On the avoidance of small wars

[Dayuhan]

When a monkey hits a key and gets an electric shock in response, he's not going to repeat that often. He's not going to try to do it better often. (S)He'll finally settle with the understanding that this key is bad.

Could someone please tell my why humans have so much trouble learning that war isn't profitable and cannot really be done 'right', so it should be avoided unless forced on you?
It can't possibly be a lack of memory, for I see people discussing here in the general tone of 'do small wars right / wrong', and these people are still trembling due to recent electroshocks.

What Ken said... plus all too often the monkeys hitting the keys aren't the ones getting the shocks, which messes up the feedback loop a bit.

[Fuchs]

What Ken said... plus all too often the monkeys hitting the keys aren't the ones getting the shocks, which messes up the feedback loop a bit.

Ahhh, I've got something related to this:

Recalls for peace?

Quick thought:

The U.S. Americans are practising a thing called "recall". Recently, a couple state senators were replaced by special elections that were triggered by petitions (that met a certain quantity requirement).

This made me think about something.

How about an automatic triggering of a special (potential recall) election for all federal politicians who supported military action without obvious self-defence character (= repelling an invading army, defending in air war or breaking a naval blockade) or unambiguously worded UNSC approval?

They wouldn't have to fear much if they have much popular support (= almost a necessity for successful modern warfare), after all!

[Ken White]

Better is a constitutional and legal design that precludes military action without strong, better than simple majority Legislative assent. The US Constitution laid the groundwork for that but over 200+ years, the governing mandarins have figured out several ways to circumvent the intent. Good start, just didn't go quite far enough...

Even more comprehensive rulings probably wouldn't work totally. People are quite adept at figuring out the loopholes and shortfalls in any system or process. Flaw in the human condition. I suspect in the end analysis the Marines have it right "Nobody really wants a war but somebody better know how."

[JMA]

Better is a constitutional and legal design that precludes military action without strong, better than simple majority Legislative assent. The US Constitution laid the groundwork for that but over 200+ years, the governing mandarins have figured out several ways to circumvent the intent. Good start, just didn't go quite far enough...

Even more comprehensive rulings probably wouldn't work totally. People are quite adept at figuring out the loopholes and shortfalls in any system or process. Flaw in the human condition. I suspect in the end analysis the Marines have it right "Nobody really wants a war but somebody better know how."

That idea has never worked and will not work in the future.

The US problem is their political system that allows 'very strange people' to be elected to the Presidency.

Deal with that issue and the problem goes away.

[Misifus]

...The US problem is their political system that allows 'very strange people' to be elected to the Presidency.

Okay. This one made me chuckle. +1