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Are we on the brink of World War 3?

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Wokko Pisces

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Joined: 04 Oct 2005


PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2016 9:43 pm
Post subject: Are we on the brink of World War 3?Reply with quote

I'm not usually an alarmist, I laughed at the Y2k bug and scoffed at all the 2012 paranoia, but something truly frightening is happening right now in the middle east.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-sends-troops-and-fighter-jets-to-military-base-in-turkey-ahead-of-intervention-against-a6871611.html

Saudi Arabia and Turkey are poised to intervene in Syria. This all smacks of 1914, with webs of alliances causing a decent into widespread conflict. If Russia or Iran start shooting down Turkish or Saudi jets does NATO intervene? Does a war between Turkey and Syria/Iran bring in Russia? It's not looking great in that part of the world.

Lets hope cooler heads prevail; but we're talking about Erdogan and Putin here so I'm not exactly hopeful.
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David Libra

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Joined: 27 Jul 2003
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2016 10:01 pm
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If a Republican candidate is elected in the US, then, yes, I think this becomes a distinct possibility. Even as things are now, we have to hope that the US and Russia realise that a war would be a disaster for both sides.

Unfortunately, the hawks are in charge in Russia at the moment, and Saudi Arabia seems to be spoiling for a fight. Then there's Turkey and Iran of course (the latter of which has elections coming up; if this is what they're like with a moderate in charge, what will happen if Rouhani gets voted out). It's a worry – particularly given that, the longer the Syrian conflict is drawn out, the harder it will be to actually resolve it, and the more chance there is of world powers getting drawn in.

Crazy to think that so much can be at stake over just two Middle Eastern countries. The people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (ten year civil war; hundreds of thousands dead; over a million displaced) must be wondering what they have to do to get this kind of attention...

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Wokko Pisces

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Joined: 04 Oct 2005


PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2016 10:09 pm
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Hillary Clinton is the biggest Hawk of that whole bunch.

The war in Syria is close to being won by Assad and Russia, it's all pretty much strategically over as far as the rebels go. An intervention from Turkey and Saudi Arabia wouldn't be to end things even faster; it would most certainly be to mess with Assad and Russia.


Watching the progress of the SAA forces over the past few months I thought for sure the war would be over in the next 6 months, a foreign intervention on the other side cannot be a good thing.
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stui magpie Gemini

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.


Joined: 03 May 2005
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2016 10:14 pm
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David wrote:
If a Republican candidate is elected in the US, then, yes, I think this becomes a distinct possibility. Even as things are now, we have to hope that the US and Russia realise that a war would be a disaster for both sides.

Unfortunately, the hawks are in charge in Russia at the moment, and Saudi Arabia seems to be spoiling for a fight. Then there's Turkey and Iran of course (the latter of which has elections coming up; if this is what they're like with a moderate in charge, what will happen if Rouhani gets voted out). It's a worry – particularly given that, the longer the Syrian conflict is drawn out, the harder it will be to actually resolve it, and the more chance there is of world powers getting drawn in.

Crazy to think that so much can be at stake over just two Middle Eastern countries. The people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (ten year civil war; hundreds of thousands dead; over a million displaced) must be wondering what they have to do to get this kind of attention...


They don't need to wonder too hard, ISIS and Al Queda have laid out the blueprint.

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David Libra

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Joined: 27 Jul 2003
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2016 10:38 pm
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Wokko wrote:
Hillary Clinton is the biggest Hawk of that whole bunch.


She worries me too, but she has nothing on Rubio or Trump. Cruz and Bush are also of concern (particularly Cruz, who plays the isolationist, but has an alarmingly militant streak). The only candidate who's a safe bet to avoid conflict is Bernie Sanders. He should probably put that one in his campaign ads: "vote Bernie to avoid WW3". Razz

If you ever want to appreciate Obama's diplomatic skills, consult the policy statements of the leading GOP candidates from last election re: Iran. Chilling stuff. Dodged a bullet there big time.

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pietillidie 



Joined: 07 Jan 2005


PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2016 11:13 pm
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If the world were under simple imperial control, and world population was far lower and less technologically facilitated, given current geoeconomic pressures I might agree.

But there are no clear enemies, and any one skirmish of any size could bog you down in a new Afghanistan or Iraq because funds and technoweapons are more accessible than ever before.

Plurality is more robust and elastic than old imperialism, even if it doesn't *feel* robust to those who grew up on Team Anglo-America and are used to controlling everything and being waited on, hand and foot.

