Largely, we've not been defending ourselves, but rather, maintaining our interests and investments. Who wants to stand behind that other than the misinformed?
There are still those that believe they're fulfilling some patriotic duty, but that only feeds back into my original statement. The "bad apples" only serve to highlight part of the problem. Culling and replanting the "orchard" is a magnitude of order more difficult.
I will stand behind US Military maintenance to the degree that NATO remains the top world power, but I will also stand behind any global demilitarization such as the many past treaties to dismantle nuclear weapons. It's okay for nuance to exist.
Yeah, Until some Ork shoots you for fun while you pass them on your bike, in an occupied zone that was once your hometown. Sometimes you HAVE to make a stand to stop wars of aggression.
I see no problem here: I refused to serve in the military and did my service in a hospital instead. The Ukraine war did make me reconsider my attitude towards the necessity of a draft army.
Conclusion 1: I would emigrate and work against my country of origin in a heartbeat if they started a war of aggression (hello Russians) - unchanged from before
Conclusion 2: I would support with my medical and other skills those defending a non-aggressive country I live in
Conclusion 3: I might fight, given no other choice. But I would try everything else first, and I would probably not be good at it (fighting) at all.
I would emigrate and work against my country of origin in a heartbeat if they started a war of aggression (hello Russians) - unchanged from before
You will emigrate and either work with a charity organization that helps refugees from the other side (often refusing help to your nationality because they are Orks) or you will start helping the military on the other side, which would seem righteous to you until this military starts to neglect collateral damage.
I used to work in a charity that helps refugees here in Georgia. I still donate but I was unable to comprehend the very people that we were helping up calling me an occupant.
When Ukraine started shelling and droning Belgorod, many of my Russian friends stopped military donations.
I would support with my medical and other skills those defending a non-aggressive country I live in
That's actually what will happen, yes. Rally 'round the flag effect is real and those of my acquaintances who happened to be communists in Ukraine have been supporting the military and Zelensky given the communism is banned in Ukraine.
I might fight, given no other choice. But I would try everything else first, and I would probably not be good at it (fighting) at all.
And you will either end up with PTSD, screaming in the middle of the night, or dead. Don't do it unless you really believe that you are fighting for things that are more important than you yourself.
Imagine if the World stopped fighting at the end of WWII and the U.S. stopped making any other atomic weapons. Imagine a global "Peace Treaty".
Imagine if each country spent their military $$ on water, food, housing, and free medical care for their citizens.
Fuck them all!!
The World could've been an amazing village of humans living together as friends and have the freedom to roam the globe without the need for a passport.
One World!
Fuck every military leader and/or political leader that has screwed over the people of the World.
Imagine that the US goes full hippie and dismantles its entire military, sending all the money to schools and hospitals and infrastructure and its economy. Fixes poverty, free healthcare, yay!
Pardon my French, but China and Russia would ass duck it into oblivion within a week. THAT is why we can't have nice things. As long as there are dictators out there, we will continue to need armies, unfortunately.
Russia has shown that depending on each other with economies doesn't work to keep the peace, all you need is a greedy bastard who is happy to throw hundreds of thousands of innocent lives into the meat grinder, happy to ruin his countries economy, all so he can play the next tzar.
So like it or no, we NEED armies and given the choice of being ruled by the US or China or Russia, I'll choose the US a hundred times over, as idnlike to stay out of punishment camps for the rest of my life.
I'm very aware the World won't play nice. That's why my scenario was dependent on an impossible situation. That sucks!
Humans suck.
Of course there are countless nice people that love others, wish kindness, and happiness.
Unfortunately, the masses have not been able to control the powers that have driven the World in a combative and globally destructive feedback loop. The combination of violence and climate disaster will mean the extinction of humanity much, much sooner than most believe.
I think you missed this part: "Imagine if each country spent their military $$ on water, food, housing, and free medical care for their citizens."
