site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   1445 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 4, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

4
Top Bottom New Old Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Wars tend to be quite bad from the perspective of the people who are actually taking part in them.

I don't really consider this to be a win for the international community either. What we've really done is expose ourselves to a lot of economic damage in service of having more dead Russians, which is not really something I care about.

Do you consider it worth the lesson to Putin and other belligerent world leaders that war is something you generally shouldn't start, because it leaves you weaker - in terms of your reputation among your own people, in terms of your economy, in terms of your population, relative to the value of the territories you gain - than you would have been had you just stayed home?

(I admit that I'm not just asking a rhetorical question, here. The US spent $7.7x10^10 on teaching a lesson to a handful of misbehaving despots that any grade school teacher will tell the same number of misbehaving kids for $4x10^5)

I guess it depends on how much other people will go "lol, Russians were totally incompetent unlike our glorious empire".

Though maybe there will be some learning from that? But I would not describe as worth having, at most it is better then Russia clearly wining and lesson being "you can invade country in Europe and nothing bad will happen for you".

If the Ukraine war is in fact, The Last War, I will concede the point. But more likely, people will simply reach the conclusion that the Russians are just not very competent. Just as the Iraq War, which left the US weaker for nebulous gain, did not teach the world that war was never acceptable.

*interestingly, I've read that the Chinese, great students of the Soviet collapse, were strongly influenced by the failure of the Soviets in Afghanistan. Which is why they're so peaceful today.

Maybe I'm not understanding you, but this feels like two contradictory ideas. I grant that onlookers may just see Russia as inept, but if the Chinese were influenced by the failure of the Soviets in Afghanistan, wouldn't various aggressive powers also tend to be influenced by the failure of Russia today?

I was being sarcastic about China being peaceful. They are currently plotting to invade Taiwan and have been for many years.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats