Nuclear War Is Not and Should Not Be Unthinkable

[jbg]

Iraq was a real watershed. Bush et al put a case before the UN predicated on their assertion that Iraq had WMD. UN weapons inspectors were not given a chance to report fully but were forced to flee for their lives.

Saddam put them through the hurdles for twelve years, Why should anything have suddenly changed.

Subsequent to the invasion, no WMD have been found.

In a country the size of California, and hiding places such as Syria, not likely they'd be found. And if Saddam was bluffing, good on him that the bluff backfired.

The world needs to decide whether it wants a rules-based system or a power-based system. I vote rules-based.

Only if the rules are enforced by more than another UN resolution.

[Higgly]

Only if the rules are enforced by more than another UN resolution.

Fine. Why not work towards that?

[ScottSA]

The world needs to decide whether it wants a rules-based system or a power-based system. I vote rules-based.

Here's a fundamental misunderstanding that shapes the thoughts of many wannabe armchair strategists. The two categories are not mutually exclusive, and in fact one make no sense without the other. "Rules" are merely articulated thoughts. Without coercion they are meaningless, whether in a chatroom, a domestic legal system, or an international arena.

What, for instance stops me calling you a silly passive aggressive little twit? Not rules, that's for sure. It's the enforcement of those rules that ensures I don't call you that. It's the "power" you so disdainfully dismiss. It's Greg. Some people may be able to function without rule enforcement, but certainly neither you nor I can do so.

In domestic law there exists an entire social underbelly who flaunt the rules and spend their years in and out of jail, and then there are those who live so well within the rules that they need never worry about running afoul of the rules. But the vast majority of people live somewhere in between, in varying degrees of compliance, because of enforcement, or "power." That doesn't mean everyone in this group would run out straightaway and rob a bank the second the cops go on strike, but it means there are degrees of compliance to rules they would ignore, were it not for enforcement...from stealing paperclips and jaywalking to egregious rapine and murder.

And it's exactly the same thing in the international system, except that there is no police force, so things work on the posse system. The UN can make rules until they extrude its backside, but no one is going to follow them unless it is in their self-interest, or unless the rules are enforced by someone willing to round up a posse and do the job. Fortunately peace is in the interest of a globalist system and most of the actors in it, so compliance is voluntary and more or less effective on an international level. The exemptions to this rule happen when somebody ("somebody" refering to an unitary actor country) perceives that they have more to gain outside compliance than within it. At that point it decides just how far it is willing to go outside compliance. If it's willing to go far enough, the other actors have to decide how far they are willing to go to maintain compliance to rules.

The long and short of it is that your duality is a false duality.

[jbg]

Fine. Why not work towards that?

If I'm a Dinner Jacket and the likes of Saddam Hussein complied, sure.