Random Thoughts (Political Edition)

I have no problem with national defense. I do have a problem with an International military with a nebulous objective. NATO no longer has a reason to exist, no nation is going to roll a wave of tanks into Europe, so now NATO is looking for a reason to exist. That is not a comforting thought, I don't want them looking for a reason to kill people.

So you don't think the middle east will ever be a threat to europe?
 
So you don't think the middle east will ever be a threat to europe?
The only country with a semi-decent military arsenal in the Middle East is Israel. And I don't think they will invade Europe anytime soon. All other countries over there will need some decades to get into a position to be a treat to Europe. And that explicitly includes Iran's missile program.

There just is no one remotely strong enough to seriously threaten either Europe or the US right now. The deterring quality of a defense pact like NATO will only be needed once a strong enough enemy has risen. Right now the most likely candidates, as mentioned, are China and maybe Russia, if they can turn the ship around.
 
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The U.S. are de facto in control of NATO and via their pets in the British government of European military policy. They are an empire, but one that is slowly losing it's grasp. I think you are spot on about China and, to be honest, I think the world would be a safer place with some kind of new cold war keeping the ambitions of both the US, China and maybe a re-born Russian at bay.
The UN suffer from the same realist weaknesses as the League of Nations, by the way. Not as badly, but it still does.

If you are interested in a quite brilliant look at the Kosovo campaign, read this essay. The author is a pacifist (which I am not) but he makes some pretty strong points about Kosovo.
Regarding NATO being imperative in resolving the conflict, I think Libya shows that there are indications that an informal coalition can do peacekeeping (or whatever it was they did in Libya) as good as NATO can.
I'll have a look at that some day. The point about NATO is that it harnesses the combined strength of some of the strongest military powers in the world with the strength of smaller powers. While we're not likely to see 12 000 T-72s roll through the Fulda gap anymore, just wait and see what happens when the Russian fleet is back on track and able to project real power. A mouse does not pick a fight with a bear. But Norway, as an example, has been able to stand taller with regards to Russia (and the Soviet Union in its time) because of NATO. Sweden had to militarise their society to such an extent it's silly, I'm not kidding, Sweden, 8 million people in Northern Europe, had (for instance) the 4th or 5th largest bloody airforce in the early 60s. Every single aspect of Swedish society was somehow linked to mobilisation and military readiness. It went far enough that a ferry skipper was fired because his dad was a communist in the 30s. It was ruinously expensive, and even today, Sweden is one of the most prolific makers of military hardware.

What NATO does is make defence cheaper. It would be much more expensive for Norway to maintain a proper defense if we had to deter invasion alone. Even detering a Swedish invasion would be expensive. As it is, we know Sweden won't dare invade Norway, since it would lead to a war with not just Norway, but NATO.

Yes, they're all teoretical threaths, but most threaths are.

Ahem: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/345164-single-mum-gets-1-2m-council-house

Sounds like someone needs a 1.2 million pound budget cut.
Anectodal at best. Welfare isn't a perfect sollution, but at times, it's the only sollution. Powerty in the industrialized world is not the same as powerty in the third world. Being poor in Kenya means you'll struggle to provide your kids with food and access to basic education. Powerty in the United Kingdom might be not being able to provide your kids with healthy food (as pre-fabricated crap full of transfats is usually cheap as hell), and struggling to even come near being able to help them with tuition fees for higher education. It's the old unfairness of any society. You can't choose your parents, who your parents are is not your fault, but your life is heavily influenced by it. It means that a kid from a poor family is less likely to get a place at a good university, even if he's smart as hell.

That makes society more stupid.

