In Syria

[Stuart Galbraith]

Just wait till you see what the world looks like without one. Wont be long now.

[ink]

10 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Just wait till you see what the world looks like without one. Wont be long now.

Haven't we been seeing what the world looks like without one since... oh I don't know, September 2001 (for example)?

Edited March 30, 2023 by ink
to delete a comma

[Yama]

On 3/25/2023 at 3:28 AM, Josh said:

Kinda like all those missile attacks against the [illegal] Russian bases in Ukraine.

I think his point was 'yes, exactly'...

[Stuart Galbraith]

56 minutes ago, ink said:

Haven't we been seeing what the world looks like without one since... oh I don't know, September 2001 (for example)?

Nope. Because if that was the case, then both Iraq and Afghanistan would be glass lined parking lots right about now.

Want to see what happens when someone acts without any restraint or concern for the rest of the world? Watch this space.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Report on CNN, a Wall street journal journalist has been arrested by the FSB.

Gee, I guess that trade with Russia for the Basketball player was a real swell idea.

[ink]

45 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Nope. Because if that was the case, then both Iraq and Afghanistan would be glass lined parking lots right about now.

Want to see what happens when someone acts without any restraint or concern for the rest of the world? Watch this space.

I don't know how good a benchmark nuclear war is here. By that measure, we're still living in a rules based international system and have done so since 1945. That might have some validity, that's for sure, but I imagine people in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan ... and elsewhere ... yes, and Ukraine ... probably feel like the rules don't do much to protect them and their families.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Well, law isnt a safesure way to prevent being murdered. You have to have lawmen and a judiciary to enforce it.

Yes, what we have is far from perfect, and yes, the powerful sometimes bend the rules almost to the braking point. But what we have is surely far better than no rules based order, which is what Russia wants. China funnily enough I think doesnt want that, but it certainly wants them changed to enfranchise them for being China.

If you think what we have is flawed and broken, you are undoubtedly right. But its better than nothing at all, which is what we will get if we allow Ukraine to lose an acre of land.

[sunday]

1 hour ago, ink said:

I don't know how good a benchmark nuclear war is here. By that measure, we're still living in a rules based international system and have done so since 1945. That might have some validity, that's for sure, but I imagine people in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan ... and elsewhere ... yes, and Ukraine ... probably feel like the rules don't do much to protect them and their families.

I wonder where are those rules written, also.

Edited March 30, 2023 by sunday

[glenn239]

2 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Well, law isnt a safesure way to prevent being murdered. You have to have lawmen and a judiciary to enforce it.

The best movie ever made on how wars start is actually the Western, The Unforgiven.  There is a sheriff and a rules based order.  It ends poorly for both. 

[glenn239]

2 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

If you think what we have is flawed and broken, you are undoubtedly right. But its better than nothing at all, which is what we will get if we allow Ukraine to lose an acre of land.

The alternative to a US-enforced rules based order is the old Imperial system of spheres of influence and a cabal of Great Powers with mutual respect and a code of conduct based on precedent.  So, it is wrong to say that there is "nothing" to substitute for what is clearly a failing system, and it is also wrong to suggest that the rules based order is the best way forward at the moment.  In order for a system of rules to work better than spheres of interest, you need a hegemon, and the world is all out of those now.

Edited March 30, 2023 by glenn239

[Ssnake]

8 hours ago, glenn239 said:

the old Imperial system of spheres of influence and a cabal of Great Powers with mutual respect and a code of conduct based on precedent.

If there had been mutual respect and a code of conduct like you fantasize, we wouldn't have had WW1 and, by extension, WW2. Your glorious imperial system failed completely, which is why it was replaced. The current solution is imperfect, like everything man-made, but the future lies not in an elusive past that didn't exist in the way like nostalgics like to describe it.

[glenn239]

1 hour ago, Ssnake said:

If there had been mutual respect and a code of conduct like you fantasize, we wouldn't have had WW1 and, by extension, WW2. Your glorious imperial system failed completely, which is why it was replaced. The current solution is imperfect, like everything man-made, but the future lies not in an elusive past that didn't exist in the way like nostalgics like to describe it.

 

As just stated, a rules based order cannot function without a hegemon to enforce the rules.  We no longer have a global hegemon, and so the basic practical requirement for this type of system no longer exists.  Any serious attempt to enforce a system based on international codified law between pier Great Powers will result in a massive and horrific war.  The Unforgiven explains this in the final scene where Clint Eastwood walks into the bar and, shall we say, unilaterally dismembers the rules based order. 

In terms of WW1, the immediate cause was an unresolved dispute in the Austrian and Russian spheres of influence - they both claimed Serbia to be within their sphere and not the others'.  The war in Ukraine very much resembles such a 'conflicting spheres' dispute.  The flaw in a system based on spheres of interest comes with overlaps and conflicting claims.  

Edited March 30, 2023 by glenn239

[Ssnake]

9 hours ago, glenn239 said:

As just stated, a rules based order cannot function without a hegemon to enforce the rules. 

So your proposal is to replace the current system, because it's creaking at the seams, with a system that already blew up in our collective faces multiple times. Thank you, but no thanks. Your suggestion is not just morally repulsive, it's using a false dichotomy to justify a world order that's resulted on more than one occasion in wars with millions of dead, so we can avoid having wars that result in two or more orders of magnitude fewer deaths, in pursuit of "peace".

[Mistral]

3 hours ago, Ssnake said:

So your proposal is to replace the current system, because it's creaking at the seams, with a system that already blew up in our collective faces multiple times. Thank you, but no thanks. Your suggestion is not just morally repulsive, it's using a false dichotomy to justify a world order that's resulted on more than one occasion in wars with millions of dead, so we can avoid having wars that result in two or more orders of magnitude fewer deaths, in pursuit of "peace".

