Hard News: This time it's Syria
224 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 … 9 Newer→ Last
-
Chris Waugh, in reply to
Veni, vici, delinqui.
Oh, I thought it was something much more mundane sounding, like "British Empire".
-
4 miles. :-P
I love randomness!!!
-
Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Raj against the machine...
Maybe they shouldn’t have been there in the first place?
But... but... where else would they grow their coffee, cotton, sugar, tea... and opium... so cheaply?
-
nzlemming, in reply to
I was 64 miles away, which I thought was okay on such a small map.
You can zoom in a bit but that's sort of cheating ;-) I'm still wondering how someone thought it was in Greenland...
-
nzlemming, in reply to
So the UK parliament has refused to assent to UK miitary action. That’s pretty unprecedented.
First time since Crimea, apparently.
-
nzlemming, in reply to
78 miles. That map is way too small and clicking on the most accurate spot you can way too fiddly.
See zoom response above. I managed to nuke Aleppo, but that's 178 miles away.
-
Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Whether they did or not, there wasn’t much left of Britain after WW2. They were flat broke, their economy had been converted almost entirely to war effort, and they were dependent on US loans for everything. India wanted independence and the UK wasn’t in a position to say no, so it happened.
And it might also be relevant that they'd gotten a pretty clear message to fuck off, and stop treating India as their "problem" to fix. You know, it's really easy to put the messy, complicated world to rights from the comfortable distance of decades and/or thousands of miles, but it's also just a teeny tad obnoxious. At least, we seem to think so when we're on the receiving end of unsolicited and ill-informed experts from Foggy Bottom and Whitehall.
-
Rob S, in reply to
I don't think one can really apply today's standards to the 17th century
Not trying to apply current standards at all.
However looking at past actions can inform future ones.
When doing this judgements will always be made regarding previous actions.
Yes, the past is a foreign country but it can still be studied.
Those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat it or something along those lines. -
Howard Edwards, in reply to
Ban frivolous vetoing - perhaps the UN could adopt a system like tennis and cricket where you can only use three vetoes per year?
-
Matthew Poole, in reply to
Ban frivolous vetoing – perhaps the UN could adopt a system like tennis and cricket where you can only use three vetoes per year?
Or just do one of:
a) dispense with the permanent member concept entirely;
b) dispense with the permanent members having veto. -
Chris Waugh, in reply to
Ban frivolous vetoing
The permanent members don't seem to use their vetos terribly often. They seem to be more often held up as a threat, a kind of nuclear option to encourage negotiations to head in a more preferable direction. Even so, abstentions seem to happen far more often than vetos.
-
Rich of Observationz, in reply to
I think the idea is that it's rather better that they have the "nuclear option" of a veto than the actual "nuclear option".
While it's not the greatest of systems, it has thus far stopped an American army slugging it out with a Russian one, and the loser deciding to blow up the world.
-
Rich of Observationz, in reply to
If you live south of about Kaikoura you can't even enter your home location - bloody northern hemispherians trying to teach us geography...
-
Chris Waugh, in reply to
I think the idea is that it’s rather better that they have the “nuclear option” of a veto than the actual “nuclear option”.
I certainly don't disagree with that.
But you're going to have to work hard to persuade me that the Security Council setup is what stopped the US and USSR from blowing us all up - they came awfully close to it in 1962. It reminds me of arguments I've heard from an ex-USMC enlisted man that MAD stopped the US and USSR going to war. Maybe directly, but they certainly did seem to enjoy a good proxy war.
As for northern hemispherians, they are a bit weird with geography. They seem to think the world ends at the equator. And I say that as one married to a northern hemispherian.
-
Matthew Poole, in reply to
The permanent members don’t seem to use their vetos terribly often. They seem to be more often held up as a threat, a kind of nuclear option to encourage negotiations to head in a more preferable direction. Even so, abstentions seem to happen far more often than vetos.
If they restricted their vetoes entirely to matters within their own borders it wouldn't be quite so objectionable; but they don't. Instead we're left with the Russians protecting Syria (currently) and the US protecting Israel (the majority of vetoes ever cast are the US protecting Israel). It's not stopping them going to war with each other, it's stopping everyone else from punishing their favourite client states.
-
Rich of Observationz, in reply to
they certainly did seem to enjoy a good proxy war
Right, but the US was restrained from marching into North Vietnam and Russia similarly from entering Pakistan by the likelihood that they'd wind up with a direct US/USSR conflict. It's all hypothetical, but how would Cuba have played out without nukes - the US invading Cuba to end Castro's revolution, emboldening Russia to seize West Berlin?
-
Chris Waugh, in reply to
the US invading Cuba to end Castro’s revolution
Tried that in '61, didn't work out too well (Of course, using proxies again, but even so... ), and it didn't spark any kind of Soviet march on West Berlin, not even a subtle encouragement of the GDR to have a go. Then again, West Berlin was the British, French and US sectors, and remained so until reunification. Then (yet) again, that didn't stop the Soviets from blockading West Berlin....
-
Sam Crane applies Sunzi to Syria. Now I should think about lunch...
-
It’s crappy that the superpowers use their vetoes frequently in the UN, but the UN would possibly not exist if they didn’t have those powers. It is limited to the superpowers because when veto power is available to all states, as it was in the League of Nations, then it becomes completely impossible to resolve any disputes at all.
As to getting rid of the veto power, I expect any such move will always be vetoed.
-
Matthew Poole, in reply to
the superpowers use their vetoes frequently in the UN
The average over the last decade is about two per year (from here), which isn't overly crazy. Mostly it's the US protecting Israel from the consequences of its criminal behaviour, though Russia and China have been knocking back resolutions on Syria a bit of late.
What they do do is threaten to use them, so things just don't come up for a vote, which also skews the numbers.
-
Simon Grigg, in reply to
our man Mountbatten wanted to get out as quickly as possible at minimal cost and loss of face presumably.
That was pretty much his job description when he took it.
When the British left Aden the last governor had to back up the rear stairs to the RAF Britannia with his pistol out as the aircraft was readied for take-off.
-
BenWilson, in reply to
What they do do is threaten to use them, so things just don’t come up for a vote, which also skews the numbers.
It comes to the same thing, really. That's "using your veto to block something".
-
Graeme Edgeler, in reply to
On a lighter note, you can test yourself against the rest of the internet in this find Damascus on a map game.
I was 64 miles away, which I thought was okay on such a small map.
You know you can zoom, right? Also, I was pleased just to hit Syria. I can, however, do simple maths under pressure :-)
-
In today's really dispiriting news, all but one of the activists who took the video of the aftermath of the chemical attack have died from the exposure. I can't help but think of them as journalists killed on the job.
-
And now we have this wee bombshell:
The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America's military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy has learned.
(h/t Jet Jaguar)
Post your response…
This topic is closed.