Also - basic living and existence isn't what I was talking about, and you know it. There are currently programs in the UK (I forget the name) which are run by the government with the express goal of raising the youth's (18-25) self-esteem with the object that the subject will go forth and sin no more as he now has high self-esteem. You can probably guess how well that works - something about minor unrest in the UK last year? Anyway, much like similar programs in the US (specifically California) it does not work and it makes the problems worse. So why continue to dump money into something that doesn't work?
You'll always find parts of a budget that could be diversed to different parts of the budget. It's true of any budget for any department of any government. But at least they're trying. We don't always know what'll work and what won't. Sometimes a program falls flat on its face even though pilot trials worked swell, and sometimes it does work. You've got a problem, look for sollutions. It's no different than programming a video switcher to let someone use an iPad for his presentation. You have to try until you find something that works. Many attempts do fail, but it doesn't matter all that much as long as you've solved the problem at the end of the day.

I have no problem with national defense. I do have a problem with an International military with a nebulous objective. NATO no longer has a reason to exist, no nation is going to roll a wave of tanks into Europe, so now NATO is looking for a reason to exist. That is not a comforting thought, I don't want them looking for a reason to kill people.
Here's a reason: Even after the cold war, you need to plan for teoretical threaths. And it's cheaper to deter a teoretical threath when you're united, much cheaper.

Told you governments could not do complicated - and this was not that complicated.
Governments can do a lot of complicated things. As you say yourself, this wasn't complicated. They just cocked it up.

The problem is democracy. I know it sounds bad, but it is. Look, for instance, at how increadibly ineffective the US house of representatives is. Two year terms means they're always campaigning, and never have breathing space to actually make things work the best way they can work. They have to please so many special interest groups and voter groups at every moment of the day to do anything substantive.

However, as I believe Winston Spencer Churchill once said, and I'm paraphrasing; "democracy is a poor system of government, but it's the best we have".
 
What NATO does is make defence cheaper. It would be much more expensive for Norway to maintain a proper defense if we had to deter invasion alone. Even detering a Swedish invasion would be expensive. As it is, we know Sweden won't dare invade Norway, since it would lead to a war with not just Norway, but NATO.
That might be the one thing that is wrong with my argument: That due to resource-pooling NATO saves the member states money when compared to running independent defense efforts. If that was the case (and I don't have any data available to check it right now) my point that NATO is useless would not stand because cost-saving alone would give it a purpose. Not one as glamorous as protecting the free world from commies, towelheads and hoodlums from outer space, but a legitimate purpose nevertheless.
 
There's no such thing as free lunch. But if you share a place with four people, you do save a lot of money by making one dinner every day instead of four dinners. Each can make dinner every fourth day, so it saves time for the individual as well.
 
There's no such thing as free lunch. But if you share a place with four people, you do save a lot of money by making one dinner every day instead of four dinners. Each can make dinner every fourth day, so it saves time for the individual as well.

But if you have to hire a fifth person just to delegate who buys what and who cooks on which day it might make the whole deal inefficient. But as I said, we don't have the necessary data available to decide this.
 
Here's a reason: Even after the cold war, you need to plan for teoretical threaths. And it's cheaper to deter a teoretical threath when you're united, much cheaper.

When you only look for enemies you will not find friends. Theoretical threats almost led to global nuclear war because both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. thought the other side was out to destroy them at any cost.
 
But if you have to hire a fifth person just to delegate who buys what and who cooks on which day it might make the whole deal inefficient. But as I said, we don't have the necessary data available to decide this.
If you're ten thousand people sharing a flat, it would make sense to hire someone to organize it. And to be brutally honest, I find it very doubtful that administration is what's expensive in running an army, I would think letting spotty teens blow up stuff would be a tad more expensive.

I don't even think this needs data, it's just such a no brainer. At least in my opinion.

When you only look for enemies you will not find friends. Theoretical threats almost led to global nuclear war because both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. thought the other side was out to destroy them at any cost.
Which is why you need to be careful how you act. No one wants another cold war (perhaps with the exception of the people making the weapons). The idea of a theoretical threath is not to treathen someone, and it does not exclude openness (which is, in my opinion, far more important to keep the peace), it's about planning for a non-hostile nation might becoming a hostile nation. In 1941, the German army was probably seen as a theoretical threath by Stalin. It didn't work out all that well for him.

