The price of peace...

[Necrometer]

I am generally in a state of agitation over the perpetual US military presence overseas. Pretty much everything we've done in my lifetime (since '80) seems like a retarded, paranoid, pre-emptive, chest-beating waste of money, but since we can't ever know what would happen otherwise, I can't have certainty that this approach is without merit. But it remains my gut instinct.

An extremely stupid but well-educated (re: foreign affairs) acquaintance of mine claims that in spite of the constant militarism I bitch about, the world is - overall - a less violent place than ever. He claims that there's more "peace" now than ever, and there are less deaths from violent conflict than ever.

Is anyone willing to back this guy up and help convince me that there's any way life in the US would be WORSE with the $1 trillion spent in the middle east since 2001 re-applied to something more productive than fucking around in the desert? I have no idea how much loot we've sent to Israel but I'd pull the plug on that instanly as well. Unless you can convince me otherwise. Why not just have a department of defense that does what it's supposed to - defend?

[necrothrash]

His argument was explained in Newsweek magazine last month.

[riley-o]

hahaha imagine that incredible mobilization of energy and trillion fucking dollars going to something positive

it seriously makes me feel like i'm insane when i try to comprehend the "why" of this shit, like there's just a fundamental piece of me missing when i try to follow the logic that results in "we are spending our money and our lives killing and dying with no actual tangible result"

but whatever, it's all good

[dreweq]

good times, it's a volunteer army

[Necrometer]

I will find that Newsweek article... is that shit online? Can you tell me what's on the cover? Biochem department has a reading room WELL STOCKED with Newsweek.

hahaha imagine that incredible mobilization of energy and trillion fucking dollars going to something positive

wait... are you upbeat like "oh man a thousand billion dollars? there's no way you could go wrong!"

or cynical like "yeah the government would fuck it up, that's way too many dollars to not get funneled mostly to some fat-cat"

ok the second one doesn't make as much sense, skip that... but yes of course this thread is filled with the same fuzzy-headed feelings of "why"

[Cryptoplasty]

ask battletard or advances|monkey.

[Necrometer]

good times, it's a volunteer army

is mocking the idea of having no standing army? I think we could get by on just the national guard and ALL THE NUKES that apparently we're uniquely allowed to have because (???) we have demonstrated we have the sense to use them responsibly? when's the last time another country attacked our country? fucking Pearl Harbor? HAWAII DOESN'T COUNT. defense budget could be a quarter what it is, easy - if we cut the pre-emptive bullshit

ask battletard or advances|monkey.

by asking everyone, I am asking them

[neckbeard]

Purpose of military is to take money from me and you and give to Raytheon, Grumman, etc...

Taking our money under threat of violence is violent.

[Necrometer]

Purpose of military is to take money from me and you and give to Raytheon, Grumman, etc...

I'm more comfortable with the fleecing if the endpoint is scary toys, but that's not the endpoint - people are suffering, dying, etc. If your stated purpose is corrent, we're near-constantly doing stuff outside the scope of said "purpose". Is the war footage sent home showing us knocking the shit out of the third-world desert-dwellers simply GREAT promotional material to keep people generally convinced that more and better toys need built?

His argument was explained in Newsweek magazine last month.

This? http://www.newsweek.com/id/225616

[F/K/A HAPF]

Conflict creates jobs for Americans. Between soldiers, private security, and manufacturers of weapons and vehicles of war that is a lot of people who would need some kind of work. Without these jobs the economies of many places would suffer/end completely.

[Wang Mandu]

Or the countless overseas bases in peaceful countries. God I hate the US military.

[ThE GodDamN BattletweeteR]

I am generally in a state of agitation over the perpetual US military presence overseas. Pretty much everything we've done in my lifetime (since '80) seems like a retarded, paranoid, pre-emptive, chest-beating waste of money, but since we can't ever know what would happen otherwise, I can't have certainty that this approach is without merit. But it remains my gut instinct.

An extremely stupid but well-educated (re: foreign affairs) acquaintance of mine claims that in spite of the constant militarism I bitch about, the world is - overall - a less violent place than ever. He claims that there's more "peace" now than ever, and there are less deaths from violent conflict than ever.

Is anyone willing to back this guy up and help convince me that there's any way life in the US would be WORSE with the $1 trillion spent in the middle east since 2001 re-applied to something more productive than fucking around in the desert? I have no idea how much loot we've sent to Israel but I'd pull the plug on that instanly as well. Unless you can convince me otherwise. Why not just have a department of defense that does what it's supposed to - defend?

is "now" from the 80's to today ? then he may be right about the violence between countries being less.

[soiled depends]

I am generally in a state of agitation

Understood!!!

[ThE GodDamN BattletweeteR]

Or the countless overseas bases in peaceful countries. God I hate the US military.

a "peaceful country" such as ?

[Necrometer]

Conflict creates jobs for Americans. Between soldiers, private security, and manufacturers of weapons and vehicles of war that is a lot of people who would need some kind of work. Without these jobs the economies of many places would suffer/end completely.

