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Musk, Woz, Hawking, and Robotics/AI Experts Urge Ban On Autonomous Weapons
An anonymous reader writes: An open letter published by the Future of Life Institute urges governments to ban offensive autonomous weaponry. The letter is signed by high profile leaders in the science community and tech industry, such as Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, Steve Wozniak, Noam Chomsky, and Frank Wilczek. It's also signed — more importantly — by literally hundreds of expert researchers in robotics and AI. They say, "The key question for humanity today is whether to start a global AI arms race or to prevent it from starting. If any major military power pushes ahead with AI weapon development, a global arms race is virtually inevitable, and the endpoint of this technological trajectory is obvious: autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow. Unlike nuclear weapons, they require no costly or hard-to-obtain raw materials, so they will become ubiquitous and cheap for all significant military powers to mass-produce."
Unlike nuclear weapons, they require no costly or hard-to-obtain raw materials, so they will become ubiquitous and cheap for all significant military powers to mass-produce."
They run on Windows
I heartily agree.
However, I do want research to forge ahead with gorgeous robots who force you to do things to them. Gross, unhygenic things.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I don't see how it won't be easy for anyone to retrofit a postal drone to.. go postal.
And I had my heart set on a working Portal Sentry Turret too.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
I for one, embrace our new Skynet overlord. May it reign peace on earth thanks to the brutal efficiency that only an AI can create.
Like the summary says, nuclear weapons require expensive and hard to obtain raw materials and a significant amount of technology not common in the civilian space. This is the only reason, IMHO, that nuclear proliferation treaties work as well as they do. How does this group expect governments to keep a lid on military tech that relies on ubiquitous technology found throughout the civilian economy?
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
This tech exists already and only needs polishing. Auto-tracking and aiming. That will continue to be developed regardless. Slap it on a mobile Google car bought at the dealer, give it a route, and let 'er go!
Having humans decide who gets killed by the robot, as opposed to the robot deciding, is an added feature, and thus disposable to core dancing bear functionality.
For it to work it has to be banned by international law so rogue states can be punished. But it is trivial with soon-to-exist pieces.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
with lasers?
Instead, it is the rise of a human psychopathic tyrant working with a force of soldiers that obediently kill at his command, with no chance of moral rebellion within his own force.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
One of the things that has consistently mystified me about Americans' complacency with drone warfare is the underlying assumption that our current monopoly on drones is going to last forever. If it's ok for the U.S. to use drones to assassinate "terrorist" anti-American agitators in Yemen, what are we going to say when China starts using drones to assassinate "terrorist" Chinese dissidents on American soil, or Europe, or elsewhere? For all intents and purposes, we're already using killbots, and the really important point here is that airborne killbots can be used (for now) with impunity across borders.
"American Exceptionalism" basically means we allow ourselves to commit war crimes with impunity.
Arnold disagrees.
I just don't see the point. These will be developed, and no amount of banning them will stop it or even slow it down.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Richard Vaughan's "No Evil Robots"
Stop Killer Robots
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
We know one thing for sure, and that is that if they're all recommending we don't do it, then it will be done. The very arguments against it will "prove" the usefulness and "need" for autonomous weapons.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
... with laser.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
The only thing that stops evil governments from stockpiling nukes is the difficulty of building them, secretly or otherwise.
If autonomous weapons are cheap and easy to produce, we will have a world of governments all paying lip service and saying "yeah, yeah, we agree. we are certainly not building autonomous weapons", all while giving a wink wink nudge nudge and then immediately getting a status report from their secret autonomous weapons lab.
Shoudn't you focus on one improbable thing at a time?
First you'll have to convince Gen. "Buck" Turgidson over at the Pentagon.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
And that IS the bottom line.
- Lukewarm Fjord
...are people who aren't likely to be the ones who trigger some form of global genocide.
Does anyone really expect governments will obey these laws? Would there be a way for more than a handful of tightly controlled people to even know until its too late? The pieces are very separable, they can be assembled by a relatively small number of people. It's not at all like a nuclear bomb, which always will look like a nuclear bomb, and quite a few people have to know they're designing and testing a device capable of nuclear explosions.
You cannot legislate knowledge away. At best, it will simply delay the development of autonomous weapons by a few years.
Worst it is will allow rogue nations and terrorist organizations to leap ahead which in itself can have disastrous consequences....
A ban will never happen.
Hawking's just worried about the AI's horning in on cyborg territory.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
That ship has sailed a LONG time ago... We've been making such weapons for decades.
What's a mine? What's a cruse missile? Proximity fused ground to air shells? Homing torpedos? What's all that "fire and forget" stuff we've been building?
I'm afraid the cows are ALREADY out of the barn on this....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
It's not in America's interests for technology that permits a nation to quickly and cheaply build an army. We win wars by outspending our opponents by an order of magnitude. If you take that away from us, then we no longer can be the dominate military power in the world. (and therefor the dominate political power)
You know who will be the first to have them, right (they probably already do)? And none of you people are going to say "no" to Bibi! That just ain't gonna happen.
{Unless of course} They run on Windows
Which would be a valid reason to introduce a new international treaty on "Crimes against sentient AI" under which to prosecute those cruel enough to subject a poor AI to running on a Windows platform~
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The time for this debate was in the late 60's and 70's. Even without full blown strong AI, even a basic machine learning library is suitable for weapons control, flying drones, etc.
This genie is well and truly out of the bottle...
The US army and navy already have automated anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems deployed and in-use, as have many other countries.
Do these count in a ban of "robot" weapons systems?
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
You can't "ban" something that consists of little more than putting together some guns, some standard AI, and some standard robotics platforms. There is no way to detect violations of this ban. It's like trying to ban the use of electric motors in offensive weapons. Good luck with that.
The main purpose of such a ban is to make a bunch of people feel good about themselves and to let them demonstrate to the world what wonderful and important humanitarians they are.
The only difference between an autonomous search-and-rescue bot equipped with a fire extinguisher, and an autonomous kill-bot, is a couple of parameters in the software load and what it's carrying.
Good luck with that ban.
Prominent world politicians urge adoption of new changes to the C++ standard concerning private inheritance and templates.
What this is trying to do is imply that because they have technical expertise in how dangerous AI-controlled weapons are, that technical expertise makes them experts about political decisions concerning weapons. It doesn't, and there is no more reason to pay attention to them than to the average guy in the street (who understands that some weapons are dangerous, and may have opinions on their use, but certainly doesn't get a national press release about it).
I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.
... Okay... so... you have an option to use a kill bot against the enemy that wants to kill you... and if you go out there... you could be killed.
Or... you send in your terminator bot and worst case they scrag the robot.
What are you going to prefer here?
A lot of people offering opinions here are not speaking from that perspective. They're speaking often as not from the perspective of some civilian ideologue that knows they're not going to go to war.
I know that if I go to war... I am going to want the best weapons my society can make for me along with the best defenses the best training and ideally leaders that are not complete fuckwits.
That means I want the robots. I want them and I want them to be fucking vicious.
Go on youtube and you'll see US soldiers cheering when air support shows up and blows the fuck out of someone shooting at them.
https://youtu.be/1IcvjD4VVjY?t...
Now... if you are a country that has the ability to build kill bots... and you might be on the firing line... do you or do you not want to use killer robots to kill your enemies?
You have to put your brain into war mode to understand the question.
My vote... is yes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
When I go to war... I go to WAR.
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If the weapons are autonomous, then the weapons become the target. Take out the weapon, the offensive stops. If the weapons are the target, then the humans behind them aren't (they'll surrender if you take out their weapons). I don't see a problem with a war being fought between weapons instead of humans. Of course I'd to just stop having wars, but that seems unlikely.
How does an observer tell the difference between AI-controlled and human-controlled device? May be armed, may not. May have passengers, may not. How can an observer know for sure? Control may be switched between human and AI.
when I was deployed to Iraq, we had a problem with RKG3 attacks on our MRAPS. at the time, it was one of the few things that could do real damage. RKG3 are hand thrown EFP devices. when the insurgents would attack, they would target the vehicles that had crew serve weapons pointing in the other direction. this would mean that the crew member on the weapon would not always see who threw the grenade. the lead and follow vehicle gunners would have their own fields of fire to scan and would probably miss the thrower as well. leading to confusion as to who is attacking. confusion, explosions == bad things.
an automated system that scans 360 degrees hundreds if not thousands of times a second, which can acquire, track and if need be eliminate the target, would surely cut down on collateral damage and innocent people getting killed.
How many times psychopathic tyrants were toppled because of moral rebellion within own forces?
Countless times. It is trivial to find examples throughout history. Look up military coup and you'll find no end of examples of tyrants being deposed by their own military forces, often for moral reasons.
These already existed in the Korean DMZ?
This is an absolutely inane idea for several reasons:
a) They already exist; you can't defend against a sea-skimming missile or SRBMs without an autonomous system, People are just too slow.
b) Bad actors are not constrained by treaties. They'll cheat. We'd be damn fools to put ourselves at a disadvantage.
What makes more sense is to have a discussion about how they're used and how they're employed. I think it's plausible that they be prohibited from being autonomously travelling or that they must have a human authorize them to continue engaging every hour or day. An outright prohibition is just polyannaish claptrap.
I know that if I go to war... I am going to want the best weapons my society can make for me along with the best defenses the best training and ideally leaders that are not complete fuckwits
I'll take a battery of carpet bombing Katyushas with small nukes(20kt) any day over your AI weapons
Once autonomous weapons become commonplace, the 2nd Amendment will guarantee that any US Citizen should be able to own and (not) operate one for fun and self-defense. It will, if I read the NRA talking points correctly, make for the absolute safest place in the entire universe.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
To slashdotters: "the cat is out of the bag" arguments are bullshit. For example, I point you to
a) treaties against poison gas (and no, we have not had a repeat of WWI).
b) the treaty efforts against landmines (would you care to visit a new tourist destination that had a war 30 years ago,
where they put down tens of thousands of landmines, even if you, personally, don't care about farmers or kids
getting killed or mutilated due to those mines)?
Then there's the issue of someone with enough money. Enjoying reading about the movie theater shootings? How would you feel about an armed robot that someone bought surplus* coming into the theater where *you* are....
mark
* "The street finds uses of its own" is not always a good thing....
That is why they act so stupid when it comes to these issues. They hate technology so they want to outlaw it and put those of us who us it in prison. Hawking's life is made better through technology, but he is so politically naive that he thinks these hateful anti-tech policies will help humanity. What they're doing is most harmful to the poor and minorities. That is ultimately why their kind hates technology. They're racists.
From the article, "most AI researchers have no interest in building AI weapons -- and do not want others to tarnish their field by doing so". Would the same be said of researchers, of let's say, the atom bomb? Oppenheimer has a mixed legacy, but everyone knows his name because of the bomb. The father (or mother) of killer AI would get the same acclaim. I'm studying AI right now my master's. If I get the chance to make killer robots, I'll take it.
I think you're being shortsighted here. You're assuming that you're fighting a just war and that these killbots are saving lives.
In reality, this rarely ever happens. They'll be used for their offensive ability, to kill without getting caught up in a war.
Just about every advancement in military technology is marketed as saving lives, yet history has shown us that in reality it kills more lives.
We will build the best defense possible!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Have fun with that idea.
Your old garbage will be trashed before you even know you're under attack.
Relying on retrograde cold war tech for your front line is a mistake.
