Dean
Flairless
Variously accused of being a reactionary post-modernist fascist neo-conservative neo-liberal conservative classical liberal critical theorist Nazi Zionist imperialist hypernationalist warmongering isolationist Jewish-Polish-Slavic-Anglo race-traitor masculine-feminine bitch-man. No one yet has guessed multiple people, or a scholar. Add to our list of pejoratives today!
User ID: 430
Dean
Flairless
27d ago
It wasn't chuck Norris - you would only need 1 plane, not 6.
Well, clearly the other stealth bombers are diversions to disguise Chuck Norris's actual entry point for as long as possible.
Dean
Flairless
27d ago
Individuals also tend to consider it to be very different in terms of moral responsibility, and culpability, when helping other people do things they want to do versus when you do something yourself. Individuals have agency and individual responsibility for the actions they choose to do.
Of course, that there is the rub. A common stumbling block in characterizing international affairs is the hyperagency versus hypoagency bias, where the a country's agency is inflated and anyone else's agency and responsibility is diminished / ignored.
Maybe in the sense that as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps becomes ever more entrenched as a state-within-a-state, the corruptive influence of all that money and administrative self-interest will secularize it like the Egyptian Army?
Of course, then you get dynamics where the IRGC's perks and privileges derive from a permanent proxy-war footing, which merely means they'd increasingly rationalize sustained proxy conflicts on increasingly secular grounds, as Pakistan does.
Excellent addition. Especially as not only have the costs of war risen since then, but so have the costs of occupation post-'victory.'
AKs and RPGs were enough to break the cost-benefit logic of emperial economies, and IEDs and manpads could make even 'less total' occupations prohibitively expensive. The modern development of drones are an even greater obstacle to projecting power at a, well, global scale.
This doesn't mean a 'world war' is impossible, but it really does beg the question of who is going to be fighting where how. The US ability at power projection is absolutely going to be hemmed in in the weeks/months/years/decades to come, but so is everyone else.
Dean
Flairless
27d ago
Pretty much. People radically overestimate how hard it would have been for the Ukrainians to disassemble the Soviet nukes and make their own triggering device.
Which is what most of nuclear arms security comes down to. When nuclear munitions have unlock codes in the first place, the 'failsafe' mechanisms are failsafes in the sense of 'this trigger device will be borked.' They are not failsafes in terms of rendering the underlying material unable to be used, only unable to be used by the specific device.
Replace the device, and you have a possibly less efficient, but still effective, nuclear device. Which is among the less challenging parts of the nuclear problem.
Dean
Flairless
27d ago
Specifically, North Korea had enough artillery in range that the casualty estimates for the first day of shelling were on the scale of a Hiroshima/Nagasaki, i.e. a nuclear weapon.
Dean
Flairless
27d ago
The world is in a similar state today
Not really.
There were two main dynamics to the state of geopolitical affairs that let WW1 be WW1. One was the treaty situation, in which most involved states on both sides had staked their security policies / international prestige / credibility that they also needed for other interests into the alliance system. The second was the fact that four great powers (France, UK, Germany, Russia) were competing for influence in a very constrained geopolitical area (peninsular Europe) that they could all project power into. The later is what led to the former is what led to the domino effect.
There is no equivalent concentration of competition or overlap of treaties. As much as the Russians have tried to style a [insert term of choice for grouping] of resistance to the US amongst Iran, Russia, NK, and China, the relationship between them has been fundamentally transactional, not alliance based, and the last few years have emphasized that. The US alliance network similarly does have overlapping effects- there are very few obligations (by design) for out-of-regional issues. Relatedly, most of the non-US actors in the modern system cannot project power to each other if they wanted to, and most US allies in different regions cannot and would not project power to the other as a 'we will fight together' sort of way.
Dean
Flairless
28d ago
Gaddafi did fall to a NATO air campaign stopping and then reversing the civil war's progress, which at the time of intervention he clearly had the momentum in. Had Gaddafi had a nuclear weapon, it's extremely doubtful the NATO air campaign would have occurred, and without that, he would have been doing the butchering.
Dean
Flairless
28d ago
Prior to the last week, I would have assumed Iran was a hard target and thus somewhat untouchable (smaller strikes/assassinations being the limit of messing with them). It's surprising how hard they've been slapped.
This has long been an error in the Iranian model. Iran simultaneously has been persuing a near-breakout strategy, but also an asymmetric proxy war strategy, betting that the former would deter retaliation against the later.
