You need a military in order to prevent other people from bombing your country. You absolutely do not need to bomb other people, and if fact if your goal is to not get bombed, not bombing other people might be your best option for a bunch of reasons[1]. If your goal is to systematically rob your population of wealth by dumping insane amounts of money into an otherwise mostly useless industry(you don't really need 12 carriers to defend your country for example, they are mostly useless for defense), bombing other people is a good option.[1] not making additional enemies, not setting the precedent that it's ok to bomb people, not driving away allies, not undermining your narrative that you're a good guy and therefore attacking you is unjustifiable, etc. These are just off the top of my head.
koolba|7 years ago
And sometimes the best way to save lives of your people is to bomb other people.
That’s very naive. Not all antagonists are rational state actors. Terrorist orgs like Al Qaeda or ISIS aren’t going to stop trying to kill you if you ignore them. The only solution is direct action and only question becomes who’s going to do it, i.e. the USA or a local proxy.
wongarsu|7 years ago
The Post-WWII history of the middle east mostly follows the pattern “US declares $X evil. In its fight against $X, US supports $lesserEvil with money and weapons. $Y years later $lesserEvil has used funding and weapons to grow and become $greaterEvil. US declares $W as $lesserEvil and funds them. Repeat.“
Short term that might seem smart, but do it long enough and you have a region full of well armed splitter groups, are least half of which hate you.
The UdSSR/Russia isn't blameless either, but the most notable positive long term effect of US actions in the middle east seem to be more jobs in the military-industrial-complex.
fiblye|7 years ago
Sometimes, yes.
But those "preventative" bombings in recent decades are the very reason those people want to kill those in other countries. They directly say that they're attacking the west as retaliation, but the vast majority of people plug their ears, dismiss them as absolutely crazy and irrational, and say we'll never understand their motives. Maybe if a few weddings weren't bombed there'd be a few less terrorist attacks around the world.
Terrorist orgs like Al Qaeda and ISIS are relatively recent organizations. They didn't evolve in a bubble. They evolved in a place struggling with the damage of foreign intervention. To many people there, it's irrational not to support the group that opposes the what seems to be (and when looked at objectively) nonsensical intervention between two outside forces. The shit stirring there started as an attempt to push out Soviet influence. The mess in Syria continuing because Russia wants a sphere of influence and the west can't have that.
The tendency of dismissing enemies as irrational is the problem here. Groups don't grow so large with a complete lack of rationality. They have just enough that they persuade a considerable number of people, but they eventually go off the rails.
SCHiM|7 years ago
Marysville|7 years ago
barrkel|7 years ago
titzer|7 years ago
Hello, it's 2030 calling. Yeah, that recent nasty terror attack? Carried out by people born between 2005 and 2012. They grew up in the wartorn cities of Baghdad, Kabul, in the mountains of Afghanistan, in the little towns hit with little "pinpricks" of drone strikes for the past 20 years because the big brains in the USA thought that "BOMBING THEM FIRST" was the best plan. Those young kids who carried out that attack have known nothing but war, while you have known nothing but peace and have the gall to suggest that they and their neighbors should be subject to constant, round-the-clock, death-from-the-sky TERROR. They've known people who got hit by drones. They've known people who were collateral. They've seen the craters. Arms and legs blown off. Brains. Dead bodies. Charred remains. From machines in the sky, operated by people sitting in airconditioned offices half a world away. You don't think they know that? That drone operators sit in airconditioned offices and blow people up? War is fucking hell. And that's been their reality. And our reality has been playing video games. They fucking hate us. God damn, how could they not?
Welcome to the endless cycle of violence your myopia brings.
If you think the best way to defeat ISIS and Al Qaeda is by blowing up random people who seem important now is a good plan, then it's going to be a fail. Al Qaeda and ISIS need to be defeated and expunged by and from CIVILIZATION--their networks dismantled and defunded by detective work, cooperation with local governments, the rule of law, and lots of arrests. They are going to be defeated when the local population is sick of their shit and doesn't believe what they believe. They are going to be defeated when being part of Al Qaeda is a poor alternative in life, because life offers you so much better alternatives, and their ain't shit to be that damn mad about.
There won't be Al Qaeda when people chill the fuck out, on all sides. Instead, everyone has absolutely lost their minds; they are incapable of seeing threats at their true scale. But no, some kind of insanity has taken over the thinking in the military and intelligence agencies where every threat is clear and present, and every single terrorist anywhere is just five days from hitting NYC with a nuclear bomb....
workinthehead|7 years ago
Lennie|7 years ago
maushu|7 years ago
There is also the deterrence theory.