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Think it through though. You are that same soldier out in the field and now when you return to base you have to worry about any number of autonomous threats to your safety. Thousands of tiny flying and burrowing drones trying to cause as much damage as possible. I don't want soldiers ever having to worry about the "bot fly" drone. Not saying that my wish is gonna make it happen, just that we need to be very clear where we draw lines and what tech we introduce to the battlefield.
I think you're being paranoid by assuming the our own robots will turn against us or be a general hazard to our soldiers.
At worst, they'll be like land mines... sure... dangerous... if you walk through the minefield. Stay back a bit and you're fine.
the military isn't going to use weapons that put our own soldiers at risk.
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When will the likes of Zuker, Musk, Woz, Hawking, and the rest of their insane clown posse, et.al. stop blowing smoke in our feces? They can't invent the "3 Laws of Robotics." As little Markey stated, "they are to old." Maybe we should let a child chess champ do it?
I'm not, login and I'll explain why.
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Absent some very strong form of containment or prohibitive costs, military tech will eventually be used by all combatants. We will reap what we sow.
thats why the US is so enamored with them.
We are now always in a perpetual state of war. Or at least that's what we are calling these on-going police actions being run by our military.
Description: Autonomous drone fleet in Iraq accidentally killed all natives when deployed with default enemy config values (Brownish, Muslim).
Status: Closed.
Reason: Could not reproduce.
login and I'll debate the point.
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Autonomous intelligent self propelled evolving landmines turn on humans. 'nuff said.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
takes on a whole new meaning.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Start with land mines.
Good god no! that's the plot device for the movie screamers.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt01...
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I doubt that the intention is to prevent use of autonomous weapons by everyone worldwide, because nobody can control what the "bad guys" do (using the term loosely). By definition, they won't respect any international agreements nor impose any restraint on their actions.
But it makes a difference when the "good guys" agree that they will voluntarily limit their own armaments, irrespective of what the bad guys do. It gives them the moral high ground, and it makes it easier for them to band together against those who accept no limits and hence are easily identifiable as "bad guys".
A lot of people offering opinions here are not speaking from that perspective. They're speaking often as not from the perspective of some civilian ideologue that knows they're not going to go to war.
Idealogue? It doesn't require being an idealogue to speak as a civilian who really doesn't want to see a swarm of these things in my backyard. And that WILL happen if these things are built. They are software driven, they will have wireless networks, and there is no software made that can not be compromised. And 10 minutes later, they're stomping through a civilian backyard, under the control not of a Russian oligarch, but of a Russian 22 year old chainsmoking caffeine freebaser sitting in an Internet café in Smolensk who's fucking bored.
If you want to go to WAR, fine, go to capital W capital A capital R. But you don't get autonomous machines to do your warring for you. And anybody else with a computer and the right script-kiddie toolkit.
Here's Philip K. Dick's take on this from 1953- Second Variety, https://www.gutenberg.org/file...
We have nothing to fear but fear itself! And Spiders!
So the soldier who no longer needs to go into battle is better off.
What about the civilians in the country you just invaded because politicians are no longer worried about getting blamed for dead soldiers?
The US already has a big problem with wars, almost all the costs are externalized.
From the Iraq war slightly less than 10,000 non-Iraqi coalition forces died.
But over 100,000 Iraqis died, perhaps over 500,000 or even 1,000,000 and their country is shattered.
These are costs that are barely registered in the US other than the fact that they create entities such as ISIS, and even they barely warrant notice except when they're threatening Americans.
If you're going to start a war you need some skin in the game, soldiers dying is a horrible tragedy but it that restrains the US from perpetrating far grander tragedies on a whim.
In the alternative universe where you have effective killbots they're now roaming the landscape over Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan. But they're also probably in Libya, Lebanon, Iran, and Gaza (Israel gets them too). It probably saves a few Americans (minor a handful from escalated terrorist attacks), but at the cost of many times that.
I stole this Sig
When I go to war... I go to WAR.
I wonder if we are still going to war. We do a few 'surgical' drone strike that take out one or 2 guys and leave the rest of the family alive (and angry). But it used to be that you'd burn to the ground entire cities, where the few survivors would be only too relieved to see you coming and not shoot them afterwards. I wonder if we are going towards a state of perpetual low level warfare. At least when you wipe out an entire country you have a generation or two of peace afterwards. I think we are improving but I'm not so certain. Remember, a massive amount of violence solved the nazi problem.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
When killer robots are outlawed, only outlaws will have killer robots.
But seriously,
a) There is no way to really stop this, it's just a combination of standard hardware and some programming
b) While drones might allow for lower collateral damage (because the drone won't be afraid of death), a drone also will not object to illegal or immoral orders.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Iranian and North Korean leaders? I'm sure those 2 countries would be quite receptive to the message.
We are now always in a perpetual state of war. Or at least that's what we are calling these on-going military actions being run by our police.
I noticed you flipped some words around.
Suborbital [spaceflight] is the special olympics of spaceflight. - Rei
Once again wealthy countries already have autonomous killing machines (ever stop to consider what a guided munition is?) but its our moral imperative to stop poor countries from abusing the tech.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
"contain no hard-to-obtain raw materials" -- almost all sophisticated electronics are made with rare earth metals, which are scarce and therefore hard to obtain. China controls 90% of the Earth's deposits of these metals. Infer what you choose.
The last time I checked, theres no Artificial Intelligence [the strong type] on planet Earth. All I see is a bunch people on cargo-cult style gimmicks trying to mimic human neural inner workings. Like Melanesians trying to build airplanes out of coconut trees.
Reminded me of this from just a few days ago:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/07/24/1539217/fiat-chrysler-recalls-14-million-autos-to-fix-remote-hack
I don't see this point mentioned: A major concern with autonomous killbot would be cyber security. If a terrorist gained control of your bot army, you will be very sorry. The stake is too high. They don't even need full control - simply reverse the logic between friendly and unfriendly target recognition is enough.
The more autonomous, the more dangerous it becomes when it malfunctions or gets hacked.
Any self-driving car that can be taken over by an evil adversary is a weapon.
Any self-driving car that can't be taken over by an adversary is either fully powered down or a figment of someone's imagination.
Robots fighting robots is actually a good thing when you think about it. Who cares if countries try to one-up each other with better AI systems so long as it's taking troops off the battlefield.
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
That many nations are already working towards this. It is far far cheaper to build automated weapons than to turn humans into effective fighting machines. In addition, small nations will see this as opportunity to compete against west, china, or Russia. Heck, Syria used chem weapons on their citizens and then they and russia cut a deal with the west to remove all chem weapons. However, once ISIS took over several locations, Syria admitted that they and Russia were lying and ISIS now has chem weaps.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The historical evidence is overwhelming; large numbers of handguns distributed among a civilian population leads to lots of murders; automatic pistols and/or semi-automatic rifles with large magazines lead to occasional mass shootings. Getting rid of large numbers of guns also has the effect of considerably reducing suicide levels.
If you're prepared to live large numbers of unnecessary, painful, premature deaths as a society, well, that's your choice. But no amount of "but we only support the responsible use of firearms" puffery should disguise the fact that the NRA's lobbying maintains a legislative framework that virtually ensures those premature deaths will continue.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
> When I go to war... I go to WAR.
No, you don't go to war. Nor WAR: you go to Hell. Simply as that. Of course, wars end while the Hell...
But you won't return. Not if you die, but also not if you survive. Ask the vets who need psychological help.
For the sake of mercy I'll stop here, but take my word on that, you never return.
Even so, sometimes, from the ashes produced by weapons a new peace will rise, after we understand what cost was incurred and how we should never pay it again.
While I can see the advantage for Soldiers -- we have already made war TOO EASY.
Do you know about all the wars or "hostile engagements" the US is already in? We hear about Iraq and Afghanistan because of a lot of troops -- especially people coming home injured. But most Americans don't know we have a lot of drones in Yemen -- and have for a few years now.
The only thing that really stops wars right now is soldiers. Not the Airforce who get to fly over and drop bombs -- no, it's the men and women been the ground who suffer.
That's why people who want LESS wars are for a draft or shared sacrifice. Without sacrifice of some kind, asymmetrical warfare (where one side is a lot more powerful than the other) can go on forever. The military industry and the multinationals benefit -- and we get shocked and surprised by people who hate us for our freedoms. As if drones were less of a terrorist weapon than homemade bombs. ALL weapons cause fear.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
In the beginning, drones will be trained like rescue dogs. They will give it a photo, and say, go find this missing person.
Then, somebody will give a gun, and say, go find this person, and kill him.
It's inevitable.
Since when is the enemy my responsibility as well?
Tell you what, you pay US taxes or fucking behave yourself at the very least as nation and I'll either regard you as someone that my country has to actually worry about or we likewise won't have a reason to show up.
You think we like to go to war? Fucking peasants.
I can't wait until the US starts actually putting out of global affairs. The shocked looks on your stupid faces as you realize the US was actually doing something vital for you the whole time... I'll be giggling at your expense for the rest of my days.
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Its a good point... I'd just say that there are many ways to put pressure on someone. Giving weapons to an allied third party or provoking a neutral party into dealing with regional problems instead of forcing us to shlep all the way over there are some options.
The US is going to increasingly start backing off. The collapse of nuclear containment is going to compel American strategists to start preparing for WW3... which will be nuclear.
And that means distancing ourselves from targets in Eurasia which will be ground zero.
The US doesn't want to suffer the fate of WW1 Great Britain. We're going to get out of the way and let other countries eat it. We have no choice really. They only way to stop this was to maintain containment. We kept that going for as long as we could... but its collapsing and that means WW3 is coming. The only way to win a nuclear war is to not be involved in one. We've got Iran fantasizing about nuking everyone else in the middle east, everyone else in the middle east getting their own nukes, we have Putin authorizing the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine IF his forces run into superior conventional resistance... etc etc etc. Its brewing. And it might not pop for decades but its coming.
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So if YOU were sent to war, you'd prefer if I gave you inferior weapons? You'd prefer to sit in your fox hole with only a rifle, no artillary support, no close support air bombardment of the enemy, no air recon... you just want your rifle?
The anti war stuff has its place. Employ it to argue against war. But when battle is joined I'm going to ask you to sit down and shut the fuck up because its killing time. And the killing will be as efficient, painless, and merciless as possible. Because THAT is war.
You don't like war? join the club. No one likes war but crazy people. But when war is happening... you want the nastiest, fierciest, most ruthless force you can muster. And you want to lay into your enemy and grind them down to bloody mush.
Where people like you need to be is in working out the diplomacy such that war doesn't happen in the first place. But when it does... the objective to break the enemy. The objective is not to break ourselves.
If your intention is to see more of our soldiers die in a war... then you're the enemy. And in that situation... no offense... I'd blow your brains out and sleep like a baby.
Peace is for peace and war is for war. You need to adapt your mentality to each context.
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Then you can get gang raped by whomever wants you to be their gimp.
Any society that won't send its sons and daughters into battle with the best they can provide doesn't deserve to survive. And whatever installs itself as your overlords will be unlikely to make that particular mistake.
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Since when is the enemy my responsibility as well?
How many true enemies did the US have in Iraq? Not everybody who dies because of US military action is an enemy.
Tell you what, you pay US taxes or fucking behave yourself at the very least as nation and I'll either regard you as someone that my country has to actually worry about or we likewise won't have a reason to show up.
