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Comment by Adverblessly | Hacker News Reader

USA sells weapons to Saudi Arabia. As a result, Saudi Arabia doesn't get its weapons from Russia or Iran and normalizes its relationship with Israel (which is where I live, full disclosure :P).

To me this looks like the best way to bring other countries "into the fold" as well as bring peace to the middle east, until eventually the US selling weapons to Saudi Arabia will be viewed similarly to the US selling weapons to Germany.

Maybe I'm just naive, but I think in most cases applying "friendly pressure" is more useful than force, and I mostly agree with your take that selling cyberweapons should be treated similarly to selling conventional weapons.

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"The end justifies the means" is always a dubious justification. Selling arms to vicious dictatorships like Saudi Arabia is not without humanitarian cost, as the the casualties of the Yemen war demonstrate.

The end justifying the means also needs some justified ends to demonstrate that the means were tolerable. In Saudi's case we've seen little signs of that. It's still one of the world's most repressive police states. It uses Western weapons in wars of aggression. It's happy to murder people in foreign consulates. There doesn't seem any sign of this improving.

Selling arms to Saudi stops a flow of cash to Iran and Russia, but we're just propping up one horrible regime with the supposed excuse of weakening others. This just seems like an excuse to make some cash.

> eventually the US selling weapons to Saudi Arabia will be viewed similarly to the US selling weapons to Germany

And where are the signs that Saudi Arabia is moving towards being a liberal democracy like Germany?

There are two premises (in order).

1. The US wants Saudi Arabia to become a liberal democracy (the end)

2. The US thinks that doing this can achieve that end (the means)

I see no reason to accept (2) and moreover no reason to accept even (1).

"He's a son of a bitch but He's our son of a bitch" One of long time US politics guides. Sometimes it goes wrong, Saddam Hussein, Al- Qaeda, etc ...but hey only a few peasant lives is good value for the business

Bring them into what fold? The peace-loving nations of Israel and the US?

I wouldn't say it's naïve, rather it's the blackest cynicism to assert the best way to reform a murderous dictatorship is to provide it with weapons.

This time you're on the living side of the equation. How would you have felt if someone made the same argument for Nazi Germany?

And that's exactly why I said "most cases".

If it were able to change the course of history, of course it might be worthwhile. If it didn't, then of course it wouldn't. The question is really how effective it is. In the abstract, more levers of influence is probably better.

The new "reformist" leader of Saudi Arabia bone-saws critical journalists, so I'd say the effectiveness is zero or close to it. Has this caused anybody in the relevant positions of government or industry (or you) to update on their beliefs on whether these arms sales are a good idea?

The USA sold lots of weapons to Iran pre-1978. That didn’t stop war from breaking out in the 1980s (Iran-Iraq) or after (all of the smaller battles/state-sponsored terrorism).

I don’t think that “more countries holding more weapons” is the thing that stops/prevents wars.

And I think people have to remember that cyber weapons are very asymmetrical. It is akin to nukes/bio/chem/nerve weapons, not just conventional weapons.

>The USA sold lots of weapons to Iran pre-1978. That didn’t stop war from breaking out in the 1980s (Iran-Iraq) or after (all of the smaller battles/state-sponsored terrorism

It is almost as though something happened in 1979 that shifted the government.

We really don't know if the war would have happened if the Shah hadn't been overthrown. As far as I can tell, Iraq thought Iran would be weak due to the revolution and took advantage of the situation. If the Shah stayed in power and the US continued to provide weapons, Iraq quite possibly would not have attacked.

>"To me this looks like the best way to bring other countries "into the fold""

Victims of those weapon sales had wholeheartedly agreed.

> the best way to bring peace to the middle east

In your view, the best way is no way, then, given the state of endless war in the middle east a long time...

Look at ukraine russian weapons are not worth the money and every military has known this for years. The only countries buying russian weapons are the ones that can't buy from the west.

I don't think its a bad thing that the rest of the world has weapons that can't compete with the west, as a westerner I think this is a good thing.

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