OK sure, but like I said to neckbeard, a lot of those backwards-logic "positives" would still be present if we weren't actively killing brownies in pointless tours. Also, there's no reason all those dollars creating military jobs can't be redirected to educational technology and jobs. If we're going to build our own internal non-capitalist industry, why not send it towards something positive?

is "now" from the 80's to today ? then he may be right about the violence between countries being less.

Yeah, I think he was specifically talking about that era.

And yes, that Newsweek article is quite on-topic, though it reads sort of like propaganda (zero surprise)

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

As the media keep reminding us, the world seems as violent as ever. Armed conflicts rack more than a dozen nations, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Sudan, Burundi, Somalia, and Colombia. We are awash in weapons, from AK-47s to nuclear-tipped missiles. The eight declared nuclear states possess more than 23,000 warheads among them, and efforts to persuade Iran and North Korea to abandon their nuclear ambitions have failed. The U.S. still spends almost as much on defense as all other countries combined, while growth in global military spending has surged 44 percent since 1999, led by Russia (173 percent) and China (194 percent). "The past year saw increasing threats to security, stability, and peace in nearly every corner of the globe," the Stockholm International Peace Re-search Institute recently warned.

The economic crisis was supposed to increase violence around the world. The truth is that we are now living in one of the most peaceful periods since war first arose 10 or 12 millennia ago. The relative calm of our era, say scientists who study warfare in history and even prehistory, belies the popular, pessimistic notion that war is so deeply rooted in our nature that we can never abolish it. In fact, war seems to be a largely cultural phenomenon, which culture is now helping us eradicate. Some scholars now even cautiously speculate that the era of traditional war—fought by two uniformed, state-sponsored armies—might be drawing to a close. "War could be on the verge of ceasing to exist as a substantial phenomenon," says John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University.


That might sound crazy, but consider: if war is defined as a conflict between two or more nations resulting in at least 1,000 deaths in a year, there have been no wars since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and no wars between major industrialized powers since World War II. Civil wars have also declined from their peak in the early 1990s, when fighting tore apart Rwanda, the Balkans, and other regions. Most armed conflicts now consist of low-level guerrilla campaigns, insurgencies, and terrorism—what Mueller calls the "remnants of war."

These facts would provide little comfort if war's remnants were nonetheless killing millions of people—but they're not. Recent studies reveal a clear downward trend. In 2008, 25,600 combatants and civilians were killed as a direct result of armed conflicts, according to the University of Uppsala Conflict Data Program in Sweden. Two thirds of these deaths took place in just three trouble spots: Sri Lanka (8,400), Afghanistan (4,600), and Iraq (4,000).

Uppsala's figures exclude deaths from "one-sided conflict," in which combatants deliberately kill unarmed civilians, and "indirect" deaths from war-related disease and famine, but even when these casualties are included, annual war-related deaths from 2004 to 2007 are still low by historical standards. Acts of terrorism, like the 9/11 attacks or the 2004 bombing of Spanish trains, account for less than 1 percent of fatalities. In contrast, car accidents kill more than 1 million people a year.

The contrast between our century and the previous one is striking. In the second half of the 20th century, war killed as many as 40 million people, both directly and indirectly, or 800,000 people a year, according to Milton Leitenberg of the University of Maryland. He estimates that 190 million people, or 3.8 million a year, died as a result of wars and state--sponsored genocides during the cataclysmic first half of the century. Considered as a percentage of population, the body count of the 20th century is comparable to that of blood-soaked earlier cultures, such as the Aztecs, the Romans, and the Greeks.

By far the most warlike societies are those that preceded civilization. War killed as many as 25 percent of all pre-state people, a rate 10 times higher than that of the 20th century, estimates anthropologist Lawrence Keeley of the University of Illinois. Our ancestors were not always so bellicose, however: there is virtually no clear-cut evidence of lethal group aggression by humans prior to 12,000 years ago. Then, "warfare appeared in the evolutionary trajectory of an increasing number of societies around the world," says anthropologist Jonathan Haas of Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History. He attributes the emergence of warfare to several factors: growing population density, environmental stresses that diminished food sources, and the separation of people into culturally distinct groups. "It is only after the cultural foundations have been laid for distinguishing 'us' from 'them,' " he says, "that raiding, killing, and burning appear as a complex response to the external stress of environmental problems."

Early civilizations, such as those founded in Mesopotamia and Egypt 6,000 years ago, were extremely warlike. They assembled large armies and began inventing new techniques and technologies for killing, from horse-drawn chariots and catapults to bombs. But nation-states also developed laws and institutions for resolving disputes nonviolently, at least within their borders. These cultural innovations helped reduce the endless, tit-for-tat feuding that plagued pre-state societies.

