[ihm]

A lot of cogent analysis here, but I’m surprised the author doesn’t seem to know about the economic and political forms of warfare which the US has been pursuing as a cheaper alternative to conventional war.

To use Venezuela as an example, the author says no one has tried to invade it (which is actually not even true, see below) but also the US has been imposing crippling sanctions for over 15 years in an attempt to punish the people and weaken the government.

Moreover there was a US supported coup attempt in 2002 and one basically cooked up entirely by the US in 2020 (Operation Gideon). This was a plan to actually invade the country by boat with a small force to try to take control of the government.

This is part of a pattern of behavior for the US in the 20th century. The book Washington Bullets does a good job cataloguing the various interventions of this form.

[MostlyStable]

So, not to come off as "these are good things" or anything, but you have to be able to see that "economic warfare" is preferable to "warfare warfare", right? It would obviously be better to have neither, but if I have to pick one, I know which one I'm going to pick, and I don't think it's unreasonable to characterize a switch from traditional warfare to economic warfare as "more peaceful" or even just "peaceful".

[5040]

>you have to be able to see that "economic warfare" is preferable to "warfare warfare", right?

Economic warfare can resemble the sieges of traditional warfare. Yemen was blockaded "economically" to prevent food and medical aid from entering the country. Syrians were only getting an hour of electricity per day in recent memory because of economic strictures preventing them from importing oil. It can get pretty brutal.

[pphysch]

You don't have to pick one. Venezuela has approximately zero capability to wage any flavor of warfare against the USA, and certainly didn't provoke the current hybrid war by threatening USA national security.

[dsaavy]

Agreed. Most modern forms of Western warfare are non-violent with occasional violent repercussions. It's not lining up troops and sending them places in uniforms, although that does happen.

It's economic, cyber, covert, cultural and other less noticeable sieges that cause collapse from the inside.