I know it unfortunately isn't even remotely realistic but that's the comment you answered to :)
Where did you see him asking people to vote for anyone? I'm tired of this no need to bring this shit into every conversation, lots of people on here don't even live in the U.S.
Fuck off
Honestly not sure how easy it is to actually stay out of the military when there's compelled service in any country. Draft evasion often carries significant risk.
I appreciate the sentiment, but results will vary.
Honestly not sure how easy it is to actually stay out of the military when there’s compelled service in any country.
Don't know about other countries, but in Apartheid-South Africa it was a very difficult thing if you were male, white and not rich. When I was a kid in small-town South Africa there was a conscientious objector living on our street. He was disabled - they had beaten him to such an extent that he was brain-damaged.
If there is a draft for some oil resource war then I'm out of the US.. We have all the tools to replace it I'm not fighting for some mega corp's right to exploit the environment
Well, unfortunately, when you’re poor and want to return to school, or change careers, your cheapest option is the military. Everyone stereotypes the military as offering only combat soldier jobs. The military offers more than just one career option. Want to change careers and become a medic to gain training for when you leave the military and can actually afford medical school? There’s the Army for that. Want to learn how to repair airplanes and jets as an aviation mechanic? There’s the Air Force for that. Everyone will just downvote me anyway. Let’s carry on that anti-military sentiment.
If only it were free, right? Try having a graduate degree in math and become poor/ostracized from the community due to filing for divorce. Suddenly, your only option for a career change is returning to college, or asking the Army to enlist you. Oh, but weighing 125lbs at the time is too fat for the tape test, they don’t like the fact you’ve had an organ removed, and you’re old by that point with kids. Yes, college should be free. It should also be free to change your name and immediately have all your records updated to match that new name, so you can start over in life without any discrimination.
And lots of people join, get messed up, and then are denied proper healthcare by the underfunded VA system.
But even if the military was great for the people enlisting, it wouldn't change the fact that they are joining one of the most rapacious, lawless, and brutal militaries in the world.
In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. [wikipedia]
I certainly wouldn't say the US military is "one of the most rapacious, lawless, and brutal militaries in the world." Never underestimate Russia, China, and North Korea. Then there's the guys in Africa who create child soldiers. Look I know the USM could do better, but that statement is just begging a parade of the world's uglies.
That was truer 60 years ago, when enlistment promised WW2-era benefits and minimal wealth disparity meant your dollar stretched significantly farther. Today, over 1.2M veterans are on some form of food assistance. Military health benefits have been privatized to the point of comic relief. The old GI Bill and housing benefits have been whittled down to a small recruitment bonus and some tax exemptions. The pay for your first five years of service is well below what you could earn in the private sector and there's virtually no path to advancement outside of the officer's corps.
But what military recruiters lack in financial incentives, the make up for with bald face lying. You get sold a pack of lies about "job experience" in technology fields, when most of the actual work is menial labor (professional jobs are heavily outsourced to private military contractors). You get promised a package of benefits that are nearly impossible to claim, even assuming you make it all the way through your term of service with an honorable discharge. You're subject to physical, emotional, and sexual abuse for which you have no recourse. And also there's the question of your proximity to a combat zone, which cares a litany of additional perils.
The military is not a cheap option, it is a high stakes gamble. Its possible to come out the other side better off than a peer who worked a trade job or took debt to get through community college. But the tail risks are enormous, and the benefits are increasingly illusionary.
Let’s carry on that anti-military sentiment.
Its a shit job for suckers. Even assuming you're a rah-rah keyboard commando, you've got no interest in actually taking these jobs. That's the whole reason why poor people are targeted. They're not being offered a sweat heart deal. They're simply the most misinformed and desperate group of people and therefore most likely to fall for the bait.
Poor people and teenagers. But there are some options. It's definitely a minefield for anyone though, and you're going to step on one if you just trust a recruiter.
We do conscription here, and we do it because we live next to Russia. I consider myself a conditional pacifist, but I do hold a rank in the army and would go to defend my country against Russia.
