4 ms·

China, Russia and Iran Are Reviving the Age of Empires

9 points by Bondi_Blue 2y ago

throw310822 2y ago
Of course, let's talk about China, Russia and Iran. Not about the US and Israel, who have been bombing everywhere in the ME for decades, and are currently engaged in ethnic cleansing and genocide.
082349872349872 2y ago
TFA tiptoes around US hegemony; as I see it JFK was the last person who seriously proposed[0,1] an end to the Age of Empires, and both he and Khrushchev were cancelled shortly after demonstrating they could work together, having successfully defused the Cuban Missile Crisis. [0] https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-john-f-kennedys-inaugural-address https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-john-... [1] EDIT: Upon reflection, Gorbachev did what he could; it's not his fault that you can lead people to water but you can't make them drink.
- mamonster 2y ago
  Gorbachev is the main historical reason as to why the entire post-USSR space with the exception of Baltics is one massive powder keg. He did absolutely nothing to make sure that the transition would be even remotely reasonable.
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    The transition (especially in comparison to things like Partition of India, or more recently the Breakup of Yugoslavia) was surprisingly reasonable. The USSR changed the socioeconomic system for its 290 million people, and did so with what, hundreds or thousands of deaths? (I think Romania alone had more deaths during transition than the entire rest of the Warsaw Pact)
    - mamonster 2y ago
      I mean, more like 100s of thousands of deaths. First Armenia Azerbaijan War: Unavoidable. First Chechen War: Unavoidable. Tajikistani Civil War: Unavoidable. Those alone together are around 200k deaths. When I say unavoidable I mean that once Soviet Union disintegrated along the individual SSR conflicts those conflicts were basically guaranteed to happen, and Gorbachev and his friends did nothing to even prepare for it. I'm not even talking about what sort of damage you should assign to the fact that the average life expectancy drop over the period 1989-1995 in ex-USSR republics was around 3 years(so apply that to 290 million.
      - aebtebeten 2y ago
        Ah, with the exception of the First Chechen War I'd been unaware of these. Is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_territory_of_the_former_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_territory... fairly accurate? Yeah, I'm hoping Milei's Argentine shock therapy will turn out a little less fucked up than the extreme libertarian/privatisation FSU 90s experience... EDIT: (a) with hindsight, what would you have done differently? (b) it looks like Yeltsin was calling the shots by late* 1991 (I'm still a little disappointed Brexit didn't involve "Boris on a Tank" in Westminster), so we only need to pin the First Nagorno-Karabakh War and the South Ossetia War on Gorbi. (c) do you have any opinions on the effect of the cancellations of Kennedy and Khrushchev on détente? * Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPydylSQyTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPydylSQyTg
        mamonster 2y ago
        >Is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_territory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_territory... fairly accurate? Yes, its fairly accurate. In terms of what I would've done differently: First NK War: It was incredibly clear that this would explode already during Glasnost, as Armenians made it quite clear they wanted either independence or reunification in like mid 80s. I'm not sure how this would be managed, because Armenia would never give up on either NK independence or reunification and Azerbaijan was always guaranteed to immediately ally with Turkey after separation(and they would want a land connection via Nakhichevan anyway). It would probably need an international intervention right from the get-go. Tajikistani Civil War: Once again, problems here started with Glasnost. Over the 80s it basically got revealed that there was a still a substantial religiously Muslim population that was not really interested in liberal democracy. Here there was a very simple solution: Either significant devolution or country had to split up. Tajikistan is exactly like Afghanistan in that tribal identity dominates allegiance to the "nation". First Chechen War: Simple. He had to basically remigrate all Russians out of Chechnya(given that they were resettled there by the USSR in the first place, after Chechnyans got deported due to collaborating with Nazis in large numbers), then build a massive border wall and then grant them independence. >it looks like Yeltsin was calling the shots by late* 1991 Yeltsin was a disgusting idiot, which makes sense given that he drunk 24/7, but at the same time he already got handed a very bad situation. On the southern border of Russia, the situation basically was "Here Boris, my Perestroika has created an entire southern flank of countries who want a caliphate and who want to kill russians which were resettled there by Soviets. Enjoy, I'm out!" > do you have any opinions on the effect of the cancellations of Kennedy and Khrushchev on détente? Don't know enough about Kennedy, I wouldn't say Brezhnev was anti-détente, it's just that Khruschev was very pro peace. Part of why he got cancelled(Famous quote from Molotov: "We dropped our pants before the West. It turns out that the goal (of USSR) is not to fight against imperialism, but to fight for peace".
nojvek 2y ago
They can try reviving the age of Empires. US hasn’t directly gone into a war with another nuclear superpower. When it does, it gets dirty pretty fast. It hasn’t been a 100 years since nukes were used. And those nukes were weak sauce. The world will slowly get bloody. AI won’t help. It only adds to the fire.