Externally, "the enemy" is everyone and no one; internally, people know too much to believe any one fanciful storyline or opportunistic megalomaniac *for long*, as stupid as people still are, especially under duress.

So, rather than enter the realm of helpless concession to the Fates, Wokko, you're going to have to tough this one out. Religion is dead; there is no good and evil, only negotiation.

Negotiation is your new world war. You get a settlement of modest length when, say, Asian savings offset Western consumption. Or Central Asia trades gas for Chinese market access. Or Germany holds the hawks at bay on Russia's western front. Or, in grim cases, when everyone agrees to let North Korea rot or Syria burn as the chosen no man's land between powers.

There is no "razing everything to the ground" as a violent and undisciplined substitute for the arduous task of treating others as valuable humans through the act of negotiation. The blowback of doing otherwise is swift, and the effect on markets and polls immediate.

The present malaise is indeed direct blowback for gross negligence; instead of spending $3T on making the world better, a cadre of anachronistic morons emptied the national coffers and crashed the economy, making the world far, far worse. History will record it clearly as such, and already is.

Those very negligent morons are doing the same at home by allowing the infrastructure of human productivity to rot or be sold off for short-term, corrupt gain: Education, health, communications, information access, the hope of upward mobility, the hope of owning a house or a nice personal space, the hope of having a rewarding career, the hope of clean and safe city streets, and so on. All being sold off for very short-term rewards for a very small sliver of humanity.

Again, all because the same outdated Darwinian twits whose lack of emotional discipline belongs in the Dark Ages think they are so superior, they don't need to negotiate with anyone, and they don't need to get a grip on their own mental health. Yet, what they really need is to get some help for their aversion to difference and inability to cope with the swirl of the contemporary, plural world *without trying to strangle it* in a desperate, immature and vain effort at control. (If only the Jonathan Haidts of the world would worry more about human progress than selling books and soliciting praise by telling people their reactionary savannah instincts are really a holy blessing...).

We've only got one choice and always have had only one choice: Defending ourselves smartly from downside risks while making as many happy, optimistic friends as possible, creating a forward momentum and forward focus through new opportunities, and reducing said risks by doing so. That means ridding politics of those who cannot negotiate upward mobility either domestically or internationally, and whose Abbottesque instincts are to react and punish, rather than negotiate forward movement.

Negotiation feels less stable than violence because of course *nothing* feels more subjectively stable than an absolute tyranny with oneself at its head, no matter how absurd the notion in reality. But, in the end, only a sense of progress, mobility, and improvement can coordinate billions of people smoothly. Nothing else will give you peaceful human agreement and coordination at the present scale and intensity of human interaction.

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David Libra

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Joined: 27 Jul 2003
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2016 11:38 pm
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So, you're saying another global conflict on the scale of WW2 is no longer possible? I certainly think world powers are a lot more codependent now and less prone to territorial conflict, but the world still seems so unstable and unpredictable. And with the sort of people who can so easily get elected here, there and everywhere else, how much can we afford to relax, really?
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Mugwump 



Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne

PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2016 11:53 pm
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pietillidie wrote:


So, rather than enter the realm of helpless concession to the Fates, Wokko, you're going to have to tough this one out. Religion is dead; there is no good and evil, only negotiation.



With apologies to Godwin :

Neville Chamberlain wrote:


The settlement of the Czechoslovakian problem, which has now been achieved is, in my view, only the prelude to a larger settlement in which all Europe may find peace. This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine. Some of you, perhaps, have already heard what it contains but I would just like to read it to you: ' ... We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.'[3]

My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.


Negotiation is always preferable to war. Negotiation with evil people (yes, they exist, per the quote above) when you do not have a credible threat of force behind it, however, is futile. That much is surely obvious.

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pietillidie 



Joined: 07 Jan 2005


PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2016 11:58 pm
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^Yeah, a bit silly and distracting for a mature man of your stature. Which one of the billion Hitlers or potential Hitlers out there in the thousand of people groups and hundreds of competing alliances worries you most?

The plurality of interests and interactions makes that much less likely than being bogged down in multiple futile, economy-sapping, people-movement causing, market-destabilising Iraqs. And that means just as much misery for the victims as a world war, and a grim underperformance and millstone for the rest of us.