You think we like to go to war? Fucking peasants.
I don't think you like going to war, but I do think you overestimate its effectiveness.
What did the Iraq war actually accomplish? Vietnam? Bosnia probably helped, though that combined with the NATO expansion inspired Russian aggression and Georgia and Ukraine are paying the price now.
Much of Afghanistan is better but in total war is incredibly destructive, it's very rare circumstances that it actually helps.
I can't wait until the US starts actually putting out of global affairs. The shocked looks on your stupid faces as you realize the US was actually doing something vital for you the whole time... I'll be giggling at your expense for the rest of my days.
I don't disagree that the US is generally a positive influence but I don't think you really understand how much hostility that aggressive attitude incurs.
Remember Americans aren't the only ones proud of their country or who think they should have influence, imagine you're not an American but you're an Iranian or Russian cheering for your side. You might hate your government, be all about free speech, democracy, and everything else you associate with the US. But when you see the arrogance that the US acts with on the international state you're going to find it very difficult to cheer for the US.
With your patriotism if you weren't an American I'd very much expect you'd hate the US.
I stole this Sig
I'm not interested in talking about Iraq. Its a fucking whine at this point. Every thing is about Iraq. US foreign policy is bigger than that and I'm not going to argue everything from the context of Iraq because its like arguing an entire person's life on the context of an hour of their lives.
Its stupid. I'm going to talk about US foreign policy in general and I'm not going to engage the issue from the perspective of Iraq at all. You don't like the Iraq war? I don't care. Its irrelevant.
As to various nations not being happy with the US... the vast majority of that is either unhappiness that we stopped them from raping their neighbors or a mixture of envy/shame at someone being more powerful and a generous dose of ignorance as to how vital that power has been to the global status quo that everyone takes for granted.
I was recently subjected to a lot of vitriol from some fellow that was telling me how EVERYONE hates the US. I went back and forth with him and then I asked him where he was from.
Serbia apparently.
And his bias against the US was based on the belief that the US attacked Serbia for no reason in the Kosovo war and that his people were absolutely not genociding the Albanians. Also the "everyone" that hates the US turned out to be bitter ethnic serbs that didn't like getting their teeth kicked in when they were told to stop being fucking assholes.
Most of the anti US stuff boils down to something like that. And the thing is that the US gets that attitude no matter what we do. We go to war. People say they hate us. We don't go to war... and literally the same people say they hate us because we're not going to war.
So as an American you learn to not take such comments seriously because they're intellectually vacuous, self contradictory, callow, and often as not rooted in some puerile notion of an idea where "no one is powerful and we all get along because we love each other"... Which is really just an admission that whomever says that has no clue about history for foreign policy.
As to the effectiveness of war... I disagree. War is extremely effective. Can politicians fuck it up after the military wins? Sure. Name something politicians can't fuck up? If you undermine the military victory by pulling forces out and abandoning the area after winning then... yeah... your victory isn't going to mean much because you've ceded all won territory by default to any other competing power which is likely to be the inevitable remnant of your enemy.
if the US had dropped the two atomic bombs on imperial japan and then just left... no occupation... no rewriting their constitution... no carefully sculpting their political environment for generations... then they could have just reverted immediately back to the imperial Japanese mindset.
But they didn't because we didn't leave.
Same thing with South Korea...
And your citation of Vietnam or whatever else... you're ignoring that we won the battles and had the ability to dictate the nature of the societies but we ceded that by abandoning the area. Which was a political decision based on domestic political considerations and not a military decision.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
As to various nations not being happy with the US... the vast majority of that is either unhappiness that we stopped them from raping their neighbors or a mixture of envy/shame at someone being more powerful and a generous dose of ignorance as to how vital that power has been to the global status quo that everyone takes for granted.
Nah, the vast majority is not happy with the US because it fails to uphold its own principles of freedom. That one guy from Serbia, apparently? Serbia has, from wiki, only about 7 million people. There's probably more Americans unhappy with the US than there are people living in Serbia in total.
Of course, not everyone in a nation hates the US. Especially in countries like China or Russia, where it's mostly the government and ruling elites who hate the US, not the common folk who trade with and buy products from America (sanctions notwithstanding)
So the people who hate the US for "stopping them from raping their neighbors" are a minority. They just tend to be loud so you might think there's a lot more of them. Furthermore, those people tend to hate everyone in the "Western" world as well, so there goes the other reason of envy/shame as well.
Most people who are unhappy with the US are actually people in the developed world. They are unhappy because going around using military might to get your way goes against the principles of freedom which the US itself claims to be founded upon. Look at the word you use on what happens after you achieve military victory: you dictate the terms. Putting a gun and ordering someone to play nice may be effective, but it ain't freedom and democracy you're promoting.
You're advocating security ("status quo" as you call it) over liberty.
login and I argue my side of that. Don't and I'll have to let this drop down the memory hole.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Makes me want to play Metagaming's "Rivets" from 1980:
Excerpt:
HERE COME THE ROBOTS....OOPS! BOPPERS were mass produced robotic war machines. When the final war ended they were all that was left. Everyone was dead; but, the BOPPERS kept on fighting. Afterall, with the intelligence of can openers what could you expect. RIVETS is a two player tactical level science fiction game of robotic warfare in the 22nd century. Players select their robot armies, set their programs, and send them out to destroy the enemy computer complex. RIVETS is fast playing and easy to learn with a humorous style. Games are quick even if the robots are a bit dumb.
Boppers came in 5 different types, Rocket Boppers, Jack Boppers, Dive Boppers, Big Boppers, and Tiny (pronounced Teeny) Boppers. There was a later scenario where they all fought an Ogre Mark IV.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics
The Three Laws of Robotics (often shortened to The Three Laws or Three Laws, also known as Asimov's Laws) are a set of rules devised by the science fiction author Isaac Asimov. The rules were introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", although they had been foreshadowed in a few earlier stories. The Three Laws, quoted as being from the "Handbook of Robotics, 56th Edition, 2058 A.D.", are:
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.[1]
Any violation should be immediately declared as a crime against humanity and treated as a war crime.
So any general or leader of any country should be put on notice that they are in violation and will be prosecuted in the public sphere.
Silly little people. (The 'Future of Life Institute' people) What's the real problem with robot weapons? give a robot - a gun and it becomes a weapon.
All Strong AI's are potential dual use machines and the only way to really stop the development of rogue autonomous weapons is to maintain a global level of security never achieved except in extreme military systems like nuclear bombs.
Fortunately the project I am developing has already tackled the core of this issue. Absolute security isn't so difficult - as long as people like the security services actually let you do it..
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
Ummm, ok?
I stole this Sig
Okay, so in response to this post then:
""Nah, the vast majority is not happy with the US because it fails to uphold its own principles of freedom. That one guy from Serbia, apparently? Serbia has, from wiki, only about 7 million people. There's probably more Americans unhappy with the US than there are people living in Serbia in total.
Of course, not everyone in a nation hates the US. Especially in countries like China or Russia, where it's mostly the government and ruling elites who hate the US, not the common folk who trade with and buy products from America (sanctions notwithstanding)
So the people who hate the US for "stopping them from raping their neighbors" are a minority. They just tend to be loud so you might think there's a lot more of them. Furthermore, those people tend to hate everyone in the "Western" world as well, so there goes the other reason of envy/shame as well.
Most people who are unhappy with the US are actually people in the developed world. They are unhappy because going around using military might to get your way goes against the principles of freedom which the US itself claims to be founded upon. Look at the word you use on what happens after you achieve military victory: you dictate the terms. Putting a gun and ordering someone to play nice may be effective, but it ain't freedom and democracy you're promoting.
You're advocating security ("status quo" as you call it) over liberty.""
As to people that hate the US for stopping them from raping their neighbors, it isn't as small as you think. Most of the middle east hate is just that and nothing more. The Russians hate us for similar reasons. I can go through a laundry list of various countries. And on the internet these people are not properly attributed so you don't know who is saying what or why. So you can't isolate for example people that say X because they were stopped from genociding their neighbors from Y who feel that way for other reasons.
As to being loud, well we're talking about people that are being loud. So if X is being loud and the issue is people complaining about something then obviously X is going to make up a disproportionate amount of the complaints.
As to gaining our "way" by using military force... first that doesn't go against our principles or we'd have talked to the Imperial Japanese and Nazis instead of bombing them into submission.
Furthermore, our "way" needs to be defined because there is this implication that we have some sort of secret or exclusive agenda that only profits us when really it is in support of the entire first world as defined by the original paradigm... aka our allies. This would include the entire EU, our middle eastern allies, our asian allies, our african allies, and our American allies. Our way is in the service of that interest which likely includes you. I don't know what country you're from but it is probably a first world country.
As to putting a gun against someone's head being anti democratic... our democracy didn't happen because we asked the British nicely to let us form a republic. We violently rebelled. This notion you're pushing that violence is inherently bad is simplistic and erroneous.
If people are being violent then often the only effective response is violence.
As the man said... war is merely politics by other means.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I'm not interested in talking about Iraq. Its a fucking whine at this point.
Sure, toss out Iraq.
Afghanistan there's possibly in the range of 250K deaths, and a lot of the country is still under Taliban rule.
The mid-2000 NATO expansion pissed off the Russians and is likely responsible for Putin's invasions of Georgia and Ukraine.
The Libya intervention brought about a civil war.
The US overthrew the moderate democratic rulers in Iran to install a dictator (which led to the Iranian revolution).
The US supported dictators over South America, supplied rebel groups and taught them how to torture.
The US is currently supporting dictators in the Middle East.
As to various nations not being happy with the US... the vast majority of that is either unhappiness that we stopped them from raping their neighbors or a mixture of envy/shame at someone being more powerful and a generous dose of ignorance as to how vital that power has been to the global status quo that everyone takes for granted.
Except in South America and the Middle East where the US supported the people who raped their neighbours
And his bias against the US was based on the belief that the US attacked Serbia for no reason in the Kosovo war and that his people were absolutely not genociding the Albanians.
The lesson there is people are blind to their own misdeeds.
Most of the anti US stuff boils down to something like that. And the thing is that the US gets that attitude no matter what we do. We go to war. People say they hate us. We don't go to war... and literally the same people say they hate us because we're not going to war.
Generally not in my experience. They want the US to be more cooperative and less dictorial with its influence. Drone strikes are a good example, you kill one terrorist and create five others.
As to the effectiveness of war... I disagree. War is extremely effective. Can politicians fuck it up after the military wins? Sure. Name something politicians can't fuck up? If you undermine the military victory by pulling forces out and abandoning the area after winning then... yeah... your victory isn't going to mean much because you've ceded all won territory by default to any other competing power which is likely to be the inevitable remnant of your enemy.
Beating armies is easy, the problem is when you have a population who doesn't really like you and doesn't share your objectives.
if the US had dropped the two atomic bombs on imperial japan and then just left... no occupation... no rewriting their constitution... no carefully sculpting their political environment for generations... then they could have just reverted immediately back to the imperial Japanese mindset.
Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. The fact Japan was very homogeneous helped.
And your citation of Vietnam or whatever else... you're ignoring that we won the battles and had the ability to dictate the nature of the societies but we ceded that by abandoning the area. Which was a political decision based on domestic political considerations and not a military decision.
You're assuming you had the ability to create the society, Vietnam isn't Japan and the Vietnamese may not have cooperated.
