Megadeath
Well-known member
Lol, it's been going a lot longer than that... Pretty sure there's been wars for basically as long as we've had anything approximating nations.
Armchair General's DonbAss Derailed Discussion Thread (Topics Include History, Traps, and the Ongoing Slavic Civil War plus much much more)
- Thread starter ParadiseLost
- Start date
I was talking about the war on terror Afghanistan and Iraq were exhausting conflicts.
Skallagrim
Well-known member
This is the great weakness of the "Muh Old Republic! No to the American Empire!" strain of throught that is deeply tied into the American Right. I mean... I get that strain of thought, but that ship has sailed. Even thirty years back, Pat Buchanan was already reduced to bitching about how America should have stayed out of the World Wars. He even wrote a whole book about it. All an exercise in alternate history. These people are play-acting as if America didn't choose to become a world power (the world power) a good God-damn century ago.
So, what's their scenario here? NATO is disbanded and Russia triumphantly recreates the Warsaw Pact? And then... what, exactly? How is that good, for anyone? It's not even good for Russia!
I'm.... I can't believe I'm saying this, but those boomers are right. Never let an enemy live. Never decline to shoot a mad dog.
The USSR, that insane monstrosity, is finally completing its delayed self-immolation. For a few decades, it kept existing as a fossilised remnant, but now that remnant is bent of violent suicide by means of bullshit war. And better yet: you don't even have to waste your own lives fighting them. They've picked a fight with their next-door neighbour, and all America (and the wider West) has to do is arm said neighbour to the teeth.
The people who are opposed to this are so attached to the notion that "IMPERIALISM IS BAD, YOU GUYS!" that they would rather see the West lose than see NATO triumph. Even if the cheapest, easiest possible win scenario is right there, within reach.
Megadeath
Well-known member
If you mean specifically for America, then kinda yeah, sure. So I guess it's a good thing no one is really asking America to fight this war. Just gotta sit back and watch the enemy ram their face teeth first into a brick wall. Sure America are helping to fund that wall, but saying you shouldn't because you're tired of war is like saying you're so tired of making home cooked meals every night that you don't want to order Uber eats.
The Uber eats guy that works my area is pretty terrible at his job. He ate half my food.
Megadeath
Well-known member
Huh. I can't tell if that's an extension of the metaphor or just a personal anecdote? If it's the former I'm sorry but you'll need to elaborate. If it's the latter, that does suck and my sympathy. Dunno about in the US but over here at least they've been very good about compensation the few times I had issues.
The later a half eaten taco is a pretty issue for ones food. The bite marks were a pretty big clue who was responsible.
Megadeath
Well-known member
Um, sorry, are you drunk?
Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
The Right has a tremendous amount of interesting things to say about domestic politics, history and government. But when they open their mouths about foreign policy and geopolitics…God give me strength.
It’s like their IQ has hurled itself from the White Cliffs of Dover. The resulting splat can also often obscure whatever good points they were initially making.
Could they just read Machiavelli and pay a little more attention to the great game of empires of yesteryear? Lord Salisbury was literally the most arch-conservative of them all and he was a master of foreign policy and diplomacy. The Empire reached its zenith under him for a reason.
no the guy litterally took a bite out of the taco and put it back in the bag thinking I wouldn't find out.
Theres a reason why I only used uber eats once, just better to buy it yourself.
strunkenwhite
Well-known member
It was a simple misunderstanding. He thought that "uber eats" meant that the uber guy gets to eat.
I think that is a fringe problem. All the "totally not pushing pacifist\isolationist idiocy, it's totally different and right wing when i say the same stuff Chomsky says" people are usually fringe on domestic policy, more often than not young activists or shady professional activists, and in worst cases, outright leftist ideals being infiltrated to the right through ideological equivalent of california immigrants continuing to vote democrat wherever they go.
A large aspect to that is also plain mindless contrarianism to Bush era GOP, which did have mistakes and problems, but hey, it's not 2008, and also foreign policy is complicated enough that putting a poor one in a mirror won't get you a great foreign policy, it will get you also a bad foreign policy that makes even less sense.
