NATO defence spending

Desertfox said:
Bush Jr pulling out of ABM and starting the Iraq war was the final nail in the coffin.
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No, it was way before that. It was either letting Poland and the Baltics into NATO or pushing Russia out by not helping them in Tajikistan.

In any case, it was decided in Clinton's presidency, mostly due to the need to appease the still Reaganite GOP opposition party. That isn't to say that Russia wouldn't be adversarial, but it wouldn't be the same kind of adversarial it is now, much like how China was enabled by Clinton it's possible that Russia would have been enabled to be an adversary rather than an ally. However, it would have put that decision in Russia's hands rather than making it for them.
 
That can't be helped. A lot of nations are on the back foot now...ruins everywhere. Ironically, nukes kept the lid on things but blood ran from everything else

We have one chance perhaps, to make peace stick for awhile.

With people creeped out at murderbots...now is a good time for everyone to take a breath, and use resources for better lives for citizens.

WWI was the most tragic. The ideal of a hero rearing up with his horse now replaced with folks hunched over at work, doing without.

WWI was made inevitable BECAUSE of alliances.
Duty caused the peace movement to stumble then. The rest of the 20th Century was about heady ideology, intrigue....all very captivating.

The peace movement today has one thing going for it it never really had before.

War isn't as fun.

We've seen that in smaller conflicts in Asia, where they had the good sense to call it quits earlier.

Peace will be had when enough people, working two and three jobs--say to themselves: "what the hell are we doing any more?"
 
Scott Kenny said:
The job of the military is to make the other side do what the politicians want
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Fair point, so the blame also (mainly?) rests on the politicians. In the fog of war, this lands the military in the thorny thicket of Befehl ist Befehl.
To what extent elected politicians are driven by animosities, old and new, in their electorate, or are driving their electorate is another point to consider.
Which still leaves this point, slightly corrected:
publiusr said:
how did armies politics transform mass devastation into a manageable and morally acceptable activity?
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Note: mass devastation by conventional weapons.
 
Arjen said:
Which still leaves this point, slightly corrected:
"how did armies politics transform mass devastation into a manageable and morally acceptable activity?"
Note: mass devastation by conventional weapons.
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This starts with the Wars of German Unification and the Franco-Prussian Wars. Those were all short, sharp, and decided by armies in the field with minimal devastation.

It missed the existential fighting of the US Civil War. Once a war goes from "I want this territory" to "existential threat", the scale of allowable destruction goes WAY up.

Also, the massive destruction is a bonus for keeping the opposing nation weaker during their rebuilding period, preventing the next party in charge over there from turning around and doing the same to you.
 
The one thing that stood out for me is that nuclear warfare's even greater potential for mayhem should not make us think "well, it's only conventional warfare, that's acceptable then".
 
publiusr said:
WWII, at least to me, was one of the last wars humanity needed to fight...A lot of recent foolishness....questionable.
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Most wars since WW2 were imposed by one side on another. But WW2 was also that.
There was no "legitimate German interest" that could justify a war of this scale and nature. And the same goes for a lot of wars since.
One of the best ways to not have a war imposed on you is to just prepare for war.
 
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