Al Jazeera's The New Arms Race

[Exarch]

i'd recommend you watch it to the end, it's pretty long about an hour or so:


basically it talk about the contemporary perception that modern nations are remilitarising or building up existing arms not dissimilar to the early 20th century.
Let's hope that history doesnt repeat itself, WW1 was a bloody affair that spawned an even bloodier war, not saying that that'll happen.

discuss

[Plan C]

Send the link to George Osborne, he hasn't heard; the recent spending review has announced defence budget reduced by 8%.

[Treize]

Well, western nations with the possible exception of Australia are demilitarising way too much.

[Spartan90]

Well, western nations with the possible exception of Australia are demilitarising way too much.

Why's it a good thing if Australia demilitarises?

And why's it a bad thing if all other western countries demilitarise?

[Dr. Croccer]

Al Jezeera clearly hasn't heard of the continent of Europe.

[Vizsla]

Technologically and in terms of total size of spending on defence the US is so far ahead of everyone else no one sane would even consider taking them on in a conventional war.
It’s more likely you’ll get proxies being used to bait the bear (or eagle, as the case may be) - non state actors acting for states like Hezbollah acting for Iran.

[Exarch]

Technologically and in terms of total size of spending on defence the US is so far ahead of everyone else no one sane would even consider taking them on in a conventional war.
It’s more likely you’ll get proxies being used to bait the bear (or eagle, as the case may be) - non state actors acting for states like Hezbollah acting for Iran.

well that's the thing, after the Cold WAr, there was optimism for the 'peace dividend'
all that moolah spent on maintaining the military-intelligence apparatus could now be focused on social and societal welfare; instead, if anything, the defence budget actually increased following 1990

[Vizsla]

Military industrial complex?

[Exarch]

Military industrial complex?

military-industrial-media complex

ever wonder how stark and different war reporting is today compared to the Vietnam era?
back then they used to talk about quagmires, post-colonialism, etc etc
these days they talk about 'winning strategies', how to beat the taliban etc etc

[Achilla]

Technologically and in terms of total size of spending on defence the US is so far ahead of everyone else no one sane would even consider taking them on in a conventional war.
It’s more likely you’ll get proxies being used to bait the bear (or eagle, as the case may be) - non state actors acting for states like Hezbollah acting for Iran.

Today, conventional warfare is down to cyber attacks and destroying enemy military infrastructure. A blind giant, no matter how big, is a blind giant, basically? He can toss himself around, but he is powerless. That is why both China and Russia remain pretty safe from any direct threats. An all-out war is thing of the past, when it comes to the global scale conflict. There is a sudden rise of regional conflicts, though, with bigger regimes providing intelligence and arms support - the problem is that these regional conflicts refer to economically-important & politically-dependant regions, thus making it impossible for one side to take complete control of the region, and making it economically impossible to pursue a longer conflict for any of the more sizeable regimes. So yes, there is competition, but even a regional mini 'total war' is out of question, as it's in the interest of these bigger regimes to prevent that from happening.

[Phier]

At what point did the arms races end?

They slowed down a bit here and there, but otherwise its chugged along, it basically has to as it creates a stable equilibrium.

[xcorps]

all that moolah spent on maintaining the military-intelligence apparatus could now be focused on social and societal welfare

Or better yet, not collected.

[Yosemite]

hey gotta update that hardware man

[Katsumoto]

Eisenhower was right.

[Yosemite]

i didn't like his extreme accent so i closed the video the second he opened hit mouth

[Exarch]

ok, so the vid talks about one country's militarisation because of perceived threats and that sets a chain reaction to its nieghbours remilitarising, hence why a lot of arab countries are arming up cuz of iran's nuke which they started as an insurance policy against US regime change and to counterbalance Israel's nukes, same for the whole world.

and certainly, war is a racket in the united states, eisenhower would be sad indeed. the military industrial complex in the US appears to be as integral to US industry as the CCP is to the Chinese Government.

[Exarch]

Australia doesnt need a major military buildup on the scale of the mid-East countries; i would like to see our funds going into developing an independant missile defence system though;
as good as our relations are with the US, i dont like having to trust a foreign gov. with missile security, let alone sending out troops to fight others' wars for them

[Captain Jin]

Eh, some of it makes decent points like the fact that we are the biggest trader in arms sales. But a big reason why there has been a long lasting peace is because the US has such an overwhelmingly powerful military in conventional wars. When you have powers that are lopsided in strength people avoid conflict. Another thing regarding military budget which only one man mentioned, was that the individual cost for gear, vehicles, ships, aircraft, etc is more expensive in the past. We have a greater budget now then WWII? No surprise there because you could probably have built 100 Willie's Jeeps for the cost of one up-armored Humvee. One Abrams is probably equivalent cost of like 30 Shermans. Even at the most basic infantry level it takes more time and more money to train modern grunts on the ground. They are equipped with more advanced and high tech weapons and equipment. You think body armor and SAPI plates are cheap? Let's look at training pilots, how long did it take to do that back in WWII on prop driven planes? How long does it take to train jet fighter pilots? Of course the budget is higher now then back then. I don't have time to watch all of the show, maybe I'll finish it later, but the first fifteen minutes don't seem too good to me. It's just presenting half the story. They don't think there is a reason that maybe the reason why there is a relatively peaceful time is because people have a strong military deterring great wars? Or that, at the very least, that plays some sort of role in the peace now? Plus when a guy says you don't need jets to fight a counter-insurgency war it's obvious he doesn't really know wtf he's talking about.

[chamaeleo]

When you have powers that are lopsided in strength people avoid conflict.

Not true, they simply change the format...avoiding direct conflict in favor of guerilla tactics, terrorism, cyberwarfare, using proxy states for frontline fodder, adopting strategies which lose battles and cause civilian casualties while winning propoganda points, and so on.

Osama spelled it all out once upon a time, and we were still stupid enough to play right into the trap...fueling self-rightous motives where there'd previously been but a helpless sense of apathy. He is the quintessential Briar Rabbit, and we made Al Quaida our Tar-baby.

[Admiral Piett]

Not true, they simply change the format...avoiding direct conflict in favor of guerilla tactics, terrorism, cyberwarfare, using proxy states for frontline fodder, adopting strategies which lose battles and cause civilian casualties while winning propoganda points, and so on.

Osama spelled it all out once upon a time, and we were still stupid enough to play right into the trap...fueling self-rightous motives where there'd previously been but a helpless sense of apathy. He is the quintessential Briar Rabbit, and we made Al Quaida our Tar-baby.

Agreed with this. And the longer we employ these kinds of tactics in global diplomacy, the more the third world suffers at the major powers' expense. Sure you can argue that having a massive military can deter some conflict, but then combating things the way we have been since WWII still results in tension, loss of life, coups, nationalism, loss of diplomatic (and sometimes economic) trust, and empty coffers.