Military spending vs societal benefits

[Emily Lake]

Is it your position that wars can only ever be won by the commission of war crimes?

For the fifth and last time, no. War crimes do not help win wars.

I have not suggested they do. It is, however, directly implied by your own line of argument that wars can only be won that way.

Wars inevitably result in war crimes, however, and escalation of conflicts increases the likelihood of both the frequency and severity of such atrocities. If you are pushing for an escalation of social violence in a region, one consequence of executing that policy will be an intensification of all forms of violence, not just your preferred forms.

And even those aren't as nice as you're thinking. I suspect you'd have a harder time stomaching it if you were witnessing in person what a team of SEALS does to a bunch of teenagers in honest, non-"criminal" warfare. A fifteen year old with only two-thirds of a head left is not a pretty sight. You're trying to draw some line in the sand where shooting someone's guts out is perfectly acceptable but rape is an unforgiveable crime. It is, but for my money at least, so is brutally murdering some teenaged boy you don't even know, because his family made a choice he had no say in and posted him at the entrance of a safe house with a gun he barely knows how to use. You don't really think of "terrorists" as "people", so you don't mind casually discussing killing them without reservation.

That's some made up bullshit. You don't know my mind, don't make shit up.

But they are people. And most of the people who would have died, had we attempted more surges like the one in 2009, would not have been stereotypical movie villains. Plenty if not most of them would have just been kids. I note that our overall strategic position weakened considerably during that final major surge. More surges would have had similar results.

I continue to feel that you have no idea what living in a country at war is like.

And you do? what war-torn yada yada

No, I haven't ever been posted in a war theater, and thank god for that. But see, I'm not hypothesizing how useful/effective it would be to kill more people in foreign wars.

You make a lot of assumptions without basis. You repeatedly and continually assume that when I say "increased military aggression" I mean "wantonly kill everyone and also scalp and rape them" which is a fuck up of your own inventing.

I'm not glib about the suffering of others, or cruel to the victims of my country's wars.

Nor am I so stop making malicious assumptions about the state of my mind.

 

[Emily Lake]

You're still not looking at how big a change it would have made if Hawaii had fallen. Japan would have been free to send their entire strength south--and there was nothing down there that could stand up to it. They could have pretty much ignored us--WWII tech simply didn't allow much of a strike that far out.

Are you certain? I'm not an expert... but I thought that the majority of our Pacific Theater strategy was based around aircraft carriers and submarines - and those didn't use Hawaii as a major base of operations. I thought Pearl Harbor was pretty much out of commission for the majority of our activity in the Pacific, and not used as a hub.

There's a limit to how far away from a base a fleet can operate. Logistics becomes a nightmare.

Are you familiar with these things we call Carrier Battle Groups? They stay at sea for extended periods of time, and have since we first started using them in WW2.

 

[Politesse]

Is it your position that wars can only ever be won by the commission of war crimes?

For the fifth and last time, no. War crimes do not help win wars.

I have not suggested they do. It is, however, directly implied by your own line of argument that wars can only be won that way.

Wars inevitably result in war crimes, however, and escalation of conflicts increases the likelihood of both the frequency and severity of such atrocities. If you are pushing for an escalation of social violence in a region, one consequence of executing that policy will be an intensification of all forms of violence, not just your preferred forms.

And even those aren't as nice as you're thinking. I suspect you'd have a harder time stomaching it if you were witnessing in person what a team of SEALS does to a bunch of teenagers in honest, non-"criminal" warfare. A fifteen year old with only two-thirds of a head left is not a pretty sight. You're trying to draw some line in the sand where shooting someone's guts out is perfectly acceptable but rape is an unforgiveable crime. It is, but for my money at least, so is brutally murdering some teenaged boy you don't even know, because his family made a choice he had no say in and posted him at the entrance of a safe house with a gun he barely knows how to use. You don't really think of "terrorists" as "people", so you don't mind casually discussing killing them without reservation.

That's some lying made up bullshit. You don't know my mind, don't make shit up.

But they are people. And most of the people who would have died, had we attempted more surges like the one in 2009, would not have been stereotypical movie villains. Plenty if not most of them would have just been kids. I note that our overall strategic position weakened considerably during that final major surge. More surges would have had similar results.

I continue to feel that you have no idea what living in a country at war is like.