Skallagrim
Well-known member
Thankfully, @Marduk is correct in stating that it's essentially a fringe problem. It's become more prominent than it should be, precisely because the neocons wasted all good-will they ever had on actually senseless wars in the Middle East. (Both Afghanistan and Iraq are countries you shouldn't occupy. If you want to punish them for misbehaviour, just drop a shitload of bombs on all their cities, and tell them you'll do it again if you ever hear so much as a peep out of them.
Most people, however, and certainly most people on the right, do grasp that there's a difference between A) stupid sandbox wars when Western soldiers die for zero gain, and B) facilitating a proxy war that can bleed Russia to death for good.
"It's all so tiresome."
The fact is, most Americans outside DC and the DoD are not interested in playing the game of empires, because that is anathema to what the US was founded to be.Thankfully, @Marduk is correct in stating that it's essentially a fringe problem. It's become more prominent than it should be, precisely because the neocons wasted all good-will they ever had on actually senseless wars in the Middle East. (Both Afghanistan and Iraq are countries you shouldn't occupy. If you want to punish them for misbehaviour, just drop a shitload of bombs on all their cities, and tell them you'll do it again if you ever hear so much as a peep out of them.
Most people, however, and certainly most people on the right, do grasp that there's a difference between A) stupid sandbox wars when Western soldiers die for zero gain, and B) facilitating a proxy war that can bleed Russia to death for good.
"It's all so tiresome."
The US was not founded to be an empire, a world controlling superpower, or the world police/pressure relief value for every other country's issues. We were found in the rejection of an empire, rejection of the old world's games, and on forging our own path, instead of having it dictated to us by Euro's like so many other colonies.
WW1/2 were supposed to be aberrations from the norm of the US caring mostly about the Western hemisphere and not letting ourselves get tangled in Europe's messes; that it turned out we would become a sole world superpower afterwards and MAD would be in play due to nukes was never what the US public was desiring, it was what DC forced the US to become in order to contain the Soviets.
When the USSR 'died', the whole justification for the empire building needed to contain them disappeared in the eyes of much of the US.
It would be very helpful in making support for Ukraine more wide-spread if Euro's would please, please stop acting like the US was founded specifically to protect Europe from Russia and accept that the US public on the whole would really prefer people stopped expecting us to act like an empire.
The Romans felt the exact same way about the Greeks. They still ended up becoming an empire believe or not they weren't happy about it either.
...pretty sure Rome was fine with imperial conquests, even under the Republic, and didn't need Greece to egg them on into it.
So the example/similarity is...a reach at best, non-existent at worst.
Not everything needs to be a Rome comparison, or even comes close to fitting a Rome comparison.
Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
Too bad.
Unless you are Hell bent on becoming part of someone else’s empire, the game of empires is not something you can opt out of.
Bassoe
Well-known member
The difference is that proxy war against Russia somehow manages to be an even worse idea, insofar as none of the irrelevant Middle Eastern sandbox countries actually had Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Tiamat
I've seen the future...
Twitter Thread on the State of Russian Military Medicine... and It's Certainly Not Improving. While Ukraine's pre-war preparations gave it one of the most hospital beds per capita, with eight hospital beds per one million people, compared with five for the European Union.
In Russia reportedly front line hospitals only provide something resembling more comprehensive care to wounded Russian officers with the rank and file often treated without anesthetics or sustained medication. They are often forced to be treated in converted schools and other buildings instead of purpose built medical facilities. Much of the military medical supplies have to be crowdsourced donations. Also medical facilities currently in use are deteriorating. Some hospitals are apparently using beds imported from the British during World War Two's Lend Lease program.
Thread by @ChrisO_wiki on Thread Reader App
@ChrisO_wiki: 1/ Russian front-line hospitals are experiencing acute shortages of personnel and supplies. Only officers are reportedly evacuated to Russia, with ordinary soldiers being treated without anaesthesia or...…threadreaderapp.com
If true....that's not just criminal negligence, that's fucking appalling.