You're discounting the likelihood of a sustained grimness, and going for apocalyptic conflagration instead, far too readily. The feudal age, or the Soviet Union, or the Holy Roman Empire, or whatever, are examples of a grim settlement; a life spent wading through treacle in a permanent state of underperformance.

Instead of risking that, I say double down on the robustness of pluralism by moving on from fossil fuels and removing that particular lever of tyrannical oppression and underdevelopment from the hands of cadres of mentally-ill fruitcakes in that great region from North Africa to Russia, and some of the most unstable parts of Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America.

That causes disarray *in aid of progressive coordination* and settlement, and opens up a new wave of economic opportunity at home and in those regions. This is the best opportunity we have of moving forward at scale.

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Last edited by pietillidie on Sun Feb 14, 2016 12:00 am; edited 1 time in total
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David Libra

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Joined: 27 Jul 2003
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2016 11:59 pm
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Mugwump, surely world politics is too complex and important to engage in juvenile fantasies about "evil people".
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Last edited by David on Sun Feb 14, 2016 12:00 am; edited 1 time in total
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Mugwump 



Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne

PostPosted: Sun Feb 14, 2016 12:00 am
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Yes, Hitler and Pol Pot were just misunderstood. There is nothing fantastic about that assertion at all, as you well know.
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David Libra

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PostPosted: Sun Feb 14, 2016 12:01 am
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There's a big difference between excusing their crimes and making them into Disney villains. Their personal morality had nothing to do with whether or not they could have been negotiated with.
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Mugwump 



Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne

PostPosted: Sun Feb 14, 2016 12:21 am
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Their personal morality involved enslaving torturing and murdering millions. It also showed a fundamental disrespect for truth and for the idea that commitments should be kept. You can negotiate with them, of course, and i did not say that you should not. I said that "negotiation is always preferable to war", and I meant it ; but negotiation is not the only strategy you should be prepared to employ, and negotiation without a credible threat of force is likely to be useless. This is true of even rational people, but it is esepcially true when you have to negotiate with cynical people who have a strong propensity to do evil.

"Disney villain" is your phrase designed to trivialise the problem of evil. Disney villains are not evil - they're images on a screen that hurt no-one. Real evil, which is clearly present in the world and very often found in politics, is nothing like a Disney villain.

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pietillidie 



Joined: 07 Jan 2005


PostPosted: Sun Feb 14, 2016 12:52 am
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^But "evil" is just a term used to trivialise the problem of (a) mental illness, and/or (b) the elasticity of the human brain and human condition. It's a throwaway term of exasperation; nothing more.

The point is there are fruitbats around every corner at home and abroad you choose to look; it's just a fact of populations and the wedding of narcissism and mental illness. But you can't fight two million pyschopaths; you can, however, hem them in as best you can.

From the perspective of the OP, which is looking at the world in its broadest sense, you can only play the numbers and the ironic stability that competition and plurality bring. There is nothing to be gained by being the mentally-ill person who stays at home, locks the doors and refuses to go out because of all those criminals on the news every night. That way lies madness; indeed, quite literally it evidences mental instability of a sort we are all prone to (especially those of us who sit on forums all night writing about this shite Wink ).

For every retrospective Pol Pot there are a hundred Saddam Husseins to be managed; or, on the flipside, a hundred Iraqs to pour money and lives into for arbitrary, chaotic outcomes if you lose your calm, or hand power over to Neanderthals like Bushes and Abbotts, narcissists like Blair, or cowards like Howard.

Play the demographics of the present world, not those of rural eighteenth-century Scotland.

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Mugwump 



Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne

PostPosted: Sun Feb 14, 2016 1:17 am
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Aside from the last throwaway remark, i can agree with a good deal of that. My only point is that there can never be only negotiation, amd there rights and wrongs. The cause of wrong - narcissistic psychopathy or whatever - is a bit of a second order issue. If a narcissistic psychopath wants to kill you, or enslave your neighbourhood, you have to stop him. If tou can negotiate him back into a corner, then fine ; but the odds are that you'll only be able to do that if he believes you'll use force when he comes out of his corner.

So I simply disagree with your assertion that there is no right and wrong, only negotiation. There is right and wrong, then there is negotiation, then there is force. I pray that we never have to use the latter, not least because our society has become so disunited and decadent that we're likely to lapse into civil war in the process, but also simply because war is so disgusting. But that ancient counsel "if you want peace, then prepare for war" remains very true, with the proviso "... and don't reach for war unless you have exhausted every reasonable alternative".

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