And you do? what war-torn yada yada

No, I haven't ever been posted in a war theater, and thank god for that. But see, I'm not hypothesizing how useful/effective it would be to kill more people in foreign wars.

You make a lot of assumptions without basis. You repeatedly and continually assume that when I say "increased military aggression" I mean "wantonly kill everyone and also scalp and rape them" which is a fuck up of your own inventing.

I'm not glib about the suffering of others, or cruel to the victims of my country's wars.

Nor am I so stop making malicious assumptions about the state of my mind.

I don't think those things are in your mind. I think you are deluded, and have no idea what the results of the action you are calling for would look like in effect, or what the result of them would be.

 

[Emily Lake]

I don't think those things are in your mind. I think you are deluded, and have no idea what the results of the action you are calling for would look like in effect, or what the result of them would be.

Just so we're on the same page... Can you describe the action that you believe I'm calling for?

 

[Politesse]

I don't think those things are in your mind. I think you are deluded, and have no idea what the results of the action you are calling for would look like in effect, or what the result of them would be.

Just so we're on the same page... Can you describe the action that you believe I'm calling for?

You claimed that "pushing harder" in Afghanistan would have resulted in "winning" the conflict.

 

[Emily Lake]

I don't think those things are in your mind. I think you are deluded, and have no idea what the results of the action you are calling for would look like in effect, or what the result of them would be.

Just so we're on the same page... Can you describe the action that you believe I'm calling for?

You claimed that "pushing harder" in Afghanistan would have resulted in "winning" the conflict.

That's not an answer to my question. Be specific. You clearly have assumptions about what actions you think I want - spell them out. What actual specific actions do you believe I called for?


I didn't claim "pushing harder" would win. If you're going to argue against my position, at least have the decency to argue against MY position, rather than something you just invented all by your lonesome.

 

[Emily Lake]

You know what? I don't actually trust you to go back and re-read the interaction, let alone give it some real consideration. So allow me to recap for you how this went down. Then perhaps you can take a good look at your own behavior and the assumptions that YOU made.

You can... it's just not pretty. And a sizable portion of both our political machine and our citizenry have an aversion to the means necessary to win. Not saying they're wrong in that view, just saying that it wasn't "inherently unwinnable". It was unwinnable when we handcuff our wrist to our ankles so that we're being humane and compassionate toward an enemy who does not show us that same respect.

So you believe more killing, scalping, etc, all the classic accoutrements of the American imperial regime would have "won" the conflict?

Honestly Poli, sometimes I wonder what is going on in your brain that takes you to such an extreme assumption. But hey, thanks for just one more installment of "Poli assigns malice to an interlocutor for no good fucking reason"

So, you want warfare without an "aversion to the means necessary to win", just not "malicious" warfare? You want war crimes but only, like, the friendly kind?

I don't approve of atrocities, and the fact that you can't seem to envision an approach of highly directed aggression that doesn't involve war crimes says a fuck-ton of a lot more about you and your fucked up brain than anything at all about me.

Then you should know better. Brutality does not lead to success over the long term, and there is no evidence to suggest that it would.

You know YOU are the one who decided on brutality, right? Not me. That leap is 100% on you.

Perhaps you could clarify your own point, then.

Perhaps you could ask before you jump to the assumption that I want to brutally scalp people with no morals to speak of

Our actions in Afghanistan were actually very mild-mannered. We took a largely defensive position with the objective of preventing terrorist infiltration in strategic areas. With some exceptions, our direct actions were implemented only after the enemy engaged in clearly aggressive undertakings.

But we have the technology and the skill to be much more directly aggressive. That doesn't mean "more brutal" which seems to be the only thing you're capable of imagining. We definitely could have taken the initiative in pursuing terrorist cells and locations, and taking the fight to them. We could have been significantly more direct in hunting down and eradicating terrorist activities.

But we didn't. There are reasons for it, and one of those reasons is that we, as a country, don't want to be perceived as the aggressor. It's a political and a PR position, wherein we placed more emphasis on defensive actions, including infrastructure and support for the local citizens of the areas in which we acted.

