It was always thus, in this as in many other contexts. If phase 1 is “You can’t stop me, rules mean nothing, I will do as I please,” it’s a good bet that by phase 3 we’ll arrive at “OMG what is happening now is against the rules, won’t someone step in and make sure I come to no harm, we need justice.”
@immibis@mozz I am not quite as cynical as you regarding the UN. Yes, the do seem to be a Western toy much of the time, but they also have their moments of clarity. It will be interesting to see their response to Israel’s complaints.
The percentage chance that the security council will do something about this is pretty much exactly 0.
The US vetoes anything the UN tries to do against whatever war-criminal shit Israel gets up to in any given year, the two of them often completely alone, but with the veto on the other foot, the other 99% of the world will I think be firmly on the side of simply telling Israel “my guy you must be joking with this.”
Iran has stated that they now consider the matter closed from their perspective, and the US is for the most part pretty careful about escalation management. The only real wild card is what Israel wants to do, which God only knows, but I do hold out hope that their first action being to involve the UN means they’re planning on a bunch of performative outrage and nothing else significant.
The US is always at war in at least one place somewhere on earth, and has learned from painful experience how easy it is to ratchet a conflict up into a bigger deal than it needed to be and how difficult to ratchet it back down, so they pay close attention now to when they’re crossing certain lines especially when nuclear weapons are involved.
Put it another way, all the nations of the world all go to the same bar, and a lot of them have guns and split personalities, and they spend every night playing cards and cheating and there’s always at least one fist fight, and somehow it’s been about 75 years since anybody got shot.
On the other hand, weapon manufacturers are always looking to expand their markets, and they have the money to buy outlobby governments, so the question is more about where is the balance between what would a “sane” government want, and what conflicts could weapon peddlers make them instigate in order to maximize profits.
Like: would Israel want to buy some more stuff from the US? Would they give the US a discount on some Iron Dome in exchange? Could Biden reinstate sales to the UAE? Exactly how many nukes might be involved, and how would that impact everyone’s interests in the region? (for example: what will be the oil prices tomorrow?)
Yeah. And the whole thrust of that whole document is, more or less, how can we use violence anywhere in the world to achieve our goals while making sure it won’t get out of control or come into a realm where it might come back and impact our happy, well-fed families.
I wasn’t saying any of this whole thing as a good thing necessarily; just giving the description: This is how the US tends to behave.
@mozz Strange. Israel totally ignores the #UN whenever it suits, but then expects them to come running to get #Israel out of a mess it created.
It was always thus, in this as in many other contexts. If phase 1 is “You can’t stop me, rules mean nothing, I will do as I please,” it’s a good bet that by phase 3 we’ll arrive at “OMG what is happening now is against the rules, won’t someone step in and make sure I come to no harm, we need justice.”
@KarunaX @mozz and it will. The UN seems to be a venue for white supremacists to always get what they want, these days.
@immibis @mozz I am not quite as cynical as you regarding the UN. Yes, the do seem to be a Western toy much of the time, but they also have their moments of clarity. It will be interesting to see their response to Israel’s complaints.
The percentage chance that the security council will do something about this is pretty much exactly 0.
The US vetoes anything the UN tries to do against whatever war-criminal shit Israel gets up to in any given year, the two of them often completely alone, but with the veto on the other foot, the other 99% of the world will I think be firmly on the side of simply telling Israel “my guy you must be joking with this.”
Iran has stated that they now consider the matter closed from their perspective, and the US is for the most part pretty careful about escalation management. The only real wild card is what Israel wants to do, which God only knows, but I do hold out hope that their first action being to involve the UN means they’re planning on a bunch of performative outrage and nothing else significant.
How’s that?
The US is always at war in at least one place somewhere on earth, and has learned from painful experience how easy it is to ratchet a conflict up into a bigger deal than it needed to be and how difficult to ratchet it back down, so they pay close attention now to when they’re crossing certain lines especially when nuclear weapons are involved.
Put it another way, all the nations of the world all go to the same bar, and a lot of them have guns and split personalities, and they spend every night playing cards and cheating and there’s always at least one fist fight, and somehow it’s been about 75 years since anybody got shot.
https://sais.jhu.edu/kissinger/programs-and-projects/kissinger-center-papers/escalation-management-ukraine-response-russias-manipulation-risk
On the other hand, weapon manufacturers are always looking to expand their markets, and they have the money to
buy outlobby governments, so the question is more about where is the balance between what would a “sane” government want, and what conflicts could weapon peddlers make them instigate in order to maximize profits.Like: would Israel want to buy some more stuff from the US? Would they give the US a discount on some Iron Dome in exchange? Could Biden reinstate sales to the UAE? Exactly how many nukes might be involved, and how would that impact everyone’s interests in the region? (for example: what will be the oil prices tomorrow?)
Yeah. And the whole thrust of that whole document is, more or less, how can we use violence anywhere in the world to achieve our goals while making sure it won’t get out of control or come into a realm where it might come back and impact our happy, well-fed families.
I wasn’t saying any of this whole thing as a good thing necessarily; just giving the description: This is how the US tends to behave.
Kissenger?!
If you’re gonna learn to understand about war and war crimes and escalations, you might as well go to the old masters in the field
(It’s just his name on the school; the paper’s got nothing to do with him. He was safely in hell long before it was written.)
Well, I did automatically assume it was probably in the same general bent of his ideology. I know better. I’ll check it out, thanks.
@mozz @immibis Game Theory would suggest exactly this response from Iran if it is interested in maintaining peace into the future.