Nuclear deterrence really doesn't work that way, for the same reason that Ukraine didn't refuse to fight Russia because of nukes, and that fears that supporting Ukraine with material to fight back would lead to WW3 were non-credible. Nukes don't really deter retaliation in principle, only the form. So your point here-
But also in some ways, they are still. No one is going to be launching a ground invasion, and the regime is not looking hot right now, but still has power.
-is absolutely correct. But also nukes weren't needed for it. Iran is a mountain fortress, and the US didn't have the stomach for the much 'easier' Iraq occupation. A conquer/displace/occupy threat was not, and still is not, going to happen, even though nukes are the solution to that level of intervention, and even though said nukes aren't present.
It blows me away that despite a close connection to Russia, and increasingly China, they had such terrible IADS. If you can't get invaded, the only way your adversary, who has one of the world's best Airforce's, can cause you serious issues is by air striking you into pieces.
They Tried (TM). It's not that Iran's IADS was terrible- they had a number of modern systems. It's just that any system can be taken apart, and Israel has done a lot of prep work.
They must have thought their missiles and proxys were a deterrent, which they were at one point. But man it kills me. In PvP video games, if things are going well/fine, you should always be asking yourself "how do I lose" and it doesn't seem like the gang in Iran did that at all.
It wasn't just the missiles and proxies, but specifically Syria. If Assad hadn't fallen, this wouldn't be happening today, because Assad wasn't just a proxy/ally, but kept the airspace closed. When Assad fell, the Israeli's bombed the old regime (technically new regime's) air defense systems, which has opened up the air corridor they're using now.
At a larger level, Iran's strategy over-estimated Assad's resilience, missing the scholerosis of how the regime military was becoming more brittle rather than more firm when the Syria civil war went long. In turn, neglecting the defense, Iran over-leveraged the offense. Whether you believe they were directly involved/aware of Hamas' October attack or not, and IIRC there were elements of the IRGC/proxy network that claimed they did, Iran via Hezbollah tried to play it to the hilt in what was probably an attempt at a broader intifada.
That strategy fell flat, in a series of events that led to here. Because the West Bank did not rise up as well, the war was focused on Gaza specifically. Because it was focused on Gaza specifically, Hezbollah was used to open a northern front via the artillery campaign. Because Hezbollah was was using so many munitions for the artillery campaign, Iran was dependent on Syria to keep the flow.
But when Israel thwacked Hezbollah via the pager campaign and follow on fighting, Hezbollah was throne into disarray. Because Hezbollah was thrown into disarray, Iran was unable to rush forces to the Syrian capital to stop the rebel offensive. Because the rebel offensive could not be stopped, the logistic chain to resupply Hezbollah was broken. And the air corridor over Syria was opened. And so on and so on and so on.
That being said. It's not hard to imagine a world in which Israel's air campaign culminates eventually as they run low on munitions and a deal of some flavor is worked out. Then Iran spends the next 5 years rebuilding and furiously fortifying. Maybe they get some tips on anti-espionage purges from the Chinese. And then in 2030 were right back to two weeks ago status quo but this time Iran has hardened everything.
This is a devastating tactical victory for the Israelis, the strategic outcomes remain to be seen...
Pretty much. There are things that could result this in being a bigger strategic and not just tactical victory, but they more or less hinge on the Iranians agreeing to some sort of international seizure of their more highly enriched Uranium, and I'm not sure I see that coming.
We can know, for a fact, that the 2003 Iraq War coalition didn't actually believe their own WMD propaganda. If they thought that Saddam could vaporize the invasion force in a final act of defiance, he'd still be in power today.
?
The Iraq War coalition was framed as a pre-emptive war on the basis that Saddam did not yet have nukes (the only WMD to 'vaporize), but that he was trying to maintain the ability to create them in the future. The theory- propaganda, if you prefer- was that he was known to have pursued them in the past, there was reason to believe he was trying to maintain capabilities while actively circumventing sanctions, and that the consequences would be in the future if not acted upon now.
It was a casus belli premised on the argument that Saddam could not vaporize the invasion force in a final act of defiance.
I once read a comment here that said "being a doctor is one of the most prestigious things you can be". And I just thought... really? Really? I mean it's an important job, don't get me wrong. Thank you for your services. I'm happy for them that they're making a lot of money. But at the end of the day it's, from my perspective, still just another job. Doctors are, modulo individual technical skill, fungible, and fungibility is antithetical to prestige as far as I'm concerned.