For the Russians, the big theoretical headache isn't NATO anymore. It's China. War between China and Russia won't happen this week, to put it that way, but it would be daft not recognizing the theoretical threath the PLA poses to Russia, Siberia in particular.
 
What Middle Eastern country is a military threat to Europe?

The only country with a semi-decent military arsenal in the Middle East is Israel. And I don't think they will invade Europe anytime soon. All other countries over there will need some decades to get into a position to be a treat to Europe. And that explicitly includes Iran's missile program.

There just is no one remotely strong enough to seriously threaten either Europe or the US right now. The deterring quality of a defense pact like NATO will only be needed once a strong enough enemy has risen. Right now the most likely candidates, as mentioned, are China and maybe Russia, if they can turn the ship around.

I agree that there isn't an individual country that is a threat but I don't think individual countries in that region are the worry, I think its the Islamic extremism that is more of a concern.


Which is why you need to be careful how you act. No one wants another cold war (perhaps with the exception of the people making the weapons).

Are you sure about that? I'm not saying I agree, but the previous cold war did wonders for the economy here.
 
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If you're ten thousand people sharing a flat, it would make sense to hire someone to organize it. And to be brutally honest, I find it very doubtful that administration is what's expensive in running an army, I would think letting spotty teens blow up stuff would be a tad more expensive.

I don't even think this needs data, it's just such a no brainer. At least in my opinion.


Which is why you need to be careful how you act. No one wants another cold war (perhaps with the exception of the people making the weapons). The idea of a theoretical threath is not to treathen someone, and it does not exclude openness (which is, in my opinion, far more important to keep the peace), it's about planning for a non-hostile nation might becoming a hostile nation. In 1941, the German army was probably seen as a theoretical threath by Stalin. It didn't work out all that well for him.

For the Russians, the big theoretical headache isn't NATO anymore. It's China. War between China and Russia won't happen this week, to put it that way, but it would be daft not recognizing the theoretical threath the PLA poses to Russia, Siberia in particular.

You don't need NATO barking at the fence to work as a deterrent. If a nation attacks a Western first world nation they know they will face fighting most of the rest of the Western first world.

I agree that there isn't an individual country that is a threat but I don't think individual countries in that region are the worry, I think its the Islamic extremism that is more of a concern.

The Arab countries have in the past teamed up to fight Israel and Iran (sans Syria with the latter), they lost each time. They aren't a strong force.
 
I have a problem with binning Harriers and aircraft carriers (we only had two I think - may be 3 perhaps) waiting until 2015 for the French Carriers that someone forgot to design and install catapults and arrestor kit so they can not launch the aero planes that the government ordered. This now means that only choppers and V/STOL aircraft can use them. But the V/STOL FSF fighter is not ready and is a less capable aircraft than the proper carrier version so we could have used our Harriers/AV8Bs as a stop gap - except we flogged them to the US Marines at a knockdown price.

Thak heavens that there is no argy bargy over the Falklands at the moment. ... Oh! er, um.

http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/News-and-Events/Latest-News/2012/May/10/120509-F35B

Told you governments could not do complicated - and this was not that complicated.


This sounds a lot like a plan that was hatched over drinks with a defense contractor or few...
 
Which is why you need to be careful how you act. No one wants another cold war (perhaps with the exception of the people making the weapons).
Cuba crisis or not, the cold war, and nuclear deterrence especially, worked brilliantly as a measure of peacekeeping. I would not mind another cold war if it would mean less hot wars.
 
Are you sure about that? I'm not saying I agree, but the previous cold war did wonders for the economy here.
Pretty sure, to be honest. There are elements who wants to do what a cold war would entail, but I can't see any real contenders in the international world who wants another cold war.

The strongest sentiment in favor of another one would probably be with defence contractors, as per usual.

