Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to Good frigging Lord, study some history.

Uh oh, a breakdown of the time-binding faculty
Robert — (archived)

RWD strikes again!

Seriously, Tom, is it that hard for you to imagine that the world might change? Military technology has changed, and in particular the advent of nuclear weapons forced a new way of calculating the odds of success for military adventure. Could the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction have existed in the world prior to that? People don't look at war the way they did in the 19th century and earlier.

The rise of international institutions changed the equation by providing a formal framework for dispute resolution. I'm not saying that the UN has brought Peace On Earth, but it has headed off some wars and also provided a means for international cooperation when war proved necessary. Simply the existence of an international framework adds something new to the equation. Even Bush felt compelled to travel that route, however insincerely, before invading Iraq.

Global economic interdependency certainly changes everything. The thought that starting a war might damage your own economic interests certainly ought to give even the most bellicose leader pause. It raises the cost of war, and that's a good thing all around.

I didn't just pick the period of the last century out of thin air. In retrospect it was unusual in the way that aggression failed time and time again. That's a fact. We developed some powerful techniques for dealing with threats that we shouldn't abandon on a whim. We shouldn't return to the 19th Century view of the world promoted by those whacky neocons.

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