I would want global demilitarisation, but as long as autocrats hold militaries as powerful as Russias, North Korea's and others, it just doesn't seem too practical. Also, I don't trust the US with theirs, but unless the Russian trolls get through enough to bother the election (with their "oh don't vote Biden" bs, yes he's a shit ruler as well but compared to Trump he's not a fucking fascist) and Trump wins, I will be very concerned.
So I don't shit on the military, and support Einstein's take on the subject, but it has to be simultaneous globally or at least start with the scarier armies.
If all "good" countries just voluntarily completely disarm, the shit ones will abuse it to no end.
Just look at Gotland. Sweden basically demilitarised it ~2005 or something in the name of Baltic cooperation and international trust. Russia instantly started spying on the island and even testing how close they can get their bombers.
Now Sweden has rearmed it, AA-guns, a few tanks, several hundred soldiers.
I wish they didn't have to do that, but we can't trust countries with leaders like Putler. Or Trump, for that matter.
Doesn't your country provide higher education for everyone? Want to be electrical engieneer? Go to university. Want to relair airplanes? Go to technical school.
I have already been through college and the next step for me would be to earn a Ph.D. There aren’t many scholarship opportunities for that. There are many opportunities for people who are beginning college for the first time and earning a bachelor’s degree. I was informed that a person cannot return to earn a second bachelor’s degree to broaden their job opportunities. If you don’t double major, then you can’t return to earn a second bachelor’s. So, if I am now more interested in the medical field, then I cannot return to earn a B.S. to nursing and climb the academic ladder again, from there. I might be able to take courses as a returning alumni and use that to knock out the pre-requisites for programs after that, but I don’t know how that is viewed by the professionals in the medical field.
Totally get that. I was also poor after school so I became a hitman. Just a few easy murders and I was able to pay for college and get enough for a down payment on a starter home. I know some people don't approve of it, but it's important to understand how much of a resource joining the mafia can be for social mobility.
And not everyone has to be a hitman like me. My buddy is a getaway driver and he's never harmed anyone and he's helped me get out of a lot of tight spots. Want to sit in a room messing around with numbers all day? I hear the boss is looking for an accountant. Want to change jobs to patching up bullet wounds after a shootout without going to a hospital to get medical experience? They'll pay for that.
Everyone will downvote me too, let's keep up the anti-mafia sentiment.
Medical is a horrible example for a couple reasons, first of all they are front line soldiers. They see everything the Infantry sees. Secondly nursing and physician's assistant degrees have some of the best access to scholarships and loan forgiveness. If you wanted to do something highly technical like fly/repair planes/helicopters then the military shines. Also if you get a commission and work as a logistics officer you can pretty much write your ticket with the delivery corporations after your 6 year commitment. There are a vast array of jobs in the military but anyone looking to pick up technical skills should really ask a veteran first. For example, cooks? they boil a lot of stuff in huge vats. Yes some of them go to culinary school. It probably won't be you though. Military Police still have to go through the civilian police training pipeline, and police departments prefer Infantry veterans. (Yeah. We know.) IT isn't teaching you anything you couldn't pay a few hundred dollars for online.
The list goes on, if you want technical training from the military do not trust the recruiter; ask a veteran. They'll know who to ask if they don't know the answer themselves. Obvious alibi for people in poverty who just want that anything going ticket to get out of poverty.
People dont have as much agency as he thinks. And game theory(a relatively new concept for his era) dictates that the one who convinces/forces more of their people to fight, is the one who wins.
Let's say that your entire country, every single person, refuses to go to war. And the country next door has a mere 100 people who are willing(or otherwise) to go to war. Now your country is part of their country and those 100 people are in charge.
In a world where noone wants to fight, those who are willing(or forced) to fight, rule everyone else.
And to bring this concept into the modern era, it is near impossible to post antiwar posts in Russia, because of state control of the internet and the cultivated perception that everyone who is antiwar, is antirussian and a traitor. This is literally the law there.
