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 -
So, perhaps this too much of a war question, rather than a culture war one, but I'm having trouble understanding why Iran is launching attacks on random cargo ships in the Red Sea via proxies in Yemen, and now apparently directly https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-67811929 .
Ok, at least some of the vessels are Israeli linked, and they're hitting at US warships, but my confusion is what this hopes to achieve. Operation Preying Mantis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis seems an apt concern for the Iranians as a repeat: they cant hope to exert serious pressure on Israel's economy, and the moment they sink or damage a warship they're getting hit hard surely? And is it earning them any friends?
Meanwhile Hezbolah is Iranian backed and maybe directly controlled, and has done little in the current conflict. If you want to apply pressure to Israel, isnt that the way, especially given that Hezbolah has resources Hamas does not and could seriously threaten another front that would need actual Israeli resources. Iran isnt going all out with its assets, or the assets in cases are refusing to for self preservation.
So why hit ships? Is it really all they can do? Do they assume the US cant respond? Maybe it earns them some respect from the muslim world for standing up, but it just seems... odd. I'm not exactly Bismark, but I'm clearly missing something.
The Iranians and their allies know that the US Navy has other commitments, they really cannot afford another front opening up in Yemen. We should be looking at this as a global conflict. It's not just Iran and proxies vs Israel and US.
Raising oil prices is good for Iran and constraining Liberian (US) shipping is good for the whole Russia-Chinese-Iranian axis. I'm not saying there's a grand conspiracy where everyone is taking orders from Xi but they do have similar motivations and shared interests. We see Russian and Chinese tankers going untouched. Elements of the Chinese navy are hanging about nearby ignoring Israeli merchant ships that complain about being attacked. It also harms US prestige for its allies to be unable to use Suez.
Times have changed since the 1980s - Iranian anti-ship missiles and anti-access, area-denial weapons generally are more potent than they were, in comparative terms. The US is shooting down $2000 drones with $2 million dollar missiles that can't be resupplied at sea. This is not really sustainable.
What is the US supposed to do? Bombing Yemen has been tried and hasn't worked out for the US alliance group. Aircraft and armaments need to be conserved for the primary theater in Asia anyway. Invading Yemen is a disastrous proposition, second only to invading Iran.
What can Israel do? They're prepared to fight Hezbollah and Lebanon but their options for fighting Yemen are much less promising. If Hezbollah and Iran preserve their strength for if/when China and Russia fully enter the war, they have a greater chance of getting what they want. Plinking away at US merchant shipping and tying down forces in the Red Sea contributes to their group at relatively low risk.
On the other hand, it hurts Russia and China as well.
China is demand starved and this severely limits their competitiveness in European markets since they only do a minority of commercial shipping out of China and that isn't changing soon. This couldn't come at a worse time for them.
Russia does very little of their own shipping and ships going around the cape means that more shipping capacity is going to get bought buy Europeans, especially in big tankers. This risks significantly decreasing the volume of commercially viable russian oil exports (which could be good for Iran I suppose).
Europe obviously hurts from the higher shipping costs.
Egypt faces catastrophy if their Forex dries up and the rest of the Arab world hurts in the sense that it further decrease their ability to affect oil prices and the higher prices go to shippers, not them.
The only ones that unambiguously win in a material sense is the US, which one could suspect is why the response has been so tepid and seemingly inept, if one is conspiratorially minded.
I think it's just that America is administratively paralysed and inept and that this coincidentally hurts everyone but themselves in a material sense but also hurts their prestige and legitimacy as hegemon which I believe is probably more important than any short term economic gains.
I agree. At least one of the reasons you’ve seen the US be very limited in its response so far is that going full World Police now just allows everyone else in the region to abrogate their responsibilities and blame all violence on America. They want China to get upset with Iran, and are willing to drag things out to get it.
Even Egypt isn’t publicly condemning the Houthis yet, and China hasn’t said anything. Ironically, Israel’s a possible winner if this drags out, especially now the overland route between Saudi and Egypt (via Israel) is gaining steam.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link