There's a game I like to play whenever I go to a new country or region, and that game is 'what job does this culture value most?', as measured by 'what careers do parents, but especially mothers, try to push their children towards?' Or, more flippantly, 'where do the best and brightest get pushed towards?'
There are absolutely countries where being a doctor is uber-prestigious. Korean mothers had (still have, presumably) a reputation for pushing their children hard in that direction. By contrast, an adult who, say, stayed in the professional military beyond the conscription requirement had the stigma of 'maybe they couldn't cut it.' If they were better, they'd get a better job.
But as you note, that sort of prestige isn't a given. Doctoring doesn't get any easier, but there are places in the west where they aren't as respected / striven towards as, say, lawyers. Or financial services. And let's not get into truly different cultures. There are cultures where a military service is considered prestigious (often when access to the military is selective/limited, as opposed to 'scraping the bottom of the barrel). In parts of the middle east, a religious education / islamic religious certification is something broader families take great pride in. Etc. etc. etc.
The game I referenced before comes from how inevitably, any sort of socio-cultural 'list your top X most prestigious jobs you'd be proud of your kids having' tends to leave more than a few highly relevant jobs off for those who are not as good or gifted. It can be fun to (gently! in good faith!) tease out those gaps in social values versus social impact. Surprisingly, not as many people as you might think put 'going into politics' as 'prestigious' for their best and brightest kids... and so who can be surprised when politicians are viewed as midwits? Or 'just' government service? And so on?
If you ever need a cross-culture icebreaker conversation on a low-key social drinking, that's a good one. It's a good way to get your counterpart to open up about their background, why they are in the job they are in, and even what they feel about it- all of which are good for your personal/professional relationship. It's also an opportunity for some comradery, since no matter where they are in their own country's relative preference stack, there's usually another culture where their job would be in as high or even higher esteem (and thus you can signal recognition/respect that their culture may not ascribe to them). Alternatively, if they are highly placed and they know it, you can get them out of their normal headspace by inviting them to wonder what other jobs they might have had in a different context- something which gets them outside of their familiar context of knowing all the things they need to know.
Dean
Flairless
30d ago
You're probably thinking of the time Justice Jackson claimed that black children are nearly twice as likely to survive if they have a black physician. This was part of her dissent in the Harvard admissions case, in which her dissent was in favor of Harvard's racial discrimination practices.
She was making an argument that racial admissions are a matter of life and death, because the lives of black children hinge on racial preferences getting black doctors into schools like Harvard, with the proof being the (bad) study.
I agree, which is why I didn't raise the issue or make an argument based off it. Eliot did, and did so as part of a wave of next-day response posts to dismiss objectors. The 'I can tell your post didn't resonate with anyone else' only works as a dismissal if a lack of 'resonance' is indicative of quality.
I am quite happy to agree that voting is tangential to quality. I also agree with you that it is 100% indicative of agreement/disagreement. An exceptionally high degree of agreement is the evidence of 'resonance' that makes eliot's attempted engagement flex, well, eyebrow worthy.
After all, if there's one thing more cringe than a dude-bro conspicuously flexing how they can pick up heavy weights, it is someone trying to do the same with light weights. It is all of the same arrogance, but none of the capacity.
I can tell by the lack of responses that this comment didn't really resonate with anyone else either.
Looks at OP vote count of -10 at time of writing.
Looks at response vote count of +29 at same time.
Raises eyebrow
It's been awhile since I last saw someone try and pull a 'no one agrees with you' bandwagon fallacy from a nearly 40 vote deficit and from negative resonance.
Is this just "Nothing ever happens, stop overreacting" in more words?
No, it is 'words have meanings, and making false accusations don't make them true.'
False accusations can, however, push people towards motivated reasoning sillyness where they confuse the justified response to their sillyness as tyranny.
Dean
Flairless
1mo ago
If you're speaking metaphorically, you are directionally correct, though so time abstract I can't take any real position. If you're speaking literally, the reason your concept is an exaggeration is because drones are no more immune to the concept of cost-efficiency and opportunity costs and geopolitical balancing than anything else.
But, again, the context is so abstract there's not really much to disagree with.
Dean
Flairless
1mo ago
This goes hand-in-hand with the development and proliferation of weapons that defeat existing defence systems for large, concentrated and valuable assets that have the unfortunate attribute of being in one place. Famously, hypersonic missiles. These and similar traditional weapons make life very hard for humans and large vehicles, but are largely uneffective or wasteful against drones. Drones drones drones. It's all drones from here on out.