You don't need NATO barking at the fence to work as a deterrent. If a nation attacks a Western first world nation they know they will face fighting most of the rest of the Western first world.
NATO doesn't need to bark. Small dogs bark, the large ones know you know what they can do. I just feel the integration of western Europe and North America makes the world safer, longterm. And I do think it saves buckets of money.

Cuba crisis or not, the cold war, and nuclear deterrence especially, worked brilliantly as a measure of peacekeeping. I would not mind another cold war if it would mean less hot wars.
The nuclear deterrence did work well. Heck, I wouldn't be suprised if Iran wants a bomb just for the deterrence value, never mind even considering nuking Israel (doing so would be stupid, and they're not stupid, there's also geography judging against it), but that's a different discussion.

The problem is that you're always on an edge with mutual assured destruction. The Cuba Crisis is one thing, but far worse was that signals excersise in the 80s when the USSR taught NATO WAS launching an attack. There is a reason the acronym was MAD.
 
Cuba crisis or not, the cold war, and nuclear deterrence especially, worked brilliantly as a measure of peacekeeping. I would not mind another cold war if it would mean less hot wars.


The Cold War on several occasions almost became hot. The Turkey/Cuban Missile Crisis was only one of many events that could have led to the destruction of both countries.

NATO doesn't need to bark. Small dogs bark, the large ones know you know what they can do. I just feel the integration of western Europe and North America makes the world safer, longterm. And I do think it saves buckets of money.

We'll need to agree to disagree on this.
 
Cuba crisis or not, the cold war, and nuclear deterrence especially, worked brilliantly as a measure of peacekeeping. I would not mind another cold war if it would mean less hot wars.


When during the cold war was there any peace? Sure there were small breaks between wars that were never declared, but there was all kinds of war. Kroea, Veitnam, Afghanistan (the USSR version), among other smaller conflicts in between.
 
When during the cold war was there any peace? Sure there were small breaks between wars that were never declared, but there was all kinds of war. Kroea, Veitnam, Afghanistan (the USSR version), among other smaller conflicts in between.

As long as there was no open war between the USSR and the US then there was relative peace.
 
I trust the Americans over the French in any international difficulty. ...
You're British, of course you do. And sure, America is a lot larger and fatter, and therefore stronger. Buf if you want some fighting done, you would be well advised to convince the French to join you. Cause the French know how to fight.

Think of 1914-18, not 1940-40. You think the Aztecs didn't know how to fight? Sure they did, but not against an enemy with horses and guns.

As long as there was no open war between the USSR and the US then there was relative peace.
I think the term you're looking for is "as long as there was no open war between the USSR and the US, then there was no apocalyptic meltdown of society". :p
 
Cuba crisis or not, the cold war, and nuclear deterrence especially, worked brilliantly as a measure of peacekeeping. I would not mind another cold war if it would mean less hot wars.

You are of course aware, that a few times the Cold War was just micrometers away from turning into a hot war? Like in the Cuba crisis but mainly in the year 1983 with three serious crisis, culminating in the jets in the DDR already running their engines, ready to lift off with nuclear bombs on board?

I never bought that shit of a "balance of power". All it would have needed, was an unlucky connection of circumstances and a bad human decision to press and the button instead of not pressing it, and this world wouldn't exist anymore. No internet, no iPhones, no Facebook, no Ringmeet, no cars. All that would have never happened. In America and Europe cockroaches would now be the dominant species.

It is pure luck, that we are all still alive. I'm glad I'm alive and I definitely do NOT want a Cold War ever again. I lived through one and looking back it seems like it was good times but nuclear annihilation was a realistic option every single day.

I think the term you're looking for is "as long as there was no open war between the USSR and the US, then there was no apocalyptic meltdown of society". :p

I think he actually might want a nuclear war -- just to be amazed about the massive destruction. After all, war is fascinating. History is always measured by the wars, not by the times of peace. Humans have a very ambivalent relationship with wars, mainly because most people secretly like it, when something really big is being blown up.

At least as long as you can stand by the side and watch.

And yes, I know I can be cynical at times.
 
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