I stole this Sig
Ok weird thing, I thought I had sent the AC post but that was actually just some random AC. I got an email for your reply, it just brought up the thread, I saw your response to the AC and thought it was your response to me (I assumed I'd be logged out and posted AC).
Either way since you took time to respond to the AC I'll respond a bit on their behalf :)
As to gaining our "way" by using military force... first that doesn't go against our principles or we'd have talked to the Imperial Japanese and Nazis instead of bombing them into submission.
Actually you did mostly talk to them. The US came very late to both world wars. (though you did pretty much all the fighting against the Japanese).
But with Iran you engaged in the talk and it worked, you get a less hostile Iran with a lower chance of Nukes, the alternative was likely a Middle Eastern North Korea.
Furthermore, our "way" needs to be defined because there is this implication that we have some sort of secret or exclusive agenda that only profits us when really it is in support of the entire first world as defined by the original paradigm... aka our allies. This would include the entire EU, our middle eastern allies, our asian allies, our african allies, and our American allies. Our way is in the service of that interest which likely includes you. I don't know what country you're from but it is probably a first world country.
Canada, and I don't claim it's a secret agenda, it's just an observation that the US is a very bossy and aggressive country and diplomacy looks a lot like a demands for capitulation.
As to putting a gun against someone's head being anti democratic... our democracy didn't happen because we asked the British nicely to let us form a republic. We violently rebelled. This notion you're pushing that violence is inherently bad is simplistic and erroneous.
And being a Canadian we asked politely and got our freedom without any bloodshed :)
I stole this Sig
""Actually you did mostly talk to them. The US came very late to both world wars. (though you did pretty much all the fighting against the Japanese).
But with Iran you engaged in the talk and it worked, you get a less hostile Iran with a lower chance of Nukes, the alternative was likely a Middle Eastern North Korea.""
Then by this argument we always do that and always have. Every US military action has been proceeded by an exchange of words from the American revolution to Iraq.
If you feel the talking was insufficient that needs to be defined in terms that don't just boil down to "feelings". Because opinions and feelings offered on political and strategic matters are really just a fig leaf for wanting to express an opinion without having enough facts to offer up better reasons for it besides... "fee fees"... On strategic matters, feelings are irrelevant.
As to our talks with Iran working... that has yet to be seen. If Iran develops a nuclear weapon as many believe they will then it is hard to explain the full depth of the strategic clusterfuck that will be unleashed on the First World. A complete realignment of US and thus First World military and strategic power will happen and to a certain extent the first world alliance as you know it will die.
As a canadian this won't effect you much. You're so deep under our shells of protection that you'll never come out from it. But the Europeans, Middle easterners, and Asians will suffer the full force of the old curse that wishes "interesting times" on them.
""Canada, and I don't claim it's a secret agenda, it's just an observation that the US is a very bossy and aggressive country and diplomacy looks a lot like a demands for capitulation.""
As to the Canadian impression that the US is bossy... feelings... explain this in terms that are relevant.
""And being a Canadian we asked politely and got our freedom without any bloodshed :)""
Did you try that in the 1770s? Don't be obtuse. What is more, the British gave you your independence in a time when they had no choice but to do that. The British Empire is a thing of the past. They didn't adapt to changing circumstances and it cost them. They got dragged through the meat grinder twice and it destroyed them.
The United States watched it happen. And unlike the Canadians we have people taught to think strategically. Not short term. But in terms of generations... we war game the next world war all the time. Every new change in the strategic map... every new technology... every shift in the economic and industrial balance and we recalculate.
What many in the first world do not understand is that there is a lot on the shoulders of America. We are responsible for maintaining the global status quo. We have enemies everywhere... even our allies undermine us out of ignorance, greed, and malice. There is no peace. There is only putting off the next great war. The "big one". And it comes.
This is why the US is so obsessed with nuclear containment. Game theory. What happens when the number of powers with nuclear weapons expands? Iran getting weapons means Saudi Arabia must have them, Egypt must have them, Israel will openly declare that they have them... and that could easily spiral out from that point.
Now consider what that does to US strategic policy? A nuclear war becomes almost inevitable in this scenario simply because there are too many irresponsible powers with these weapons.
How do you win a nuclear war? The US is trying to develop the means to do just that. All our high level resources are bent on that goal. We know the war is coming and when it does we want to be ready for it. To annihilate the aggressors with extreme prejudice and suffer minor if any damage to ourselves or to the rest of the first world.
This statement sounds incomprehensible to most people without this education or background. Very few people get this... Some people in Russia get it, some people in the US get it, a few in the UK... but most of them are in the US.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
""Afghanistan there's possibly in the range of 250K deaths, and a lot of the country is still under Taliban rule.""
I'm not seeing a problem.
""The mid-2000 NATO expansion pissed off the Russians and is likely responsible for Putin's invasions of Georgia and Ukraine.""
This presupposes that the Russian empire would not seek to restore past territory at some point in the future.
""The Libya intervention brought about a civil war.""
That war was predominantly desired by the Europeans and not the Americans. Our assistance was invoked by the French etc because they lack the logistics to project power even so far as north africa without our support.
I'm not sure what you're laying at our feet here. What did you want the US to do?
""The US overthrew the moderate democratic rulers in Iran to install a dictator (which led to the Iranian revolution).""
Various things that happened in the cold war cannot be discussed without putting them in the context of the cold war. its like talking about a single battle in a war and not appreciating that even if your forces get wiped out on some seemingly meaningless hill somewhere it had strategic significance that made it worthwhile to do such a thing.
""The US supported dictators over South America, supplied rebel groups and taught them how to torture.""
Again, cold war. And we did not teach them how to torture. Any moron can cause another person pain. If we taught them anything it was how to get something useful out of it.
""The US is currently supporting dictators in the Middle East.""
And the alternative to supporting friendly and largely rational dictators that are prepared to ally with us is what? What is more, most of those alliances go back to the cold war and some even to the old british empire. I'm not sure you appreciate the apple carts you suggesting we over turn there.
""Except in South America and the Middle East where the US supported the people who raped their neighbours""
Actually it doesn't matter which side you take in either of those places. They all want to fuck each other over. All you're really blaming us for there is taking any sides at all.
We had to do that for the cold war. Since... we've taken a much less active hand in it... and to the extent we're involved in the middle east at all at this point it is mostly to keep Israel from getting genocided. Something quite a few people would love to see happen.
Read the rhetoric coming out of people that are highly critical of US middle east policy and it often gets anti Semitic. When it comes from middle easterners it is guaranteed to get anti Semitic but shockingly you'll see that out of French and English people as well. Its kind of sad.
""The lesson there is people are blind to their own misdeeds.""
As to this... sure... but this is a product ultimately of people having different perspectives. And the reality is that ours is a more general one in greater command of more information than is yours.
Keep in mind, the US has strategic responsibilities all over the world. You can't even begin to comprehend the tigers we have by the tail.
We could of course let go... but then the tiger would eat someone. And often as not that would not be us. That would be someone like you. ;-)
""Generally not in my experience. They want the US to be more cooperative and less dictorial with its influence. Drone strikes are a good example, you kill one terrorist and create five others.""
As to your experience... I'll refer you to your line about people not understanding their own misdeeds. You don't really know why you're saying things sometimes. You don't see the layers of influence and supposition in it all.
As to drone strikes... its a weapon and a tool. No more capable of creating a terrorist than a pistol shot to the back of someone's head. They're not going away. Get use to them.
As to the notion that killing one terrorist leads to 5 more. Not in our experience. They tend to come from places that have
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
This is like the letter by nuclear scientists urging the US government not to build and deploy a nuclear bomb. The Musks and Wozs of the world unleashed tech revolution and once the genie is out the bottle it will not go back in. Rest assured that governments with vast military power available will build such autonomous killer robots. They will go rogue and they will just keep shooting at people, victims later listed as collateral damage in operations reports. The tech leaders of today should not write such letters. When they are really serious about this issue band together and build a lobbying organization that injects a lot of cash into politics. Sadly, that is only way these days to influence decision makers.
Or... you send in your terminator bot and worst case they scrag the robot.
This is not the worst case. The real worst case is they capture/infect your terminator bot then send it back to your base, which it can enter effortlessly because all of your IFF still recognizes it. Once inside, it then infects your other bots before merrily executing its new orders to add new holes to all the meatbags.
Both Afghanistan and Iraq were wars of incompetence and 'revenge'. -
Afghanistan was showy but it was clumsy and poorly targeted, it also didn't destroy Al-Qaida and so made America look weak. A much better strategy would have been to identify the Al Qaida bases then nuke them (contacting Russia first) - the US military high command had been directly attacked and that justified a nuclear response.
Iraq was a stupid sideshow that killed a lot of people, cost an insane amount of money, and attacked a potential ally that was an enemy of Al-Qaida. People forget but George W was already edging for the Iraq war even before 9/11 happened.
In both places we forgot the most basic rule of war form Machiavelli - if you capture an enemy nation and want to rebuild it in a new mould you must hold on to it for at least a generation - 25 to 30 years - otherwise it will implode after you leave..
Obama seems no more competent than Bush. Short term policies like pulling out of Iraq early, and pretty much pulling out of Afghanistan, drone attacks in Pakistan that kill civilians, killing Bin Laden instead of capturing him, allowing Assad to get away with war crimes in Syria, and not aiding the rebels in Syria. If ISIS were a child it would call Obama 'Daddy'!
The incompetence continues, while America is fighting against ISIS it is also out fighting for ISIS. - Killing that Taliban commander recently was a massive victory for ISIS, but it wasn't ISIS that did it - it was an American drone. Damaging and breaking the remains of Al-Qaida is also helping ISIS. Allowing Turkey to continue their cowardly war against the Kurds is also helping ISIS.
Know what the worst thing about ISIS is? even if we defeat them the next one will probably be even worse and even stronger.. Know the biggest basic error in our overall tactics? the jihadis inspire Islamic children - kill them and the next generation of children swear undying vengeance on us. 9/11 itself was revenge for Americas part in the Israeli war against the Palestinian refugees in the Lebanon in the 1980's.. We are fighting an enemy where every act of aggression triggers a new reason for counter-attack and revenge. :- use only non-lethal weapons and capture and de-brainwash all insurgents; slaughter the lot - men women and children; total continuous military dominance over the whole area for decades; or just leave the whole place alone and ignore any further attacks against us until no further revenge occurs (requires the sacrifice of Israel and may lead to nuclear war if/when ISIS captures Pakistan).. Our current strategy means that we will still be fighting in the middle east in 30 years - or 50 years..
Only ways to win
We don't need robot boots on the ground - what we need is a top level Strong AI strategic commander running the whole battle - that is when we will really see America and the West 'win'. Robot soldiers are a total joke anyways - at $2 million per unit Boston Dynamics 'Atlas' is a hint of the true cost per machine. It wont be the robots going out to replace the soldiers on the ground - it will be the soldiers going out to protect the robots because they are so expensive..
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
... The military obviously isn't used to autonomous weapons systems. But I would suspect that relatively quickly they would build in a few basic security features.
1. The IFF would expire and not merely be accepted back into the fold after the bot disappeared for days.
2. Even if it does get into the base the units shouldn't be autonomous inside the base. So them moving around without escort shouldn't happen.
3. Direct bot to bot infections should be possible. They should require a secure firewalled interlocutor that is controlled by a human being to initiate the transfer of executable code, firmware updates, etc.