Hence drones being a revolution in military affairs, and not just a military revolution in technology. Society itself is going to change / is already changing on the increasing ubiquity of drones, and with that the relationship between societies and war.
I look forward to cheeky American 1st Amendment debates in the future about whether the right to bear arms entails the right to a personal air force derived from the protections of your papers and property (3D printer fabs and raw materials).
Dean
Flairless
1mo ago
Sounds like a still not happy to, then.
Good faith doesn't require such petty sneers.
or the whole thing is a combination of Oppression Fetishized, and being used to drum up support and donations.
'Follow the money' has been sound advice for generations for deciphering contexts for a reason.
As I said I don’t have any special insight into this sort of thing. If the end is to take over and disappear Americans, I don’t know what would look different.
Media controls, which really means internet controls, which really means social media control.
When states turn to disappearance campaigns, one of the key points is that people, well, disappear. Lose track of them. No one can find them for long, long periods of time. And part of this is that you prevent media from being to follow up- and that the media that try, also disappear. No official, reputable media reports on them, and the absence is what is conspicuous. You can't hide that people disappear, and to a degree you don't want to, but the tactice works by the ambiguity. The ambiguity is provided by the media not providing answers.
The current administration has been more notable for reducing the levers of influence over media reporting than in building the influence apparatus. When Trump feuded with Reuters (or was it AP) over the Gulf of America renaming, his retaliation was to... kick the reporting organization out of the press pool. Access is what is typically used as the influence vector of a government over a reporter / organization, since access in controlled circumstances is what gives the ability to build ties / leverage over others. Separation is distance is a decrease in influence.
Similarly, the Trump administration very quickly took direct steps to dismantle the sort of media-influence apparatus that the Biden administration supported. Trump and Rubio very, very quickly distanced the US- and by distanced I mean shut down the parts of the State Department participating in it- government-supported-by-proxy media-rating and fact-checker-black-lists that were used to support, and penalize, media groups based on their reliability.
If the end was to take over and disappear Americans, this is the sort of institutional capacity you would want to coopt, not dismantle.
You would use the government hand to apply aggressive fact checking to purge the political hyperbolics as misinformation, purge the old regime's supporters from the institution, and then use the misinformation pretext to aggressively go after anyone claiming the government was disappearing Americans. Part of this would be by staging a few false positives- for example, conduct to prompt a social media storm that could be proven false- and then use the false-coverage to start administering sanctions/punishments on misinformation grounds.
Dismantling a tool that could be used for a nefarious purpose isn't proof that a nefarious purpose won't occur, but it's about as good as one can get from inference. Especially given the rather elaborate preparation kabuki sets the Trump administration has demonstrated to date, such as the whole DOGE saga and how it started with the USAID takedown. There was a heck of a lot of choreographing in that, which is about as good an indication of prepatory planning, and the sort of policy-cognizant planning that would recognize tools for a crackdown campaign.
Dean
Flairless
1mo ago
That's part of it. When working in lower-trust societies, people make judgements based on their personal relationships, and part of that personal relationship comes from non-textual connotations. There are some writers who can convey their own personality, but by and large its easier and quicker to do so on the basis of the factors you mention.
The Economist isn't particularly highbrow either. Kind of mid-wit for just recycling consensus takes with branding. Very much in the middle of the low-mid-high IQ meme.
Dean
Flairless
1mo ago
Thanks for the summary, that was excellent. Did you find anywhere a further breakdown of who responded to the survey? I'm specifically interested in figuring out who the people in the UK are who responded saying they need more social media enforcement, because those people... have an interesting perspective.
There is a fair bit more source diving in the fuller paper, and more of the raw data stuff on the website that was linked in the 'billed as' section. IIRC, the main trend was 'political left consistently favors more content moderation of social media.'
...until you get outside of the cities with the infrastructure to support a constant surveillance system. Which is to say, most of any given country, including China.
Smart city technologies are indeed a significant counter-insurgency technology. They are not, however, the end-all-be-all, particularly if you have to fight your way into a country to install your own. 'I won't have this problem if I set up a nation-wide panopticon' still requires you to set up a nation-wide panopticon, and those are expensive even without active local and regional resistance, let alone global support flows from cyber attacks / satellite communication support / sanctuary and safezone logistics / etc.
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