Another of the reasons is very likely to be that we don't want to show our hand. The terrorists we were fighting were pretty low-tech, at least in comparison to our capabilities. We only used the level of technology needed to keep them at bay - ultimately they're not the biggest threat to either the US or to our allies. It's in our strategic interests to not expose the extent of our technological capabilities in action against what is ultimately a lesser opponent.

Over and over, you take what I say, and you apply your own assumptions to it. You ascribe a bloodthirstiness to me that I have not demonstrated nor indicated. You assume that more aggressive directed approach must necessarily translate to war crimes, rape, and scalpings as the means of approach.

YOU are the one who seems to be obsessed with brutality - so please stop foisting your own beliefs onto me.

 

[Politesse]

You know what? I don't actually trust you to go back and re-read the interaction, let alone give it some real consideration. So allow me to recap for you how this went down. Then perhaps you can take a good look at your own behavior and the assumptions that YOU made.

You can... it's just not pretty. And a sizable portion of both our political machine and our citizenry have an aversion to the means necessary to win. Not saying they're wrong in that view, just saying that it wasn't "inherently unwinnable". It was unwinnable when we handcuff our wrist to our ankles so that we're being humane and compassionate toward an enemy who does not show us that same respect.

To clarify, you believe that the US was pursuing a humane and compassionate policy* in the war as it was fought. And that we would have "won the war", if we had embraced less humane and less compassionate approach. Yes? Those are your words. I have highlighted them in your own quote of your own post.

* a "humane and compassionate" policy which, to be clear, included widespread incidents of rape, scalping, and other forms of retributory despoilation of bodies, covered up and thus implicitly endorsed by senior military leadership until the media caught wind of it.

 

[steve_bank]

Military spending has always been a form of welfare, or govt subsidy. Some comm untie depend on local militray bases.

The Gaza War is probably a windfall for military companies as it was during VN and Iraq wars.

In the 8os defense campaniles was the place to o to get experience. They had the money to hire inexperienced engineers and provide training programs.

And there is the trickle down effect. All the comeliness that feed into defense contractors.

I spent time at Lockheed in the 80s.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You're still not looking at how big a change it would have made if Hawaii had fallen. Japan would have been free to send their entire strength south--and there was nothing down there that could stand up to it. They could have pretty much ignored us--WWII tech simply didn't allow much of a strike that far out.

Are you certain? I'm not an expert... but I thought that the majority of our Pacific Theater strategy was based around aircraft carriers and submarines - and those didn't use Hawaii as a major base of operations. I thought Pearl Harbor was pretty much out of commission for the majority of our activity in the Pacific, and not used as a hub.

There's a limit to how far away from a base a fleet can operate. Logistics becomes a nightmare.

Are you familiar with these things we call Carrier Battle Groups? They stay at sea for extended periods of time, and have since we first started using them in WW2.

1) Realize that many of those ships are now nuclear powered?

2) Being able to remain at sea X days is not the same thing as being able to project power at X/2 days distance from a friendly port. That CBG isn't going to stay at sea that long if the oilers don't come.

 

[Emily Lake]

You're still not looking at how big a change it would have made if Hawaii had fallen. Japan would have been free to send their entire strength south--and there was nothing down there that could stand up to it. They could have pretty much ignored us--WWII tech simply didn't allow much of a strike that far out.

Are you certain? I'm not an expert... but I thought that the majority of our Pacific Theater strategy was based around aircraft carriers and submarines - and those didn't use Hawaii as a major base of operations. I thought Pearl Harbor was pretty much out of commission for the majority of our activity in the Pacific, and not used as a hub.

There's a limit to how far away from a base a fleet can operate. Logistics becomes a nightmare.

Are you familiar with these things we call Carrier Battle Groups? They stay at sea for extended periods of time, and have since we first started using them in WW2.

1) Realize that many of those ships are now nuclear powered?

2) Being able to remain at sea X days is not the same thing as being able to project power at X/2 days distance from a friendly port. That CBG isn't going to stay at sea that long if the oilers don't come.

Yeah. Now that they're nuclear, they only need to port if they run out of food, and they can stay at sea for months unclassified - which means a lot longer classified. During WW2, the CBGs could stay at see for a few months - more than enough time to cross the pacific to AU or Guam or other south pacific ports.

US military is fan-fucking-tastic at logistics. We have excellent technology, comprehensive training, and our troops are largely willing volunteers... but one of our biggest strengths really is logistics.