4. Assuming the killbots go nuts in your base... it goes without saying that they shouldn't be able to refuel, recharge, or rearm autonomously. By all means, have them go to point X to get Y. But they should require some affirmative assistance from a human being to initiate the restoration of any resource. That might mean a human opens a port, open a hatch, flips a power switch... something. The system can be highly automated but it shouldn't be completely automated. That way even if they go amok they'll run out of juice at some point and then they can get crated up and sent back to the clockwork womb to be "fixed".
The nature of these things should be controlled. You don't want them entirely autonomous. You want them to have a certain nature to them such that worst case you can avoid them.
Human updated zones of operation is one thing you could think about. You give them a set of coordinates and you tell them to do bad things to the enemy in that area. They shouldn't stray from it until their mission duration expires.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
""Afghanistan there's possibly in the range of 250K deaths, and a lot of the country is still under Taliban rule.""
I'm not seeing a problem.
Seriously? A quarter million dead people and you don't see a problem? I'm going to hope that's just short hand for "oh it's terrible but it's worth the cost for the part of the country that's more free than before".
This presupposes that the Russian empire would not seek to restore past territory at some point in the future.
There's other ways to protect against that, principally not treating Russia like an enemy to contained.
The assumption was that it was safe to treat Russia like a potential enemy and surround then with NATO forces because they wouldn't dare thwart American power. Clearly that was not the case, Putin turned hostile, and Ukraine is now paying the price.
That war was predominantly desired by the Europeans and not the Americans. Our assistance was invoked by the French etc because they lack the logistics to project power even so far as north africa without our support.
I'm not sure what you're laying at our feet here. What did you want the US to do?
Possibly not get involved.
I admit it's not easy to see an atrocities and simply let it progress, I was partially in favour of a Libya intervention and I'd probably decide the same way over again, but helping is a lot harder than dropping some bombs so the "good guys" win and it's hard to see what the destabilization might do.
Read the rhetoric coming out of people that are highly critical of US middle east policy and it often gets anti Semitic. When it comes from middle easterners it is guaranteed to get anti Semitic but shockingly you'll see that out of French and English people as well. Its kind of sad.
There's definitely antisemitism, though it's ironic that you're mentioning it after that response to 250k dead Afghanis.
But there's also a lot of very legitimate criticism of how the Israeli state came to exist and how it's acted over the last 40 years, especially with regards to the settlements, that has nothing to do with antisemitism.
As to your experience... I'll refer you to your line about people not understanding their own misdeeds. You don't really know why you're saying things sometimes. You don't see the layers of influence and supposition in it all.
Possibly, but so far I'm doubtful you have better insight into my motivations on this subject.
As to drone strikes... its a weapon and a tool. No more capable of creating a terrorist than a pistol shot to the back of someone's head. They're not going away. Get use to them.
As to the notion that killing one terrorist leads to 5 more. Not in our experience. They tend to come from places that have no family connection to the person being killed. The reason person X becomes a terrorist is almost never because we killed his friend or his brother or something. Typically they're radicalized somewhere and they would have come or done something no matter what because they were radicalized.
I'm not talking about the dead terrorists, I'm talking about all the innocent civilians getting killed around them.
Would you find it acceptable to kill ten Americans to kill one terrorist? There's a very clear message that the lives of those Muslims don't really matter, it's not hard to see how that message would create a lot more Muslim terrorists.
I stole this Sig
""Seriously? A quarter million dead people and you don't see a problem? I'm going to hope that's just short hand for "oh it's terrible but it's worth the cost for the part of the country that's more free than before"."" ... You're implying that we just killed a quarter million people with no context, reason, and that we did so intentionally.
You're also attributing all deaths to our actions when the responsibility has to be spread around to include the taliban, various terrorist sponsors, and natural forces like famine etc that kill people without any direct human volition.
I glibly dismiss the question because it isn't intellectually valid.
If you want to talk about death tolls in war zones we can do that. But laying all the death's at our feet like we intentionally killed all those people, had no reason to in, and we are solely responsible is invalid.
""There's other ways to protect against that, principally not treating Russia like an enemy to contained.
The assumption was that it was safe to treat Russia like a potential enemy and surround then with NATO forces because they wouldn't dare thwart American power. Clearly that was not the case, Putin turned hostile, and Ukraine is now paying the price.""
Wrong, we tried to actually rehabilitate Russia. We would not have funded their space program or made so many diplomatic gestures if we wanted to treat them like an enemy.
There was even serious talk about inviting them into NATO.
As to surrounding them with enemies... all we wanted to do was secure the self determination of past victims of their aggression. Our intention was not to threaten Russia but to give other nations a chance at freedom, modernity, and prosperity.
Russia only cares for itself and doesn't see how its historic behavior has harmed people in its theater. The US does not seek to harm Russia... or at least did not. That is likely changing because Putin is forcing our hands. But our intention was in fact to move the region beyond the old paradigm into something more positive.
""Possibly not get involved.
I admit it's not easy to see an atrocities and simply let it progress, I was partially in favour of a Libya intervention and I'd probably decide the same way over again, but helping is a lot harder than dropping some bombs so the "good guys" win and it's hard to see what the destabilization might do.""
So your suggestion when NATO members invoke our aid to deal with a relevant operation in their territory and put diplomatic pressure on the US to provide logistical and tactical support... we should do nothing?
The problem with this notion is that it undermines the alliance and will make it harder for the US to call on support from NATO members when we need it. The reality is that these "entanglements" as our ancestors called them bind us to assist in these matters if not directly then indirectly.
We were pulled into both Kosovo and Libya this way. Neither war was one we desired or were especially interested in... the Europeans engaged first and almost immediately failed to make any progress because their militaries are too starved of resources to be effective and their military doctrines are not appropriately blooded to appreciate that breaching enemy defenses sometimes requires risking your forces to counter fire. The Serbs had a lot of old soviet hardware and were very well dug in and very well trained. You couldn't just brush them aside. You needed to smash them.
The Euros used to understand this stuff... but its been two generations since they've really grasped how war works.
""There's definitely antisemitism, though it's ironic that you're mentioning it after that response to 250k dead Afghanis.
But there's also a lot of very legitimate criticism of how the Israeli state came to exist and how it's acted over the last 40 years, especially with regards to the settlements, that has nothing to do with antisemitism.""
I've already addressed your bizarre statement on the afghans. You don'
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You're implying that we just killed a quarter million people with no context, reason, and that we did so intentionally.
No I didn't, I was doing it in the context of the Iraq war where they're understood to be excess deaths.
You're also attributing all deaths to our actions when the responsibility has to be spread around to include the taliban, various terrorist sponsors, and natural forces like famine etc that kill people without any direct human volition.
I glibly dismiss the question because it isn't intellectually valid.
If you want to talk about death tolls in war zones we can do that. But laying all the death's at our feet like we intentionally killed all those people, had no reason to in, and we are solely responsible is invalid.
It's a standard methodology. Over the period X deaths would normally be expected instead Y occur, Z=X-Y is roughly the number of excess deaths attributable to your actions. You're not as nearly guilty as someone who pulled the trigger but in a debate of whether an act contributed to the greater good the fact remains that Z lives were lost due to that act is completely relevant.
Wrong, we tried to actually rehabilitate Russia. We would not have funded their space program or made so many diplomatic gestures if we wanted to treat them like an enemy.
There was even serious talk about inviting them into NATO.
As to surrounding them with enemies... all we wanted to do was secure the self determination of past victims of their aggression. Our intention was not to threaten Russia but to give other nations a chance at freedom, modernity, and prosperity.
NATO was an alliance formed to counter Russia, it's easy to see why inviting former Warsaw pact members into NATO would be viewed as a hostile act.
So your suggestion when NATO members invoke our aid to deal with a relevant operation in their territory and put diplomatic pressure on the US to provide logistical and tactical support... we should do nothing?
It's not just the conflict itself but the internal dialogue. You don't think other countries are listening when presidential candidates talk about invading other countries like it's no big deal?
As to the legitimacy of Israel... it is no less legitimate than any other power in the middle east.
I didn't say it was illegitimate, I said that its creation was a legitimate target for criticism as a very ugly form of colonialism (lets treat the land owned by these brown people like they're not even there and let some white Europeans settle it). And their current settlement policy is so indefensible I don't know that I've actually seen anyone ever defend it.
What nation do you hail from?
Canada
As to innocent people getting killed in a war... that is not unique to the drone strike.
As to collateral damage ratios... we spend more money and effort avoiding collateral damage than any other power in world history.
In WWII the axis powers inflicted a 3-1 civilian-military death ratio, and that includes the holocaust.
The 10-1 ratios in drone strikes that I cited, which are the only decent estimate I could find, are not something to brag about.
And even if they were lower than usual they're only acceptable if the acts themselves are necessary, I find it dubious that these actors in other countries are particularly legitimate terrorist threats.
What is also plain to me is that our heart strings are being played upon here. You say what you think will effect us emotionally and psychologically.
Were I a soulless monster you would not be telling me these things. You cite civilian causalities because you know it effects me and you know I care.
See, I am aware of myself. I don't cite this becuase I don't care but because I make a point of stepping outside myself a
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""No I didn't, I was doing it in the context of the Iraq war where they're understood to be excess deaths.""
excess deaths?
First, we're not talking about Iraq. I told you that.
Second, we're talking about Afghanistan.
Third, "excess deaths" what does that mean?
Fourth, your cited kill number did not include context, it did not separate out people that would have died if there were no war, the actual causality figures are actually highly estimated and no one really knows what they are, you conflated people killed by the enemy with people killed by the US, you conflated soldier deaths with civilians, deaths caused by famine or disease were conflated with deaths from weapons, etc etc etc.
So whatever you "intentions" were that is what you did.
"As to standard methodology"
In what way is that standard anything? No one does that. Do you think the US was sitting there doing WW2 running those numbers for Germany?
Anyway, we've come to the part of the discussion where I have to start looking things up.
In regards to the Afghan war, wikipedia puts the number at:
26 thousand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And often as not that is because the terrorists like to use civilians as human shields.
""NATO was an alliance formed to counter Russia, it's easy to see why inviting former Warsaw pact members into NATO would be viewed as a hostile act.""
Counter the USSR's attempt to conquer europe and the world actually.
We did what we could to make the Russians feel comfortable. We gave them money. We gave them technology. We invited them to all the clubs and parties and meetings. We tried to get foreign investment to help them. We did exchange programs to get them knowledge. We did the whole international space station purely to try and form some sort of post cold war peace.
We tried very hard to make the Russians see that there was another way.
Now, for a moment, try and see things from our side. We've just fought the cold war. We've been fighting the Russians for generations. My grand fathers fought them. My fathers fought them... and they thought I would fight the russians as well.
And in this context the Russians get agitated every time some previously subject power is given enough security to make it hard for them to be reconquered. This was taken as a sign of bad faith on the part of the Russians against the US and the free world. The opposition to the anti ICBM technology was also taken as bad faith. Why does Russia want the US to stop developing it unless Russia wants to intimidate the first world with nuclear weapons? The UK doesn't have a problem with US anti ICBM tech. The first world is comfortable with it because they have no intention of using their nukes in a threatening manner.
The Russians clearly do and always did. And that's fine. But it means this notion you're peddling that the Russians were going to be peaceful until the US did X or Y is bullshit. They've been planning to cause trouble from the start.