9 points by Bondi_Blue 2y ago

Of course, let's talk about China, Russia and Iran. Not about the US and Israel, who have been bombing everywhere in the ME for decades, and are currently engaged in ethnic cleansing and genocide.

082349872349872 2y ago

TFA tiptoes around US hegemony; as I see it JFK was the last person who seriously proposed[0,1] an end to the Age of Empires, and both he and Khrushchev were cancelled shortly after demonstrating they could work together, having successfully defused the Cuban Missile Crisis. [0] https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-john-f-kennedys-inaugural-address https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-john-... [1] EDIT: Upon reflection, Gorbachev did what he could; it's not his fault that you can lead people to water but you can't make them drink.

mamonster 2y ago
Gorbachev is the main historical reason as to why the entire post-USSR space with the exception of Baltics is one massive powder keg. He did absolutely nothing to make sure that the transition would be even remotely reasonable.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  The transition (especially in comparison to things like Partition of India, or more recently the Breakup of Yugoslavia) was surprisingly reasonable. The USSR changed the socioeconomic system for its 290 million people, and did so with what, hundreds or thousands of deaths? (I think Romania alone had more deaths during transition than the entire rest of the Warsaw Pact)
  - mamonster 2y ago
    I mean, more like 100s of thousands of deaths. First Armenia Azerbaijan War: Unavoidable. First Chechen War: Unavoidable. Tajikistani Civil War: Unavoidable. Those alone together are around 200k deaths. When I say unavoidable I mean that once Soviet Union disintegrated along the individual SSR conflicts those conflicts were basically guaranteed to happen, and Gorbachev and his friends did nothing to even prepare for it. I'm not even talking about what sort of damage you should assign to the fact that the average life expectancy drop over the period 1989-1995 in ex-USSR republics was around 3 years(so apply that to 290 million.
    - aebtebeten 2y ago
      Ah, with the exception of the First Chechen War I'd been unaware of these. Is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_territory_of_the_former_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_territory... fairly accurate? Yeah, I'm hoping Milei's Argentine shock therapy will turn out a little less fucked up than the extreme libertarian/privatisation FSU 90s experience... EDIT: (a) with hindsight, what would you have done differently? (b) it looks like Yeltsin was calling the shots by late* 1991 (I'm still a little disappointed Brexit didn't involve "Boris on a Tank" in Westminster), so we only need to pin the First Nagorno-Karabakh War and the South Ossetia War on Gorbi. (c) do you have any opinions on the effect of the cancellations of Kennedy and Khrushchev on détente? * Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPydylSQyTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPydylSQyTg
      - mamonster 2y ago
        >Is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_territory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_territory... fairly accurate? Yes, its fairly accurate. In terms of what I would've done differently: First NK War: It was incredibly clear that this would explode already during Glasnost, as Armenians made it quite clear they wanted either independence or reunification in like mid 80s. I'm not sure how this would be managed, because Armenia would never give up on either NK independence or reunification and Azerbaijan was always guaranteed to immediately ally with Turkey after separation(and they would want a land connection via Nakhichevan anyway). It would probably need an international intervention right from the get-go. Tajikistani Civil War: Once again, problems here started with Glasnost. Over the 80s it basically got revealed that there was a still a substantial religiously Muslim population that was not really interested in liberal democracy. Here there was a very simple solution: Either significant devolution or country had to split up. Tajikistan is exactly like Afghanistan in that tribal identity dominates allegiance to the "nation". First Chechen War: Simple. He had to basically remigrate all Russians out of Chechnya(given that they were resettled there by the USSR in the first place, after Chechnyans got deported due to collaborating with Nazis in large numbers), then build a massive border wall and then grant them independence. >it looks like Yeltsin was calling the shots by late* 1991 Yeltsin was a disgusting idiot, which makes sense given that he drunk 24/7, but at the same time he already got handed a very bad situation. On the southern border of Russia, the situation basically was "Here Boris, my Perestroika has created an entire southern flank of countries who want a caliphate and who want to kill russians which were resettled there by Soviets. Enjoy, I'm out!" > do you have any opinions on the effect of the cancellations of Kennedy and Khrushchev on détente? Don't know enough about Kennedy, I wouldn't say Brezhnev was anti-détente, it's just that Khruschev was very pro peace. Part of why he got cancelled(Famous quote from Molotov: "We dropped our pants before the West. It turns out that the goal (of USSR) is not to fight against imperialism, but to fight for peace".

nojvek 2y ago

They can try reviving the age of Empires. US hasn’t directly gone into a war with another nuclear superpower. When it does, it gets dirty pretty fast. It hasn’t been a 100 years since nukes were used. And those nukes were weak sauce. The world will slowly get bloody. AI won’t help. It only adds to the fire.