A host of other cultural factors may explain the more recent drop-off in international war and other forms of social violence. One is a surge in democratic rather than totalitarian governance. Over the past two centuries democracies such as the U.S. have rarely if ever fought each other. Democracy is also associated with low levels of violence within nations. Only 20 democratic nations existed at the end of World War II; the number has since more than quadrupled. Yale historian Bruce Russett contends that international institutions such as the United Nations and the European Union also contribute to this "democratic peace" phenomenon by fostering economic interdependence. Advances in civil rights for women may also be making us more peaceful. As women's education and economic opportunities rise, birthrates fall, decreasing demands on governmental and medical services and depletion of natural resources, which can otherwise lead to social unrest.

Better public health is another contributing factor. Over the past century, average life spans have almost doubled, which could make us less willing to risk our lives by engaging in war and other forms of violence, proposes Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker. At the same time, he points out, globalization and communications have made us increasingly interdependent on, and empathetic toward, others outside of our immediate "tribes."

Of course, the world remains a dangerous place, vulnerable to disruptive, unpredictable events like terrorist attacks. Other looming threats to peace include climate change, which could produce droughts and endanger our food supplies; overpopulation; and the spread of violent religious extremism, as embodied by Al Qaeda. A global financial meltdown or ecological catastrophe could plunge us back into the kind of violent, Hobbesian chaos that plagued many pre--state societies thousands of years ago. "War is not intrinsic to human nature, but neither is peace," warns the political scientist Nils Petter Gleditsch of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo.

So far the trends are positive. If they continue, who knows? World peace—the dream of countless visionaries and -beauty--pageant -contestants—or something like it may finally come to pass.

[Wang Mandu]

Or the countless overseas bases in peaceful countries. God I hate the US military.

a "peaceful country" such as ?

Uhhh, Japan, South Korea, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, Germany, etc. I'd love/dread to see how much money gets wasted maintaining all these bases.

[necrothrash]

globalization and communications have made us increasingly interdependent on, and empathetic toward, others outside of our immediate "tribes."

[Necrometer]

hahahaha

immature sarcastic critique of jewsweek article:
"a globalized economy is the recipe for peace! so is a democratic superpower... you see, two democracies have never fought each other, and since "war" is only when more than 1,000 people are non-accidentally killed, there's no more war! oh, and also the UN - which the US doesn't give a flying fuck about when they have a warboner - they made peace also!"

[neckbeard]

OK sure, but like I said to neckbeard, a lot of those backwards-logic "positives" would still be present if we weren't actively killing brownies in pointless tours.

Purpose of military is to take money from me and you and give to Raytheon, Grumman, etc...

I'm more comfortable with the fleecing if the endpoint is scary toys, but that's not the endpoint - people are suffering, dying, etc. If your stated purpose is corrent, we're near-constantly doing stuff outside the scope of said "purpose".

I don't even think there is anything postive. I can't think of anything less productive than using the taxes on someone's house-building profits to blow up someone else's house. We're all working 40 hours or more a week to pay for these bombs. I'm glad I'm not on the other end of them. Gah, I should go brush up and come back with an actual structured post.
And I still think the purpose is what I said and dead ragheads are just collateral damage scape goats.

[Necrometer]

I don't even think there is anything postive. I can't think of anything less productive than using the taxes on someone's house-building profits to blow up someone else's house. We're all working 40 hours or more a week to pay for these bombs. I'm glad I'm not on the other end of them. Gah, I should go brush up and come back with an actual structured post.
And I still think the purpose is what I said and dead ragheads are just collateral damage scape goats.

Scapegoats for what? What the upshot of military engagement against these no-threat enemies on the other side of the world?

And like I tried to say more than once - the standing military and defense budgets CAN exist without anyone dying. That's what I was justifying. There's tons of beneficial technological fallout from the military research.

[BUNGVOX]

An extremely stupid but well-educated (re: foreign affairs) acquaintance of mine claims that in spite of the constant militarism I bitch about, the world is - overall - a less violent place than ever. He claims that there's more "peace" now than ever, and there are less deaths from violent conflict than ever.

does this dude toke reefer and horse around all day?

[Scumfucker]

An extremely stupid but well-educated (re: foreign affairs) acquaintance of mine claims that in spite of the constant militarism I bitch about, the world is - overall - a less violent place than ever. He claims that there's more "peace" now than ever, and there are less deaths from violent conflict than ever.

He is right statistically about violent deaths. At least according to some TED talk that I watched.

I agree with your sentiments regarding war. It's really quite interesting how humans can't figure out how not to war. Even bonobo's live in peace. On a small scale, humans seem to be able to live peacefully, on a larger scale, fighting always seems to occur. I think it makes sense for the most powerful nation to have the best military, yet that doesn't mean that they should be doing all this pre-emptive bullshit.

[neckbeard]

bogeymen


I'd argue that those same benefits or different equal (or better) benefits would still show up in the world through the private, voluntary sector.

[Degree Absolute]

We really need to defend Spain and Portugal and a shitload of Eastern European countries from the Nazis.

[neckbeard]

Teach the bonobos to set up a government and see what happens