""It's not just the conflict itself but the internal dialogue. You don't think other countries are listening when presidential candidates talk about invading other countries like it's no big deal?""
You don't know what the internal dialog is... you just know what is in the media. Furthermore, when has the US ever talked about invading a country like it was no big deal?
You keep saying these things that are opinions or feelings... there's no empiricism in it. You've built a house of cards out of bias and prejudice.
""I didn't say it was illegitimate, I said that its creation was a legitimate target for criticism as a very ugly form of colonialism (lets treat the land owned by these brown people like they're not even there and let some white Europeans settle it). And their current settlement policy is so indefensible I don't know that I've actually seen anyone ever defend it.""
T
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quote tags would be so much easier to read.
""No I didn't, I was doing it in the context of the Iraq war where they're understood to be excess deaths.""
excess deaths?
First, we're not talking about Iraq. I told you that.
I wasn't talking about Iraq, I was referring back to a previous statement I'd used that happened to include Iraq.
Second, we're talking about Afghanistan.
Third, "excess deaths" what does that mean?
Exactly what it sounds like, the additional deaths that occurred because of the conflict.
Fourth, your cited kill number did not include context, it did not separate out people that would have died if there were no war, the actual causality figures are actually highly estimated and no one really knows what they are, you conflated people killed by the enemy with people killed by the US, you conflated soldier deaths with civilians, deaths caused by famine or disease were conflated with deaths from weapons, etc etc etc.
It's approximate, which is why there are large ranges given in the estimates (I've actually chosen conservative ones), but wars can certainly cause famine and disease and those deaths matter.
Anyway, we've come to the part of the discussion where I have to start looking things up.
In regards to the Afghan war, wikipedia puts the number at:
26 thousand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Alright lets look at that source:
During the war in Afghanistan (2001–present), over 26,000 civilian deaths due to war-related violence have been documented;[1]
Hey! It's right there in the first sentence! That's actually a pretty good sentence.
29,900 civilians have been wounded.[1] Over 91,000 Afghans, including civilians, soldiers and militants, are recorded to have been killed in the conflict, and the number who have died through indirect causes related to the war may include an additional 360,000 people.[1] These numbers do not include those who have died in Pakistan.
So your source gives a bigger number than I do!
Counter the USSR's attempt to conquer europe and the world actually.
We did what we could to make the Russians feel comfortable.
The NATO expansion was a tough call, I might have actually done the same, but it would have been very threatening to Russia.
Look how the US reacted to potential communist states in South America. How do you think the US would have felt if they joined the Warsaw pact, if Canada started discussing it?
The opposition to the anti ICBM technology was also taken as bad faith. Why does Russia want the US to stop developing it unless Russia wants to intimidate the first world with nuclear weapons?
Because it changes the equation from MAD, where no one will fire their nukes, to the prospect of a winnable nuclear exchange. And that tech won't stay with the US, it will spread to places like India and Pakistan.
You don't know what the internal dialog is... you just know what is in the media. Furthermore, when has the US ever talked about invading a country like it was no big deal?
Really?
Granted that was a bombing campaign not an invasion, but anyone who was paying attention heard the neocons itching for an Iran invasion to follow up Iraq and the rumour is that it was only the higher ups in the Pentagon that managed to talk them down.
That's how EVERY country in the middle east got its current territory. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, etc. Not one of them got it any other way.
I don't know about others but Iran's borders have been stable for a very long time, and I think the others were fairly stat
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I don't how many times I have to make it clear to you that i'm not going to talk about iraq because its a fucking whine and I don't find it useful on the issue of general US foreign policy or geopolitics.
Your 250k number was mostly talking about Iraq so far as I know and the methodology on that number is a fucking joke as well. But you know what... I'm not talking about it. You want to talk about Afghanistan... that's fine. We'll do that. You want to talk about Iraq... I'm going to hang up. You cannot hang all US foreign policy on that one war which frankly is very controversial for which nearly all the information in the public space is little more than talking points and spin. I have no patience for unraveling all the bullshit in it because I've already done it a million times before and it just leaves me doing it all over again with someone else.
So I'm not talking about Iraq.
As to excessive deaths... I don't find this to be a useful statistic because it conflates all deaths into one number. Its more complicated than that and I don't appreciate over simplifications.
As to approximate numbers and conservative figures. No. The official number is less than 30k total. That's confirmed dead. Numbers beyond that are assumptions and guesses which are by definition not conservative. The conservative number is the empirical one.
As to the source giving higher numbers than you do... I don't know what we're talking about. I'm not taking responsibility for people that the US did not shoot, bomb, or otherwise directly kill.
You are attempting to hold us accountable for people killed by the taliban as well as people that just died from other issues.
And you do not know how many would have died if the US were not there. This "excessive death" figure you think is meaningful implies that you know how many would have died. You don't.
As to NATO expansions, look at what happened to countries under Russia's sway versus our own? I have very little sympathy for the Russians whining about people leaving their sphere of influence. It isn't merely the US and Russia to consider but the people caught between. The Eastern Europeans HATE the Russians. Consider what Poland etc could be today if they had not suffered under Soviet domination? The Russians can frankly go fuck themselves on the issue with a rake. Their management of their terroritory has been incompetent for generations. Look at Russia itself. The country should be extremely rich. Vast natural resources, an impressive industrial base, a generally well educated population, and they're geographically positioned between the biggest markets in the world.
And yet they have an economy smaller than Italy.
The Russians are fucking morons. And the less say they have over anything the better for everyone. Now, the US has tried very hard to make peace with them, make them feel welcome, we have donated lots of money, time, technology, we have invited them into clubs, groups, etc to make them feel better about things. And the only thing we've gotten out of it is that the Russians are HOPELESS opportunists. Consider the space program which we helped them fund after the fall as a diplomatic gesture. What did the Russians do the first moment they had leverage over us with the international space station? They increased the launch fees to absurd figures and then they joked about how if we wanted to get into space we should use a trampoline. As if the United States can't go back into space bigger and better anytime it chooses. What the Russians revealed in that exchange was that they could not be trusted. That they would exploit any advantage and betray any relationship to gain leverage. Consider that there should be massive freight trains going from China to Europe through Russia but all international trade BYPASSES Russia by putting everything on boats and then running it through the Suez canal. Why is that? No one trusts the Russians. No one. Not the Chinese. Not the Europeans. No the middle easterners. No one trusts them. And it gets
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I don't how many times I have to make it clear to you that i'm not going to talk about iraq because its a fucking whine and I don't find it useful on the issue of general US foreign policy or geopolitics.
I wasn't talking about Iraq!!
Yes I mentioned it at the end of my last post but the vast majority was about other topics.
Your 250k number was mostly talking about Iraq so far as I know and the methodology on that number is a fucking joke as well. But you know what... I'm not talking about it.
Hmm, what did I say again?
"Afghanistan there's possibly in the range of 250K deaths, and a lot of the country is still under Taliban rule."
So that number is specifically about Afghanistan, your own source that contradicted you was about Afghanistan, the only time I said Iraq was in explaining that I'd already talked about a similar number for that war.
As to excessive deaths... I don't find this to be a useful statistic because it conflates all deaths into one number. Its more complicated than that and I don't appreciate over simplifications.
But taking only direct conflict casualties is a massive oversimplification.
How can you possibly imagine that destabilizing a country doesn't cause excess deaths? How can you ignore that cost when launching a war?
As to NATO expansions, look at what happened to countries under Russia's sway versus our own? I have very little sympathy for the Russians whining about people leaving their sphere of influence. It isn't merely the US and Russia to consider but the people caught between. The Eastern Europeans HATE the Russians. Consider what Poland etc could be today if they had not suffered under Soviet domination? The Russians can frankly go fuck themselves on the issue with a rake. Their management of their terroritory has been incompetent for generations. Look at Russia itself. The country should be extremely rich. Vast natural resources, an impressive industrial base, a generally well educated population, and they're geographically positioned between the biggest markets in the world.
All that is completely true.
But it doesn't mean that a NATO expansion was the right move. If you try to wave a magic wand and make the world a better place you run a very serious risk of making it worse.
As to your desire for Americans to die in wars... No. You can die. Your children can die. Your people can die. I am not sacrificing my people. If you want to sacrifice yours that is your own business. Some cultures worship death and desire it for themselves and everyone. My society desires life. We want to live. I will not send my people to war with inferior weapons because people like you feel it is unfair for us to have such an overwhelming advantage. War isn't about fairness. War is about killing the enemy. Crushing him. Bring him low, looking into his eyes, and watching him break. That is war. And robotic weapons service that function. If you feel that countries without our technological sophistication shouldn't engage in war with us... I agree. Doing so is idiotic on their part. It isn't a fair fight. They can't win. So they just shouldn't. Takes two to tango.
So you love life yet you really want your enemies to die.
Autonomous weapons are kind of like nukes, nice for your side but terrifying for the other side.
When the Western hegemony drops BILLIONS will die. Billions. Civilizations will be snuffed out in days to months. As the global trade networks collapse the global economy will collapse and any country that isn't self sufficient for food will starve. England for example... they rely on food imports. To blockade England is to defeat it... for if she does not surrender she shall starve. And England isn't alone in that. many countries rely on the global trade networks to survive. Just to EAT.
This just sounds like Fox news paranoia, I
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""But taking only direct conflict casualties is a massive oversimplification.
How can you possibly imagine that destabilizing a country doesn't cause excess deaths? How can you ignore that cost when launching a war?""
I don't find the excessive death statistic meaningful.
As to direct conflict causalities being an over simplification... its what we did. What happens when you do what we did in some rube goldberg butterfly effect statistic is not something we have any control over so I'm not going to feel responsible for it.
Moral judgement require intent. So you're citing a lot of deaths of people we didn't kill, didn't intend to kill, were killed by our enemies, etc and I think you're doing that just because you want a big number to play pathos games with me on.
I don't find it to be intellectually honest. Use a number that more closely approximates what we ACTUALLY did not what happened to people we didn't kill but rather who we actually killed.
That is if you want to talk about people we killed.
Citing people that just "died" is not something I'm going to take any responsibility for.
As to nato expansion not necessarily being the right move... and what is? What I find the most annoying about this argument is that you're not owning any course of action. You're basically just undermining and gainsaying things. Which is fine if you're going somewhere. But if you're just shitting all over people without offering an alternative then I don't find the argument to be compelling.
The reality is that you must do something. Even doing nothing is doing something. So we did something. The Russians don't like what we did... tough shit. I can't think of anything we could do that the Russians would have liked that wouldn't have involved fucking over the eastern europeans. That's what the Russians want. They want their slaves back in their cotton fields. They want it to be like it was... and while I'm sure you're cringing at the comparison, the reality is that they are literally pining for the days of Stalin. And that fact alone makes it quite clear what they'd LIKE things to be like. They want everyone back under their heels.
I don't really see why we should give them that. They had their chance to build an empire and they fucked it up. Other countries that they abused have a right to self determination and that means Russia needs to leave them alone. And the only way Russia will respect the borders of any of these countries is if NATO... and by that I mean the United States military effectively guaranteeing the border.
This did not have to be a hostile thing. The US and Canada get along. The US and Spain get along. The US and Mexico get along. The US and France get a long. We don't threaten to nuke each other.
And here you might say "but those aren't equal relationships. the US is the superior military/economic/political/cultural force."... yes but Russia is inferior. They have an economy smaller than Italy. Parity is not a reasonable expectation. Their only claim to power is in vast tracts of land that they basically do nothing with and are unpopulated... and a lot of rusting nuclear weapons. Short of that... they've no claim to great power.
