JTarrou
3d ago
All weapons and tactics are a race to the bottom, war is a race to the bottom.
NBA players are often interested in the enforcement of foul rules. They are also interested in skirting those rules when possible to gain advantage in the game. Half the weaponry the US fields is built to skirt the Geneva Conventions in some way too technical or expensive for other people to duplicate.
But war has no actual rules, the other guys don't have to follow shit, that's why they're fighting you.
JTarrou
3d ago
Yes, when the interests of a nation with a military powerful enough to enforce it on other nations aligns with the text of a treaty, it gets enforced. This has nothing to do with the value of the treaty and everything to do with the value of a military powerful enough to enforce it and the interests that power has (or thinks it has).
JTarrou
3d ago
Some countries need landmines, and so will have them, one way or the other. Same thing with nuclear weapons (within technological capability).
International treaties are toilet paper. They can be ignored, unsigned or simply violated at will, because the only thing that enforces an international treaty is military force. Every bit of paper ever dedicated to a treaty draft in all of world history carries less force than I do going to Aldi for butter.
The answer to the question is easy, simple and very difficult to produce with laws or tax policy. Status.
Society has to value the production of productive children higher than it does whatever else the parents do. This can be influenced, but can't be forced by the government, or religion, or propaganda.
It's not really about economics or politics, although that plays in. It's about expectations and values.
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