Comment by mateo1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mateo1 | Hacker News Reader

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What's more concerning is the development of new types of weapons. Similar to WW1 I think many security consultants and leaders will slip into a mindset that these advanced weapons will mean winning wars fast and cheap. Which will not turn out well. Couple that with the power of modern algorithmic propaganda across the world and slipping humanitarian standards and the end result isn't looking good. Thinking strategic use of nuclear weapons might be ok and showing no fear of a nuclear war isn't positive either.

As far as technology goes, drones are just the lowest hanging fruit. We're seeing a nuclear space race happening, nuclear capable hypersonic reentry and cruise systems, atomic kamikaze submarines, and maybe the most insidious part is the less visible ones: AI based targeting, decision making and propaganda. The machine will push the button without a hitch and when people realize these half-joking idiotic online conversations have now become not only policy but set their lives ablaze it'll be too late.

Lots of folks seem to think that avoiding nuclear war last time was some kind of convergent self-driven process we let happen. It wasn't, it was conscious, difficult decisions by many people that let to this. Your decisions have an impact. It's a burden, sure, but take responsibility for it.

Why would anyone think a War would be fast or easy after what has happened in the last major wars?

The world hasn't had a major war between great peer powers since WWII. Everyone who was old enough to remember that war is now dead, or very close to it. There's a few surviving veterans, I think, but they're almost dead of old age, and they were just teenagers during the war.

So, in short, humanity has collectively forgotten the horrors of such a war.

Also, similar to WWII, we have a large country full of people who think they're somehow entitled to conquering all their neighbors, establishing a new empire, and being a great world power under their dear leader, but this time they have nuclear weapons.

A country with a leader who believes he’s entitled to conquer. The people aren’t allowed to disagree. If they do they go to prison.

Yes, China has become a major problem.

Russia is the bigger problem currently, most likely. China isn't trying to conquer its neighbors, just one of them, and also the South China Sea. The Russian people, however, really do want to re-establish a Russian empire of some sort. They don't really have the economy or means to do so, but they do have a bunch of nukes (which may or may not be fully operational) to cause a lot of damage with, and they have a geriatric dictator with possible mental problems who they wholeheartedly support.

It starts with one. If China attacks Taiwan uncontested it’ll look to the next opportunity.

I don't see why it's even a dichotomy as pushed by GP. Russia is now the junior partner in the Russia-China relationship against the US/EU international order (as opposed to the Cold War). Putin is actively testing the strength of that international order, Xi is mostly passively watching and biding time. The outcome of Russia-Ukraine will most certainly determine how aggressively China acts going forward.

>Russia is now the junior partner in the Russia-China relationship against the US/EU international order (as opposed to the Cold War).

China: "The circle is now complete. 50 years ago, I was but the learner. Now, I am the master."

plus that whole China being older than Russia thing

I don't see how: China only started in 1949. The USSR is older than that, while the USSR's zombie reincarnation is only about 30 years old. If you're talking about historical China, then you might as well talk about Genghis Khan or the founding of the city of St. Petersburg or whatever; it's kinda pointless because modern nation-states don't resemble those ancient societies at all.

it's not pointless, it's history. Genghis Khan and St Petersburg are good examples.

No, it IS pointless. The society that existed in Khan's day doesn't resemble modern society in any way. So by your logic, the United States is actually tens of thousands of years old, because it started when the Native Americans crossed the land bridge from Asia, and various countries in sub-saharan Africa are several millions of years old because that's when modern humans first evolved there.

I’m not sure China was ever particularly interested in conquering foreign countries now or historically (not saying Taiwan is not a real country but it’s not really foreign and certainly an exception in most ways).

On the other hand violent imperialism has been a core aspect of Russian culture for centuries.

Historically, countries gave up on their imperialism after major defeats. That's one reason Russia can't come out of this war with a win, it only invites repetition.

Propaganda is a hell of a drug. “Air policing.” “Special military operation.” “Surgical strike.” “No fly zone.” “No boots on the ground.” “Unmanned aerial vehicle.” When leaders believe wars can be low casualty, low civilian casualty, and fought on foreign battlegrounds instead of at home, more wars of choice will be started.

How is “No fly zone.” a propaganda phrase? I'd call it a usefully precise, succinct description for an area in which you'll get shot right down if you fly over it.

“Unmanned aerial vehicle.” too. That's exactly what they are, and calling them drones is the more ambiguous thing since a drone doesn't necessarily need to fly.

No fly zones are enforced on a country by shooting down military aircraft. It sounds alluring, as it’s not called a war or invasion. But in order to do that you first have to make it safe for your own military jets by using cruise missiles on air defense systems, airbases, command posts, telecommunication hubs, etc. It’s inseparable from starting a war. A sovereign state exercises control over their territory. To deny them the ability to use forces in their own territory you have to engage in acts of war.

As seen in Libya our governments proceeded to expand their mission from the UN mandate to regime change. Obama danced around the War Powers Act and the bad optics of starting a war by calling it a “kinetic military action” lol.

The last major war between peer great powers was in the 1940s. It wasn't fast or easy, but it was in part propelled by theories that new technology (aircraft, tanks, submachine guns) allowed new tactics that could allow wars to be won cheaply. This is in addition to the reality that the whole thing was arguably inevitable after the botched peace of WW1, which was also in part propelled by new technology (railroads, monstrously big artillery, machine guns) and hopes of a short war.

I beg to differ. In WWII Germany conquered quickly and easily. If you were on the receiving side of blitzkreig it seemed like your military just folded like paper cutouts. To Germany it seemed like they could do anything they wanted so that’s what they did.

That was the miscalculation. Conquering territory fast isn't good enough to achieve victory in war. In fact the opposite is probably true: being able to steamroll your immediate neighbors can cause you to overextend and ultimately lead to defeat.

That’s simply a wrong set of assumptions that have no historical substantiation. Tolerance for casualties was at a different level during both WWs. It is only after the horrors of WW2 that the western world became fearful of casualties. And the Russians as well, who suffered the largest amount of casualties. That’s why the Cuban missile crisis did not turn into a nuclear war. This is why nuclear mutual deterrence worked.

> It is only after the horrors of WW2 that the western world became fearful of casualties

That’s arguably not true at all. At the beginning of the war the allies were very reluctant to engage in major offensive operations (in hindsight it’s not inconceivable that the French could have won in 1939 while Hitler’s army was busy in Poland had they been more risk tolerant). The French especially were very fearful of casualties (in WW1 it lost a larger proportion of its male population than even Germany and France had relatively very low birth rates historically making them much harder to replace)

That makes sense considering that most of the people in charge were field officers in WW1 and knew the cost their decisions might have. Of course that changed over the next few years since it turned out that there were no other options.

You can count on humanity to have learned nothing from the last war.

Strike first and hard (instead of making concessions which delay the war but only mean that it will be much worse when it ultimately still happens)?

What else could we’ve learnt from WW2?

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