All the US has to do to defeat Russia... is wait. No invasion. No great battle. Just wait. Their tech is falling apart. The USSR couldn't maintain it and the Russian Federation has only a shadow of their resources. Russia is slowly but surely degrading to what it was before the communists took over. The old Russian empire under the Tsars. That's what Putin is modeling himself on these days. They're calling Moscow the "Third Rome" and revitalizing the Orthodox church.
He thinks that gives him power. Fine. But the old Russian empire was not especially impressive either. The old British Empire didn't take the old Russian empire especially seriously and the US has filled those shoes and then some. The Russians are welcome to their tundra and their rampant alcoholism They are not entitled to run riot over eastern euro
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As to direct conflict causalities being an over simplification... its what we did. What happens when you do what we did in some rube goldberg butterfly effect statistic is not something we have any control over so I'm not going to feel responsible for it.
You did it because it's easy to measure and it's the lowest number.
And the fact that a war could severely destabilize a county is the most predictable consequence ever, the party starting the war absolutely bears responsibility. It's the most basic "you broke it you bought it".
Moral judgement require intent. So you're citing a lot of deaths of people we didn't kill, didn't intend to kill, were killed by our enemies, etc and I think you're doing that just because you want a big number to play pathos games with me on.
The whole crux of the argument is over unintended consequences!
I don't find it to be intellectually honest. Use a number that more closely approximates what we ACTUALLY did not what happened to people we didn't kill but rather who we actually killed.
You don't think the US bears any moral culpability for people who die because they attack a country and cause mass instability and you should only count directly intended casualties.
Yet at the same time you're claiming the US is justified in launching conflicts because they're imposing Western hegemony. And why is Western hegemony good? Because it imposes a particular brand of stability.
And you're accusing me of being intellectually dishonest?
As to nato expansion not necessarily being the right move... and what is? What I find the most annoying about this argument is that you're not owning any course of action. You're basically just undermining and gainsaying things. Which is fine if you're going somewhere. But if you're just shitting all over people without offering an alternative then I don't find the argument to be compelling.
Back the creation of a pact of ex-Warsaw nations minus Russia.
They don't look like a Western expansion so Russia is less paranoid, and as a group they can make believable claims that they will go to war against Russia to defend eachother (is the US going to start WWIII to defend Latvia?).
You do not want us to take more causalities. I say this because I do not want my people to die and because I do not want my people to hate. You have no respect for the life of my people or our souls. But... consider what we will become if we are full of blinding rage? We are not a stupid people. We are not poor. We are not foolish. Get us mad enough and we could rape the world.
Getting us that mad is not in your interest. You think we are unreasonable now? Think again. If the terrorist shit doesn't stop we're going to be frothing. Our rage will turn into black hatred... and then we'll kill. Not to make peace. Not to end war... to kill and destroy.
You honestly sound like an extremist, I would not trust you with autonomous weapons because I feel you'd use them without restraint trying to force change via military threat.
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No, it isn't the lowest number... it is the number of people we killed.
Your number includes people the Taliban killed and people that neither side killed.
I'm not accepting it. And if I see that number cited again in this discussion I'm going to ignore it.
I reject it.
As to your argument about unintended consequences, you're attempting to moralize the issue. Moralizing requires intent.
If you wish to speak about unintended consequences then all discussion of morality and ethics has to be removed from the discussion as well. Because both require intent. If you want to talk about unintended consequences, that's fine. But that isn't a moral/ethical discussion.
As to the conflict between the instability of one place versus the instability of the world... 250,000 vs 2.5 billion. The US didn't go in there to make the lives of innocent afghans harder. And we have spend a lot of our own lives and a lot of our own money trying to give Afghanistan a better future. We didn't just go in there, kill the enemy, and then leave. We tried to set up a government, secure it, etc. And if successful... could well be worth the losses in human life when measured against slavery under the Taliban.
As to your ex-warsaw pact minus russia... that won't have an impact on Russian aggression. They see everything not themselves as a threat. And keep in mind the eastern europeans HATE the russians. So they're going to be a threat to the Russians on their own... and imagine if they get more advanced weapons etc.
Look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
They're working with BAE to produce a next generation stealth tank:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Polish tank. The Poles are not going to be re enslaved by the Russians. The fucking refuse. And we like their spirit. We have seen to it that the Poles have gotten access to advanced Western weapons contractors to jump start their arms industry. Poland is going to be built into the muscle of continental NATO. The British are just barely worth a damn. The rest of NATO besides the US is garbage. The Poles are tough, motivated, and understand that if they don't have some discipline about this they're going to get dominated again.
The Russians keep reliving WW2. They think they're going to get their big tank battle and that it is going to be the same. No. Times have changed. The US scragging something like a thousand tanks while taking almost no losses during gulf war 1... saddam's tanks were old soviet shit. Which is mostly what the Russians still have. Combined tactics are lethal to Russia's war doctrine which is retrograde in all ways.
We are giving the Eastern europeans night vision goggles, anti tank rockets, mines, and various other things that will make a Russian advance into eastern europe too painful for them to stomach.
Will we go to WW3 over Latvia? Funny question. Will Russia? Why do people think nukes are going to fly in a proxy war? Did the US nuke Russia or China in vietnam? We didn't nuke China during the Korean war even though some of our generals REALLY wanted to.
No... there's no WW3 response in Latvia... either from the US or Russia. Russia has said that if pressed by superior conventional forces they reserve the option to use tactical nuclear weapons to break enemy formations. While the US takes the threat seriously, we also have made it known that if he does that it will be an escalation of hostilities that will be met with proportional responses. We have lot of conventional explosives that rival small nukes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Keep in mind furthermore that the US, the Israelis, and even the Germans have introduced defense systems that can shoot artillery shells or missiles out of the sky. So a tactical nuke might not even penetrate our conventional defense net. And the presumption on the Russian
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No, it isn't the lowest number... it is the number of people we killed.
Your number includes people the Taliban killed and people that neither side killed.
I'm not accepting it. And if I see that number cited again in this discussion I'm going to ignore it.
I reject it.
It's the number of additional people that died because of the conflict. If there was no conflict they wouldn't have died.
In fact you just eliminated your argument against autonomous weapons as well. Because if in choosing your course of action you aren't willing to consider people who were killed by the other side they you're not going to consider your own soldiers killed by the enemy. You can't count all the secondary benefits of US military actions without counting the costs!!
As to your argument about unintended consequences, you're attempting to moralize the issue. Moralizing requires intent.
Moralizing requires me to actually moralize. Show me where I moralized.
Will we go to WW3 over Latvia? Funny question. Will Russia? Why do people think nukes are going to fly in a proxy war? Did the US nuke Russia or China in vietnam? We didn't nuke China during the Korean war even though some of our generals REALLY wanted to.
You weren't directly fighting China or Russia in vietnam.
No... there's no WW3 response in Latvia... either from the US or Russia. Russia has said that if pressed by superior conventional forces they reserve the option to use tactical nuclear weapons to break enemy formations. While the US takes the threat seriously, we also have made it known that if he does that it will be an escalation of hostilities that will be met with proportional responses. We have lot of conventional explosives that rival small nukes.
And then they escalate back and you have a Nuclear holocaust. It's not guaranteed nor even most most likely outcome which is part of the problem because Putin thinks he can win a limited Nuclear exchange against a small European nation without drawing a major response.
As to me sounding like an extremist... define what that means. baseless insult are of no value. I could as easily respond that you sound like a space hamster from Neptune who is plotting to steal our peanuts and fresh broccoli.
You're claiming that anyone whom you deem an enemy should die and you're unwilling to consider the cost of collateral damage such actions may incur.
To me that's extreme unnecessarily damaging actions to achieve an objective, ie an extremist.
Your position is an ad hominem. You say because you are X you are wrong. Rejected.
Backwards.
Ad hominem would be if I said your positions were wrong because you were an extremist, what I said is your positions are extremist and you now sound like an extremist.
I stole this Sig
As to whether or not I'd count my own dead. Of course I would. I'd count them seperately though. I'm not rolling all the numbers together.
I want a number for my own dead.
I want a number for enemy dead.
I want a number of civilians I killed.
I want a number of civilians the enemy killed.
And you might as well throw out some estimates of how many 'excessive deaths" happened MINUS the above numbers. Though I warn you that I"m going to take that stat with fucking bags of rock salt.
As to your statement that you're not moralizing. Okay. Any attempt to morally judge US actions in this thread going forward is going to pointed at and I'm going to ask why you're doing it.
I do not expect i'll have to wait long.
As to the US not directly fighting the Russians and Chinese in vietname. Debatable. Absent Russian and Chinese support the Vietcong would not have been a credible resistance. There was a vibrant supply network. And there was also intelligence provided to them by the Russians and all sorts of other stuff. All of which ignores the point that we were directly fighting the Chinese in Korea and we didn't nuke them. What is more, in Korea we also engaged Russian pilots with some frequency and that didn't lead to nuclear war either.
No one wants a nuclear war... nukes are vastly over rated for their utility in diplomacy. Do you find the French to be formidable military powers? They have nukes. And no one cares.
This implies that people I deem enemy are done arbitrarily and unreasonably and without due consideration. That's not an argument I've seen you even attempt to make. And here you are presuming. Rejected.
And as to your statement that I don't consider collateral damage, this is obviously a very very stupid strawman because I made it clear repeatedly that my people have invested our blood and treasure into avoiding collateral damage. Name any other country in history that has taken the same pains to limit collateral damage.
Try.
You instantly fail. And from this you presume I don't care?
To the contrary, you know I care which is why you're trying to pull my heart strings on the issue. You know damn fucking well I care. I simply reject your notion that people the taliban kill are my fault. That's fucking stupid. I reject your number. If you want to cite collateral damage figures then I'll count civilians that I deem civilians that were accidentally killed by US weapons. THAT is what I deem collateral damage. I do not deem enemy actions my OWN collateral damage. that's absurd.
As to what is and is not necessary... that is also something you're going to have to show.
So your extremist point rests on three premises:
1. That I deem people enemy lightly or arbitrarily or without good and just cause.
2. That I do not care about collateral damage which is just fucking stupid.
3. That my actions or the actions I approve of are unnecessary.
You've substantiated none of that.
You are a space hamster and you cannot have our broccoli.
As to your ad hominems... I know what ad hominem is... so... you might as well give that up and try a less silly rhetorical tactic. Your sophistry is frankly really obvious. I'd ask you abandon it and try to make a more legitimate argument. I'm open to other view points. Just not to bullshit.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
As to whether or not I'd count my own dead. Of course I would. I'd count them seperately though. I'm not rolling all the numbers together.
I want a number for my own dead.
I want a number for enemy dead.
I want a number of civilians I killed.
I want a number of civilians the enemy killed.
And you might as well throw out some estimates of how many 'excessive deaths" happened MINUS the above numbers. Though I warn you that I"m going to take that stat with fucking bags of rock salt.
Why? What does it even matter? If I go through the trouble of generating those numbers are you going to think differently if they achieve some threshhold?
As to your statement that you're not moralizing. Okay. Any attempt to morally judge US actions in this thread going forward is going to pointed at and I'm going to ask why you're doing it.
Moralizing and making moral judgments are different things.