Yet in the liberal western states, you are free to do that. So what is the result of this difference? People in the West are less willing to go to war. Now you might think that is a good thing but ultimately this benefits Russia, who is then free to take over their smaller neighbours. This is just interference, marketing for Russia's war machine, even if it doesnt feel like that.
The fact that the west was, and still is, the most prolific war mongerers of the post-Enlightenment era blows your hypothesis out of the water as soon as it tries to float.
The fact that the west was, and still is, the most prolific war mongerers of the post-Enlightenment era blows your hypothesis out of the water as soon as it tries to float.
How about we talk about the last 30 years then. What wars have europeans participated recently? Yugoslav wars? Afghanistan? Iraq?
Yugoslav wars were about ethnic cleansing between different ethnic groups who wanted to go their own ways. Afghanistan was because of 9/11, the taliban refusing to offer Bin Laden and the american thirst for revenge. Iraq was extremely controversial in Europe, pretty much every state opposed it, even if some european governments supported it, the majority of their people opposed it(huge protests).
Even the US, the imperium, which is usually doing imperial things, havent been doing much imperialism recently, after Afghanistan. And because of Afghanistan and Iraq, meaningless and immoral wars for most people, the US has trouble recruiting military personnel nowadays. Thats how democracies work, eventually the truth rises to the top.
The Ukraine war is one of the most clear cut wars since the Iraq invasion. And the West has the opportunity to be on the right side for once. Let me remind you that historically neutral countries like Sweden, joined NATO and countries like Germany are quickly re-arming for the first time in almost 100 years.
Because till recently, Europe was "let's all hold hands together", living in their own dream bubble about how war is not only bad but also insane. Putin reminded them that "sanity" is not a requirement for governance.
If the West is so war mongering, why did the West not spend more on military in the last 20 years? Why did the West wait till the Ukraine invasion to start pumping untoled trillions into the military industrial complex?
The only event with bigger impact on military spending was the collapse of USSR. For decades, Europe(and even the US) was taking advantage of the peace dividend. That doesnt sound too war mongery to me. And suddently, with just 1 Ukraine invasion, the West doubled and trippled its military budget.
So is the West war mongering or is Russia that caused an insane re-armament because of the Ukraine invasion?
And in before "nato expansion", blah blah. Sovereign countries have the right to join any alliance they want. Nato didnt invade those countries and force them to join, those countries literally "blackmailed" to join. Poland threatened to get nukes if they werent allowed into NATO.
If Mexico joins an alliance with China, would you approve an invasion of Mexico by the US? I wouldnt.
Soldiers are a "solution" to a problem they themselves cause.
If there were no soldiers, we wouldn't need any either.
So any person who wants to become a soldier is just a fool. There are of course those who have no choice, but the ones who do and still chose that life definitely are idiots.
So any person who wants to become a soldier is just a fool.
Or they're desperate. I can't speak for other countries, but in the U.S., if you grow up in poverty, the military is one of the only ways out. Especially if you don't have the academics or athletic talent to earn a really good scholarship.
I don't know about you, but my country borders Russia. What do you suggest I do when the first tanks roll across the border, the first glide-bombs start raining down on the city, and the first occupiers come to take my father, mother, sister and girlfriend for "interrogation" in a cellar? I could choose to run away.
Can yall imagine if we only used military to fight actual criminals, like terrorist. Instead of bombing 3rd world countries because they made a your mom joke
Governments can and have just branded people and organizations as terrorists to justify conflict. That is typically why third-world countries like Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. have been so heavily devastated by the west. Stopping "Nazi terrorists" is why Russia is invading Ukraine right now as well.
Be careful of when a country's media starts throwing out the label "terrorist regime" to describe countries that would be convenient to invade. "Terrorism" is just as much made by fear, instilled by a country's media, as it is the practice of creating fear directly.
