On the avoidance of small wars

[jmm99]

(1) Don't let one onion layer be peeled, lest the core be lost (Integral Rigidity):



(2) Let 'em eat the apple, but protect the core (Concentration of Mass):



The rest of the questions are answered by choice of Worldview.

Regards

Mike

[Steve Blair]

I think you're also ignoring the influence of geography (or how countries apply and understand or perceive their geography) and humanitarian impulses (often fed by celebrities and the media). There's also the matter of different election cycles and basic national culture. Also, some nations don't intervene because they either don't need to or can count on someone else to do it for them.

The point about the media is interesting, but what "interesting stories" are you going to feed them? In addition to the desire to hold politicians accountable, I'd add the need to hold the media responsible for their actions. Sadly, this doesn't often happen (in either case).

[Fuchs]

Also, some nations don't intervene because they either don't need to or can count on someone else to do it for them.

The latter always appears to me to be systematically exaggerated by U.S. Americans.
U.S.Americans rarely get the idea that often times other nations don't think that this or that intervention, containment or arms race is in their interest.

[Bob's World]

The latter always appears to me to be systematically exaggerated by U.S. Americans.
U.S.Americans rarely get the idea that often times other nations don't think that this or that intervention, containment or arms race is in their interest.

Sadly this is too true.

Thinking that one has "universal" values, and therefore interests, can cloud one's thinking in this regard...

Afterall, if we all share the same interests and values as defined by the US, then clearly our allies closest to some problem should jump on it if we think it is important, right???

[M-A Lagrange]

Sadly this is too true.

Thinking that one has "universal" values, and therefore interests, can cloud one's thinking in this regard...

Afterall, if we all share the same interests and values as defined by the US, then clearly our allies closest to some problem should jump on it if we think it is important, right???

Wrong. If it is in their particular interrest may be but not if that is part of a global comon interrest.
If you think it's important then you should jump on it. If others think it is important for them then they should jump on it.
if it is in yours and others interrest but with lower interest from US allies... Then it is/should be US problem and no one else.

[JMA]

Fuchs I suggest this thread and your argument is misguided.

As far as the Germans are concerned they can only apply leverage through their current economic strength. The combined German military (of today) could not blow a candle out. Germany does not have a military option for any sized war.

The recent Libyan exercise has shown that the combined European nations of NATO (mainly France and the Brits) couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag without help from Uncle Sam.

That leaves the US of A. Good soldiers at the bottom, good solid brave soldiers who often die needlessly.

Like a fish the US is rotting from the head down.

There are probably more honest and sincere politicians in Outer Mongolia that in the whole of the US. The Presidency has sunk to level of incompetence which only the blindly of patriotic Americans can have any respect for.

General officers and colonels while perhaps having displayed physical courage at some early point in their careers now display an almost universal lack of moral courage.

Small wars and interventions are getting a bad name because they have been unspeakably incompetently handled by the politician/general staff as a Keystone Cops combination.

I have said before that it takes 20 years before they let you command a battalion of infantry (700 men), ten more before you can command a little trot through Kuwait or Iraq but how long before you can run a country or set the strategy for a war. There lies the problem.

It is too late I fear. Once it gets down to majors/captains and the rest questioning the rights and wrongs of a small war or intervention it is time to cash in your chips and head for the hills.

Its gone. it over, its done. Forget it.

[Fuchs]

You're wrong on so many levels I'm really clueless about how to respond without writing a book chapter.

There's a common thread, though: You simplify too much and don't look beyond the surface.

I wrote here earlier that Europe wasn't really interested in Libya. Libya is unimportant, and we weren't really at war (Germany not at all). The air forces didn't even bother leaving the comfort of main air bases.
Europe cannot do interventions like the U.S. does them because nobody but the U.S. is so crazy to follow such a wasteful approach. If necessary, we could easily improvise and pull things off the old-fashioned way.
Nobody's going to improvise anything big unless there's motivation, though.

[Steve Blair]

The latter always appears to me to be systematically exaggerated by U.S. Americans.
U.S.Americans rarely get the idea that often times other nations don't think that this or that intervention, containment or arms race is in their interest.

I'm sure it does. However, you may notice that I didn't frame my comment in that sense. Some nations don't need to intervene for any number of reasons. Others, who may need to, can often count on someone else having the same interest (or perceived interest) and acting first. This isn't a question of "universal" values but rather some nations having the same perceived interests. Nor is it automatically US or Euro-centric.

You can spin it as a US versus others if you wish, but that's not the point of it.

[Fuchs]

You don't understand the extent.

The whole remark would most likely not have appeared if no U.S. citizen had been involved in the discussion!