As to the US not directly fighting the Russians and Chinese in vietname. Debatable. Absent Russian and Chinese support the Vietcong would not have been a credible resistance. There was a vibrant supply network. And there was also intelligence provided to them by the Russians and all sorts of other stuff. All of which ignores the point that we were directly fighting the Chinese in Korea and we didn't nuke them. What is more, in Korea we also engaged Russian pilots with some frequency and that didn't lead to nuclear war either.
With the exception of the claims of engaging with Russian pilots (which I hadn't heard of before) none of those things count as direct fighting.
No one wants a nuclear war... nukes are vastly over rated for their utility in diplomacy. Do you find the French to be formidable military powers? They have nukes. And no one cares.
Depends on the objectives the groups is trying to achieve.
This implies that people I deem enemy are done arbitrarily and unreasonably and without due consideration. That's not an argument I've seen you even attempt to make. And here you are presuming. Rejected.
It's done with more bias and prejudice than you realize. In the Middle East the US regularly supports theocratic dictators but overthrew the democratically elected Iranian government. It's not random but alternate interests play a large role.
And as to your statement that I don't consider collateral damage, this is obviously a very very stupid strawman because I made it clear repeatedly that my people have invested our blood and treasure into avoiding collateral damage. Name any other country in history that has taken the same pains to limit collateral damage.
You're essentially claiming that because you put due diligence into avoiding killing civilians during a military operation or drone strike that you don't have moral culpability for their deaths. But you're not adequately considering those civilian deaths as a factor before starting the conflict.
And as to your statement that I don't consider collateral damage, this is obviously a very very stupid strawman because I made it clear repeatedly that my people have invested our blood and treasure into avoiding collateral damage. Name any other country in history that has taken the same pains to limit collateral damage.
Try.
You instantly fail. And from this you presume I don't care?
It's a weird request since no developed country in recent history has been involved in as many conflicts.
But I'd say all the countries that are counselling the US to not go to war are giving greater care for limiting collateral damage, they're making that request even though they don't bear any of the costs for going to war themselves.
To the contrary, you know I care which is why you're trying to pull my heart strings on the issue. You know damn fucking well I care. I simply reject yo
I stole this Sig
As to why break the numbers down, because they're not meaningful otherwise. The US military breaks these stats down precisely that way.
We show our war dead.
We show our war wounded.
We show enemy dead.
We show enemy wounded.
We show civilians killed by us.
We show civilians killed by the enemy.
etc.
When you break it down it shows you were you have a problem and gives you some detail so you can intelligently analyize the numbers.
Your number is not useful for intelligent analysis. It exists merely as a mindless shock number to confuse peasants.
I'm not a peasant. And I'm now done entirely talking about this number. Bring it up in any capacity and i'll just ignore it. I don't even want to talk about your opinion of the nature of the number.
The issue is concluded. You know what my opinion is. I know what yours is... you've done nothing but repeat yourself and have not appreciated the worthlessness of the figure. So I'm bored with the issue now. Either cite a more specific number that tells us something interesting or I'm going roll my eyes and skip over it.
As to moralizing and making moral judgements... both require intent. You can't engage in morality without dealing with intent.
As to direct fighting... you're skipping over that the US did directly fight the Chinese Korea and the US engaged the Russians all over the world in little skirmishes... our submarines were dealing with them... our air defense was scrambling against their bombers and vice versa... our CIA and their KGB were knifing each other in the dark for decades. Stop being such a fucking Canadian and realize that the US was fighting for all those years and most of the first world didn't have to do shit. Just because you didn't do anything didn't mean we weren't doing anything.
As to nukes and what people are trying to achieve... the only value of the nukes is preventing a direct invasion... and the use of them comes with immediate MAD response which means instead of getting invaded you're going to get nuclear bombarded. The smart thing to do if you're getting invaded is to not fire your nukes unless you LOSE the invasion OR you nuke your own territory to kill the invasion force. If you nuke the other country they're going to escalate and nuke you. They're not that useful. The euros especially justify their anemic military on the notion that they have nukes. Never mind that the nukes are only relevant in very limited circumstances none of which can be leveraged in geo politics.
The Iranians for example think they're going to join the US and Russians as big boys at the table with their nukes. Comical. First, they would need nuclear ballistic submarines otherwise they're vulnerable to a nuclear first strike. And they'd have to be good subs... like... we'd need to not be able to track them effortlessly with an attack sub. And second, they think they're going to either nuke israel or threaten someone else with nukes or possibly give nukes to a terrorist group have them blow up a western city and then go "wasn't us"... they do any of those things and there is a very good chance Tehran will be a parking lot.
As to allying with dictators or opposing democracies... where have I said that that is the basis by which I determine friend or enemy? You're not making sense. You imply I do not choose my enemies carefully and then when I call you on it you say that I will not ally with certain types of governments and I will sometimes support other types of governments. And? Why is this strategically relevant to me?
Why do I care if a country is democratic or not from a military strategic perspective? You're projecting your own ideology and morality on me. While I believe in freedom and democracy etc... I am not bound to prioritize it in strategic matters. My priority there is the well being of my own people. if allying with a dictator to assist British and European industrial needs during the Cold War helps allies resist Soviet pressure then why wouldn't I do that?
The Mi
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
When you break it down it shows you were you have a problem and gives you some detail so you can intelligently analyize the numbers.
Your number is not useful for intelligent analysis. It exists merely as a mindless shock number to confuse peasants.
I'm not a peasant. And I'm now done entirely talking about this number. Bring it up in any capacity and i'll just ignore it. I don't even want to talk about your opinion of the nature of the number.
You want to understand the numbers better read the papers. The point is to capture more of the externalities of the conflict, it may be imprecise but it's a completely legitimate measure. Ignore it and you're not having a serious discussion.
The Iranians for example think they're going to join the US and Russians as big boys at the table with their nukes.
No they don't, they think they'll deter a potential first strike by Israel, and achieve some additional prestige in the Middle East.
As to allying with dictators or opposing democracies... where have I said that that is the basis by which I determine friend or enemy? You're not making sense. You imply I do not choose my enemies carefully and then when I call you on it you say that I will not ally with certain types of governments and I will sometimes support other types of governments. And? Why is this strategically relevant to me?
Why do I care if a country is democratic or not from a military strategic perspective? You're projecting your own ideology and morality on me. While I believe in freedom and democracy etc... I am not bound to prioritize it in strategic matters. My priority there is the well being of my own people. if allying with a dictator to assist British and European industrial needs during the Cold War helps allies resist Soviet pressure then why wouldn't I do that?
So you're no longer arguing for US interventions based on doing good for those people?
Consider the difference between North Korea and South Korea. We could have saved lives in the war by letting the north dominate the south as well. In your mind this would have been worth it? Should we have allowed that or were the civilian deaths acceptable given the outcome?
You're damned no matter what you say because your entire moral framework is naive.
If you say the North Koreans should have been allowed to dominate the south you are saying that we should never fight against anything... including fascism. So the Nazis etc should have just been allowed to take what they want. Fighting them after all cost civilian lives.
But you're also damned if you say we should fight them because it fatally undermines your position that the civilian deaths means we can't go to war.
Your entire position is goofy.
I never argued that you can never intervene because of the total casualty counts, I argued that it raises the bar.
The Korean War was justifiable on those grounds, the additional death and suffering from doing nothing would have dwarfed the consequences of the act they did. Of course I have no idea how clear that was at the time.
As to ad hominems... I'm not going to get tied up in semantics. If you attempt to invalidate my position based on a baseless character assassination then I'm going to slap it aside and tell you to try something else. You say you don't want to do that? Okay... good. When you do it again, I'll remind you of your own words. Until then... I'll just leave it there.
I didn't say I didn't want to do it. I said I didn't do it.
I stole this Sig
Skipping over your fixation on useless statistics.
As to Iran... death to america... destroy israel... the israelis drink baby blood... blah blah blah... sure. Who do you think you're fooling besides yourself? No one, I can assure you is buying that Iran just wants to defend themselves. Why are the Saudis talking about getting nuclear weapons themselves. Do you think you understand the Iranians better than their regional neighbors? Comical. Everyone in the region is talking about going nuclear to deter Iranian nuclear weapons which implies the don't believe that iran only wants them defensively.
As to US alliances to help people... context. During WW2 we allied with the Soviets. Was that a violation of our democratic principles? Should we have allied with Hitler instead? He was democratically elected after all and Stalin was not. The world is more complex than you are appreciating. Someone being elected democratically doesn't mean they're not crazy or monsters or a threat to world peace. You cite the US for example as being out of control even though we elect all our people democratically. Where then are your principles? Shouldn't you support us against dictators if all it takes for you to support or oppose someone is whether or not an election happened?
You've made yourself a hypocrite by making the cardinal error of trying to win. Never try to win in a discussion. Instead, try to be right. In being right you win... if you just try to win you'll ultimately be wrong because you'll try to skip to the victory. And you'll therefore lose. I don't try to win these discussions. I try to be right. And in being right... I win.
As to bars being raised by causalities... you can't show that those numbers didn't raise the bar for the US or that they were not considered. You keep citing these arbitrary numbers and assuming to have some notion of our thought process from it. You know damn well we care about causalities. You say "but you went to war anyway"... yes, but that doesn't mean we didn't care. It means rather that we calculated in other things and deemed the price acceptable. No where in your argument can you say something like "Y freedoms is worth X lives" or "Z global security is worth X lives"... there's no translation. All you can say is "because X lives died you shouldn't have done Z thing"... but that's at best an opinion. But you're attempting to make moral and ethical judgments upon it. And you're doing it while ignoring our intents which renders any moral calculation to be meaningless since intent is a core aspect to any moral judgment.
As to word games over ad hominems... I'm not impressed by them or confused by them. They annoy me but they will not be effective.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
"I know that if I go to war... I am going to want the best weapons my society can make for me along with the best defenses the best training and ideally leaders that are not complete fuckwits."
The problem is that this kind of total-war thinking logically leads to a condition of spending *all* of a country's resources on nothing but war. And frankly we're pretty close to that already, the amount that the U.S. outspends the rest of the world on the military is something out of a Kubrick satire. Likewise we've got more people in prison than any country in the history of the world via the same nothing-can-be-risked thinking.
Frankly I do think that the logic of the institution is powerful enough that we will annihilate civilization in fairly short order. I guess we've managed to survive nukes for about 70 years, but whether that or something else, I'm hard-pressed to see how many more multiples of that we can go.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
No it doesn't.
We're spending about 3.5ish of GDP on our military which is not remarkable all things considered.
There's no credible military power that has ever spent less than that. The British Empire used to spend something like that on defense as well.
Comparing the US military spending with Sweden or something is not valid. Sweden doesn't have a credible military power.
The latest report from the Swedish military was that if they might be able to fight one battle for about 2 weeks. They lack the logistics and numbers to be able to do more than that. 20 years ago they had a pretty strong military. But since the end of the cold war, Europe's miltiaries have atrophied into uselessness.
I mean... completely worthless. So if we exclude all the miltiaries that actually can't fight anymore... you'll find the US spending as per GDP is actually a great deal lower than any of the other military powers that can actually fight.
And that being the case... I don't really credit this notion that my mentality leads to spending everything on the military. You're basically making an reductio ad absurdum fallacy.
As to surviving WW3... *laughs* well... you're not going to do it by being weak... unless you want to survive on your knees and make a face like a donut. ;-)
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.