence/
paganel 3y ago
The bad thing for the US is that one cannot win wars based on the Navy (or on Navy airplanes) alone, which I guess that's where Stavridis's take comes from. In order to win wars you need hundreds of thousands of people actually on the ground, holding the terrain, and even then the odds are not all in the attacker's favor (just look at the results of the infamous US surge in Iraq). I get it though, with more than 30% of the US defence budget the Navy feels left out of the whole war thing recently (not that much the Navy can help with in the war against Russia), similar to how the Japanese admirals felt left out of China and Manchuria back in the late '30s, so they'll take any opportunity of a war that they think they'll win easily with the most open of arms.

iszomer 3y ago

Have you never encountered the idea of a proxy war before?

wolframhempel 3y ago
what's your point?
- belter 3y ago
  That the missiles target needs to be 35.7219° N, 51.3347° E
  - jvdvegt 3y ago
    To prevent lots of HN'rs finding where that leads: it's Teheran, Iran.
- iszomer 3y ago
  When people talk about "diversifying their income stream", whose to say this cannot be applied from a geopolitical or much less an ideological view?

sneak 3y ago

> Conflict and war exists - today as much as ever This is simply not true. With the exception of the recent Ukrainian war, violent deaths on Earth have been massively trending downward for decades. There is much less war affecting many fewer people than ever before. This is no accident, and it is the result of hard work by people who don’t espouse these sorts misguided of “more aggression is better” beliefs. :(

wolframhempel 3y ago
> violent deaths on Earth have been massively trending downward for decades. Right after they spiked to an all time high during WW1/WW2/Stalin/Mao reign. I know what you mean and I don't want to dismiss it outright - a lot of the small conquests that dominated Europa for millennia have indeed vanished and the motivations for war in a knowledge economy are very different. But I think we've mostly switched lots of small wars between small countries for fewer big wars between bigger countries - with bigger intervals in between. The trending downwards for decades statement requires to take measurement only in very specific timeframes and regions. If we take the last 100 years as a whole, they certainly have not.
- sneak 3y ago
  The first and only use of nuclear weapons in war, ending the largest war in history, serves as a useful objective demarcation point. There is indeed much less war now than then. It seems that the doctrine of mutually assured destruction is working, for better or worse. Cold wars, proxy wars, limited in scope and scale wars - these are better than what came before.
- prepend 3y ago
  > Right after they spiked to an all time high during WW1/WW2/Stalin/Mao reign. But it wasn’t an all time high, if you look at proportions, as we should. Pinker has talked a lot about this, and going far back in history [0] has estimates that 15% of people died from violent deaths compared to 0.15% during the peak of ww2 Germany. [0] https://longnow.org/seminars/02012/oct/08/decline-violence/ https://longnow.org/seminars/02012/oct/08/decline-violence/

paganel 3y ago

The bad thing for the US is that one cannot win wars based on the Navy (or on Navy airplanes) alone, which I guess that's where Stavridis's take comes from. In order to win wars you need hundreds of thousands of people actually on the ground, holding the terrain, and even then the odds are not all in the attacker's favor (just look at the results of the infamous US surge in Iraq). I get it though, with more than 30% of the US defence budget the Navy feels left out of the whole war thing recently (not that much the Navy can help with in the war against Russia), similar to how the Japanese admirals felt left out of China and Manchuria back in the late '30s, so they'll take any opportunity of a war that they think they'll win easily with the most open of arms.