This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
France and Germany did not join the US in Iraq, so the US ability to dictate to its allies is at least somewhat limited. They aren't obligated to join everything the US decides to do.
Yes, the US got away with smashing a sovereign nation with no criminal charges or serious reprisals. But:
I'd have thought we'd be clear on this after this whole mess. Yes, the US doesn't have to go with its allies into Iran. Yes, the US can just kill a leader of a formidable nation and Trump will likely retire to golf in peace. What did you achieve though?
We basically won the war so we won’t agree. Their leaders are dead. All aims were not achieved like complete regime change but the reason we failed at that is primarily domestic US politics and an unwillingness to cause a lot of Iranian civilian deaths.
Whether the War was worth it is a much different question than whether the US is in charge.
How America chooses to cope is irrelevant. It's especially irrelevant because, for all of the talk that the US would see red bro and just crush if it really wanted to, the supposed wildcard President backed down. You can't even blame it on the effeteness of some Obama-style figure drunk on dreams of liberal internationalism. This is the most vocally ruthless Presidency in a while, that ran around threatening to wipe out their entire civilization and...what happened?
Maybe don't start wars you can't win without massive casualties you're not willing to inflict? Especially don't threaten it if you won't go through.
In any case, I don't see how this isn't a loss. The strait isn't open. The IRGC is still functional enough that the US has to negotiate with it to open it. The US is apparently going to have to pay danegeld and Trump has downplayed disarming them. Iran just now suspended talks again and is working (successfully) to drive a wedge between the US and Israel*
The reason regime change was such a central pillar of the thinking (not some sort of stretch goal) was that it was the only path anyone could see to stopping Iran's nuclear ambitions decisively. That failed.
* Regardless of how one feels about Israel, your enemy being able to do this to you is a sign of weakness.
People like you make me want to just kill every Palestinian and Iranian to prove a point we won because we can.
Iranian Nukes are pushed back a decade minimum. We can bomb then again in the future because easily because their air defenses don’t exists anymore. Their conventional military is degraded.
You are setting the win conditions to Iranian statehood or turned into glass. We don’t want that.
Yes, but people like you make me want to defect to China. Going full psycho is not just another move you can pull out of your repertoire like you're playing blackjack and deciding whether to hit or stay. When you are in protracted legal wrangling over a breach of patent costing 10m USD, the reason you don't just pull out a gun and waste the judge, plaintiff and opposing council isn't because it won't work, it's because making it clear that you are a psycho with no switches except 'kill' and 'don't kill' acts as a strong signal to everyone else that they need to drop everything and focus on killing you now.
Case in point: all of Israel's former allies now loathe them. To the extent that there is any support for Israel remaining, it is that senior politicians manage to temporarily squeeze it out whilst avoiding increasingly bipartisan pressure from all the up-and-coming politicians. Whatever the provocation, going straight to 'kill everyone' is not a good move unless you are obviously so desperate that there is no other choice. America is very clearly not in that position.
You don’t pull out and kill the judge in a patent dispute is become the US federal government has a monopoly on violence here.
Who has an international monopoly on violence? That would be the US which makes them the judge in this case.
Yes we can just do things and there is no one that can stop us.
And spare me….but but but there are exceptions to the US having a monopoly on global violence. Yes I know it’s not a 100% true it’s only 80% true. We can bomb Israel tomorrow if they disobey us. We can cause Iranian population collapse if we want to.
I have no problem if you move to China.
The US doesn't have a monopoly on violence, it has a commanding market share. This should be terrifying.
There is no monopoly on force. There is no Constitution, there is no rulebook, there is no immovable constraint on escalation nor any way to roll back decisions you've made. That means America isn't a judge either. It's just another monkey, just one with the biggest stick. And yes, that stick gives it leeway.
But a monkey with a big stick can still suffer consequences, especially if it shows the other monkeys that it is willing to destroy them for things that do not warrant it.
This isn't the time of the Old Testament. Or the age of the Romans. We live in a world where you can wipe millions out with '40s tech, and can do an even better job of it with biological research.
What, you think you're the only ones who can be ruthless? A lot of these countries have proven themselves as or more ruthless than Americans. In this situation people don't even have to want to be suicidally defiant, you can see how these things can escape containment or get out of hand.
In any case, your theory of the case is simply not shared by most of the world leaders (thankfully). You have to explain why they're all wrong for not escalating to hell when facing serious resistance.
I feel like you are referencing a right-wing view that it is terrifying the US has dominant power which is true and I agree with. But we do in fact have dominant power which is what I am arguing is true.
It’s interesting you reference a constitution because I don’t believe the US has a constitution witness 2nd Amendment cases where the right to bear arms as written on paper is far broader than what the US regime allows.
The opinion of other world leaders is irrelevant here. I am stating their opinions do not matter because America is the hegemon.
There is a difference between "is the pre-eminent power in the known world" and "has over 50% of the power in the known world, such that balancing fails and hegemony ensues because it can defeat every other nation put together". Tanista's claim is that #1 is true of the USA but #2 is false, which means the USA does in fact still need to do normal diplomacy (because while it could defeat any one nation, there is more than one non-US nation and it could not defeat them all at once).
The obvious historical parallel is Britain moving from "splendid isolation" and the "rule of two"* in the nineteenth century to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Entente Cordiale and Special Relationship in the early twentieth (in which Britain was still the pre-eminent power, just not by such an impressive margin).
*The "rule of two" was that the British navy was larger than the second-largest and third-largest navies put together. This enabled "splendid isolation", in which Britain refused to form long-term alliances because it was invincible anyway. Indeed, one thing that stands out during the Napoleonic Wars was that Britain was the only country in the anti-Napoleon coalitions to never make peace with Napoleon; they didn't have to, because even with Napoleon and his puppet states across Europe - and for the last few years, the USA - against them simultaneously, the Royal Navy still made Britain and most of its dominions completely safe. That is the power that lets you say "fuck you" to diplomacy. It's the power the Romans had in Europe and the Med. It's the power the Persians sometimes had in West Asia (though not all that often). It's the power the Chinese had in the Far East for so long they forgot it could end (which is why they got bitchslapped in the Opium Wars; they said "fuck you" to Britain without the capability to back it up). You can maybe find some more examples, but there aren't many.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link