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Comment by arminiusreturns | Hacker News Reader

Techthroway's that have never experienced war and don't study international relations and geopolitics should stop suggesting bullshit like this. I get so tired of people advocating more aggressive stances with other nations when it's not their ass or their offsprings that will go to war. This is also why I advocate that next war all the politicians sons and daughters get drafted and then we can see if they still want to go to war.

Oh wait, the congress abdicated it's constitutional duty to be responsible for declaring war via the unconstitutional War Powers Act and AUMF's...

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> Oh wait, the congress abdicated it's constitutional duty to be responsible for declaring war via the unconstitutional War Powers Act and AUMF's...

AUMFs are (often limited and/or conditional) declarations of war, from a Constitutional perspective, not an abdication of the power; the Supreme Court has consistently held that the Constitution doesn't require magic words when exercising the Constitutional power to declare war.

While valid, this is a technical interpretation that misses the point IMO.

Look at the range of actions the AUMF's are applied to. The AUMF's, in effect, allow the executive to wage war pretty much anywhere on the planet for an indefinite amount of time.

In your view, is Congress honoring the spirit of their Constitutional duty?

> Look at the range of actions the AUMF's are applied to. The AUMF's, in effect, allow the executive to wage war pretty much anywhere on the planet for an indefinite amount of time.

Most declarations of war do not have temporal or geographic bounds. What was unusually expansive about the 9/11 AUMF (not AUMFs more generally, neither prior nor subsequent AUMFs have had this feature) is that it also delegates the decision of the actual primary opponent(s) to executive discretion, which, yes, is an abdication of Congressional responsibility. But that's the 9/11 AUMF, not AUMFs in general.

I'm not pro war but at the other end of the spectrum, appeasement in Europe allegedly gave us WWII.

There is no sense of the word "appeasement" that includes the Treaty of Versailles. USA entering WWI and allowing UK and France to win decisively was what caused WWII.

Because apparently it must be said, I am not a "Nazi sympathizer". I would have preferred that the Nazis had never existed let alone dominated a large portion of Europe. Similarly, it would have been better had we not invaded Iraq and caused ISIS to exist.

Not really, the great depression caused by private interests in US overlending to europeans lead to a sovereign debt issue that finally made it possible for Hitler to gain power leading to WW2.

But sure you can ignore the nuance.

>Techthroway's that have never experienced war and don't study international relations and geopolitics should stop suggesting bullshit like this.

I would venture to guess I have significantly more experience and knowledge with the UN Charter Article 2(4), the UN Security Council and the international laws on the use of armed force than you.

No one said anything about "go to war", the Use of armed force is not "going to war". The UN Charter permits the use of armed force in response to acts that infringe on the sovereignty of any nation by military action.

To bury ones head in the sand at this point in history to foreign military acts against a populace is inviting more invasive and damaging acts of cyber warfare. Do you honestly think China is going to say we got away with this we should deescalate?

> No one said anything about "go to war", the Use of armed force is not "going to war".

???

> The UN Charter permits the use of armed force in response to acts that infringe on the sovereignty of any nation by military action.

Should France have nuked Fort Meade to stop the NSA from infringing on their sovereignty?

I don't understand this line of thinking, it's basically "if we do it, yeah, it's cool. If they do it, it's an act of war against our innocent republic", and you figure everybody will agree to that and not treat your cyber attacks similarly?

>> No one said anything about "go to war", the Use of armed force is not "going to war". ???

Consider the US Seal Team military operating in Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed. That was use of armed force, we infringed on Pakistani territorial sovereignty, conducted a military operation and even killed a couple people...I hope you understand that this example of using armed force is not the equivalent of "going to war."

The thing you are missing is that every action like that carries a risk of causing a war much larger than the original action. As a matter of fact within military circles even the Bin Laden raid was criticised because almost all other operations were cordinated with Pakistan and since Pakistan is particularly unstable and also nuclear the risk was considered worth it for the value of the target, but there was a major potential for escalation and lots of political capitol was expended to quell the reaction to that action.

China is not nearly as constrained by diplomatic inroads or other mechanisms at play (such as cultural considerations) that would vastly change the potential of any overt action against China causing an exponential series of increasing escalations that could end up as a major war.

I'm not excusing China and not saying the US or other western countries should lay down for China's increasingly agressive diplomatic and strategic actions, but rather that the utmost care should be taken in the response, just as the US is doing in the conflicts going on in the south China sea and increase in espionage cases.

As an Iraq combat vet who has spent quite a bit of time trying to understand these subjects, my general thought is that I really dislike so many armchair quarterbacks speculating and being so eager to throw away others lives, even if in the of potentialities such as your suggestion. War is one of the most horrible things humans can ever experience and any avoidance of it should be sought in almost all cases possible. It's also annoying how many of those armchair quarterbacks usually don't volunteer to serve themselves.

>The thing you are missing is that every action like that carries a risk of causing a war much larger than the original action.

I fully understand that. The thing you are missing is that by ignoring act of cyber warfare from a foreign military and/or treating acts of war by a foreign military as a domestic criminal case, escalates the risk of causing acts of war much larger than if they were to be nipped in the bud now.

>As an Iraq combat vet who has spent quite a bit of time trying to understand these subjects, my general thought is that I really dislike so many armchair quarterbacks speculating and being so eager to throw away others lives

I trust you understand there are many uses of force that do not result in lost lives. The very nature of my argument is that the actions of China's military is an act of war and use of force...yet no lives were lost. As I said we should respond proportionately as authorized by the UN Charter and international law...I am not suggesting WW3, nukes or throwing away lives as has been suggested by countless people in this thread.

Just as much as I am admittedly "speculating" that treating cyber warfare by a foreign military will result in escalated attacks...it is also a speculation to suggest China will deescalate their cyber warfare against us.

So the question would fall to you is the US strategy of treating cyber warfare by a foreign military as crimes going to deescalate China's attacks here?

> I hope you understand that this example of using armed force is not the equivalent of "going to war."

It's not a "war" because Pakistan isn't a match for the US. It's very much an act of war, though, Pakistan just chooses to ignore the offense because they can't really do anything about it. That's different with China or Russia. Please don't try landing a Seal team in Moscow to extract some hacker.

> don't study international relations and geopolitics

Know quite a few people with these qualifications, they are highly polarized human beings who seem to have trouble discussing politics.

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