That "truth" obviously depends on which side it is that is recruiting one:
if cells in your body who are being run by viruses "take up arms", they are taking up arms against your life, for virus's dominion.
if ideological-supremacism gets people to take up arms for their cause, they are arming to war against real peace.
if cells in your body who fight infection get other cells to "take up arms", they are fighting together against pathogen's dominion.
if people take up arms against ideological rabies's highjacking of our world, or of its dismantling/exterminating civil-rights, then they are fighting for the existence of civil-rights & actual/possible peace.
Ukraina's fighting for its life is right, Russia's fighting to genocide Ukrainians isn't.
.: whether one's taking up arms is morally right or not, has exactly to do with one's opposition-to, or accommodation-of, or even helping-of, the kremlin's genociding-mission.
Same goes for Hamas's deliberately sacrificing the Palestinian people for sake of getting Israel's nihilistic sadistic psychopathy to show enough that the entire surrounding region will ( within a decade or so ) prefer "martyrdom" while annihilating Israel, than to tolerate Israel, genocider who claims "God", to continue to exist.
Hamas & Israel both demonstrate DarkHexad: Narcissism / Machiavellianism / Sociopathy-Psychopathy / Nihilism / Sadism / Systemic-Dishonesty..
Israel's full allegiance to DarkHexad is visible in what IDF was carving in God's eye, with that operation.
Israel's longstanding declaration that it will nuke ALL its neighbours if any ONE overruns it, a nuclear-mass-shooting, is itself proof of its DarkHexad nationalism, which claims that God authorizes it ( the Ezekiel 39 "justification" for genociding Palestinians now, the rest later, e.g. )
Nobody should bother pretending that our countries haven't done exactly the same commitment-of-evil that these 2 examples are doing:
the deliberately-infecting entire shiploads of fabric, with smallpox, before sending them to the Americas, to holocaust the Indigenous peoples, our "Residential School" genociding of their lives ..
is pictures of men whose "crime" in our law was that they wouldn't agree, in writing, with their children being taken, at gunpoint, by us, & put in residential schools .. so we rounded 'em up at gunpoint, & shipped the survivors of our enforcement off to Alcatraz..
That was every bit as evil as what the kremlin-war-on-Ukraina or Israel's genociding now do.
History is unspeakably ugly.
The Catholic inquisition's torture-murdering war against primarily women, & secondarily Jews, "in our Lord, King of all Jews"'s name, had nothing whatsoever to do with the religion of the woke socialist convict/felon that Yehoshua "Jesus" benJoseph was, in their bible.
Africa, whose 2 million year history of tool-using hominids, nearly-all of its history is unrecorded, but the European slave-industry was fed by Arabs & Africans, in Africa, who were leveraging their local authority, turning those who weren't "with" them into "profit"..
the evil committed by the Aztecs, some tiny fraction of it recorded, when records began being created..
the "conquistadors" & their evil against Indiginous peoples..
It's inseparable from our race's history
It isn't that "taking up arms" is wrong, it is that either:
taking up arms for ideological-supremacism, XOR
refusing to take up arms against ideological supremacism
both help ideological supremacism.
Helping ideological supremacism is an active crime against civil-rights being able to exist.
it is a crime against right Principles.
As Martin Luther King Jr pointed-out, silence, itself is the crime of accommodating evil, when evil is acting.
( the "bystander effect" of accommodating a crime against someone, which depends on the culture & the individual-development vs collectivity of the bystanders, is also in the domain of this question, obviously ).
wars become more likely as parity decreases between adversaries
The pre-Columbian civilizations endured endless cycles of petty violence, as near-peers feuded over territory, romance, and scarce resources. However, the Colonial Era brought a new age of peace and prosperity, ending the millennia of fractious tribal conflicts with a single continent-sweeping genocide and subsequent chattel slavery system.
Finally, one man in a big house with a loaded gun could impose peace upon an entire field of imported slave-hands, and the cycle of violence emblematic of First Nations rule could come to an end for ever and ever and ever (or at least from around 1789 to 1864).
It's a bad quote suited for a 4 year olds mind. Some people fight for the thrill of it, other had to do it because they was forced to move due to ecological circumstances.