Applying space forces actively to war could well be applying a new part of the universe to war. (Airplanes and submarines were also this.)
Yes. That's actually enshrined in international law. Sovereignty is pretty much defined as whomever has enough force in that place to get their way.
the international operating mode is that serious conflicts are resolved with machines designed to destroy property and lives
CGP Grey puts it this way: Sovereignty == Bigger Army Diplomacy.
Actually that's not quite right. Sovereignty == Better Armed Forces with Sustainable Logistics Diplomacy.
The line, "While you can call them all British it's not recommended as the four countries generally do not like each other." hooked me, I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. Rest of my day is gone watching these videos, I'm down the rabbit hole.
Its true that Europeans used to fight each other much more. That's also true of most areas of the planet.
I think that for the main part you have Europeans working together now under NATO.
I believe that actually the most core reason for NATO is common genetic and ethnic heritage. In fact, to me the major global factions are essentially just ancient tribal disputes write large.
Now, this may make sense if you have a sort of 19th century Social Darwinistic pre-gentic-science eugenic worldview where human life has little value to you and each group is essentially an ant colony battling it out so that the greatest "subspecies" may procreate.
But we understand now that humans are humans. We have instantaneous global communications with increasingly effective translation systems. Our technology provides a relative abundance for much of the population.
Would it make sense for this paradigm of deadly force to apply to the people who live on your block? No, of course not. What about within your city? No. What about between the United States and Canada? It seems unlikely.
But if I bring up the example of the United States and Mexico? The idea that there might be mass killing to resolve conflicts would be much more palatable for many people unfortunately. And I think it comes down to ethnic and cultural differences. In other words, they have different family histories, look different, speak a different language.
Its very hard to actually see how much things are connected until things break down and the connections reveal themselves.
Applying deadly force in such a context is much more unpredictable than in the past. Even though we have enough examples of what happens (Read Niall Fergusons the Square and the Tower) the scale of interconnectedness and interdependencies as massive.
Think of the 2008 financial crisis, nobody cared about the banks, they even let two fail but the chain reaction it set off scared the shit out of everyone. Finance Ministers and Federal Banks in ever corner of the world across all kinds of difference were all of a sudden guaranteeing matching safegaurds and stimulus packages. From Russia to India to China. Same story will repeat with any kind military conflict between say US and Mexico, the actual interdepedencies will reveal themselves beyond the legacy reasons for grouping such as language, culture etc. It's a delusion that the connections can be severed. And sooner or later people learn that the hard way. It's good for health in the long run.
Also look at the effects of sanctions against Iran and Venezuela. Both are collapsing.
Imagine the effects of sanction on an economy as big as China.
The Russian economy is growing, not withering: "Although economic sanctions tightened, [...] Russian economy expanded at a 1.6 percent pace in the year just ended," - [1] (or [2] if you think rt.com is fake news).
> massive population outflow for Russia
It is true that Russia population is decreasing, although Poland, Germany, Hungary, Japan etc are decreasing even more [3]. It's hyperbolic to describe this as "massive".
[1] - https://www.rt.com/business/448357-russian-economy-grows-san...
[2] - http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2019/01/08/da...
Sanctions against China would be fairly painful for the rest of the world, too.
Tariffs against China didn't have much impacts on European/US consumers.
You get the idea.
Russia isn't an export/manufacturing powerhouse, unlike China. The one thing that Russia does export that EU consumers are about - oil & gas - isn't subject to sanctions.
Right... that's my point: the relative impact of cutting off ties to China would be pretty large, given that it's the worlds factory. They would be worse for China, but more painful for everyone else than existing sanctions.
I mean the basic premise is that the bottom line for control is deadly force.
Maybe there really is no alternative but I think it's worth mentioning that as long is that is the operating mode, there is no real security for human life. You can certainly have extended periods without major wars but as long as the paradigm remains, it's always just a matter of time before the next mass killing starts.
I mean as far as Taiwan goes, it's right next to China, there is a long history. The paradigm is that you have a right to whatever you can take by force. If they get to the point where they can invade successfully and don't think that it is _actually_ going to start WW3, they may feel obligated to do it. Because yes it would probably result in a large loss of life, but the international operating mode is that serious conflicts are resolved with machines designed to destroy property and lives.