Well , it would make sense if you are on the receiving end of those creaking seams.

[glenn239]

4 hours ago, Ssnake said:

So your proposal is to replace the current system, because it's creaking at the seams...<snip>....

Two things.  First, a Crusade is not a system.  Second - 'creaking at the seams' - this is what we call the looming global catastrophe?  

Quote

, it's using a false dichotomy to justify a world order that's resulted on more than one occasion in wars with millions of dead,

The Congress of Vienna introduced a similar such a system in 1815, and it held the overall peace in Europe for 100 years, with only a handful relatively short of Great Power wars.

 

Edited March 31, 2023 by glenn239
Adding quote

[urbanoid]

56 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

The Congress of Vienna introduced a similar such a system in 1815, and it held the overall peace in Europe for 100 years, with only a handful relatively short of Great Power wars.

 

Yes, and how did it end? 

[glenn239]

2 hours ago, urbanoid said:

Yes, and how did it end? 

It ended 100 years later, which if the Congress were held today, would put the next world war crisis around....2123.  

The 'system' Ssnake outlines I could buy into back in 1991.  I watched that one unfold.  Invasion, global reaction, defeat of invader, peace restored.  That felt like a system to me.   After that, it was a kind of skier tumbling down the hill shit show avalanche.   Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia.  Shit show crusade after shit show crusade.

 

 

Edited March 31, 2023 by glenn239

[Strannik]

16 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

It ended 100 years later, which if the Congress were held today, would put the next world war crisis around....2123.  

The 'system' Ssnake outlines I could buy into back in 1991.  I watched that one unfold.  Invasion, global reaction, defeat of invader, peace restored.  That felt like a system to me.   After that, it was a kind of skier tumbling down the hill shit show avalanche.   Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia.  Shit show crusade after shit show crusade.

 

 

Well, his country was a beneficiary of this setup -  so he advocates it.   A weak argument.

Edited March 31, 2023 by Strannik

[glenn239]

3 hours ago, Strannik said:

Well, his country was a beneficiary of this setup -  so he advocates it.   A weak argument.

It's widely thought the reason why the world did not blow sky high after 1945 was because the West with realistic reluctance wrote off Eastern Europe as being in the Soviet sphere and beyond their capacity to liberate.   Had the Cold War not had spheres of interest, it might well be that many of the posters here would not even be alive to be snarling at the concept.  

[Ssnake]

It's just that pretty much everybody hated it being in the Russian "sphere of influence", and when that receded, did what they could to escape it. Now Russia is trying to expand it again at the expense of all it's neighbors, because it lacks the rispetto for the US's sphere of influence, and as always when spheres of influence overlap you create a crisis with the potential of blowing up in your face.

But, of course, it's all the West's fault that we support those who are unwilling to throw themselves under the bus of Glennpolitik, so that Canadians and Putinists worldwide can enjoy a cemetary's peace in Ukraine.

 

Your fundamental problem is that you have no value for freedom, except maybe your own. You want peace, now matter the costs, as long as others have to pay for it.

[Roman Alymov]

55 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

Your fundamental problem is that you have no value for freedom, except maybe your own. You want peace, now matter the costs, as long as others have to pay for it.

Nice lection, but i am affraid the time when it was accepted everywhere is now gone

 

[urbanoid]

5 hours ago, Strannik said:

Well, his country was a beneficiary of this setup -  so he advocates it.   A weak argument.

I may not be a beneficiary of the potential war with PRC over Taiwan, but I will support it even if it brings 10x economic mayhem compared to current shitshow. 

[Strannik]

2 hours ago, urbanoid said:

I may not be a beneficiary of the potential war with PRC over Taiwan, but I will support it even if it brings 10x economic mayhem compared to current shitshow. 

 

Quote

current shitshow. 

I thought things are [relatively] peachy in Poland now?

Anyways, may you get the consequences of what you desire.

Edited April 1, 2023 by Strannik

[ink]

8 hours ago, urbanoid said:

I may not be a beneficiary of the potential war with PRC over Taiwan, but I will support it even if it brings 10x economic mayhem compared to current shitshow. 

Very sensible position. The people in power in your country - you know the ones whose wealth won't be affected by "10x economic mayhem" - they must just love you!

[Stuart Galbraith]

18 hours ago, Mistral said:

Well , it would make sense if you are on the receiving end of those creaking seams.

Most of the people who suffered from those creaking seams, suffered immeasurably more from Imperialism. The trick should be to tighten up rules, make the UN actually worth something again, not tiptoeing backwards to some fondly imagined Imperial past where we casually slaughted thousands for feet of dirt. 

Russia is finally getting into the Imperialism game with Wagner in Africa. I submit, thats unlikely to prove to be to Africa's advantage, as they will belatedly discover too late. They always do.

9 hours ago, Ssnake said:

It's just that pretty much everybody hated it being in the Russian "sphere of influence", and when that receded, did what they could to escape it. Now Russia is trying to expand it again at the expense of all it's neighbors, because it lacks the rispetto for the US's sphere of influence, and as always when spheres of influence overlap you create a crisis with the potential of blowing up in your face.

But, of course, it's all the West's fault that we support those who are unwilling to throw themselves under the bus of Glennpolitik, so that Canadians and Putinists worldwide can enjoy a cemetary's peace in Ukraine.

 

Your fundamental problem is that you have no value for freedom, except maybe your own. You want peace, now matter the costs, as long as others have to pay for it.

Quite agreed.

Ive always said, its a very fine thing to have principles. The problem is the enthusiasm  so many people on this grate site have to make other people pay for them.