"Thirty-six countries have endorsed the goal of a treaty banning autonomous weapons" Only those who do not have it wanna ban it. Why would anyone with the technology ever want to disadvantage themselves?

There was a time when nuclear disarmament was actually happening. That is passed now, of course.

Incentives were aligned better there, though. Disarmament happened only to the extent it didn't threaten the MAD doctrine, and it reduced ongoing maintenance costs for everyone involved.

> Disarmament happened only to the extent it didn't threaten the MAD doctrine, and it reduced ongoing maintenance costs for everyone involved.

The U.S. and USSR were the only countries embracing MAD. The other nuclear powers embraced flavors of what we now call minimal deterrence [1]. (Think it's helpful to know deterrence theory has options other than MAD.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimal_deterrence

Few countries have obtained nukes only to later relinquish them.

South Africa did, because the outgoing government didn't want to hand nukes to its successor government.

Ukraine, well, see how that worked out.

Kazakhstan, Belarus... seems ok for them so far.

On the other hand, those who have weapons tend to want to keep them out of the hands of whoever their subjugating or oppressing. See the history of domestic arms control in damn near any country for examples.

Yes, same with ABC-Weapons. Why would anyone with the technology ever want to disadvantage themselves?

Because of the inevitable destruction of the human race from an ever escalating set of wars.

Sometimes, I think the best thing America could do to improve it's long term military ecosystem and capability, is to bomb all it's business/MBA schools. Or relocate them to China.

When you need to 'get shit done' you really need to focus on the shit, not on how you can best profit from it.

It's ironic that you mention China. Chinese military intelligence is routinely contracted by Chinese businesses to conduct industrial espionage.

Chinese military efforts in the South China Sea are all about controlling shipping and oil extraction - for profit.

Chinese military control of Hong Kong was important to control that financial capital and the in/out flows of cash from China.

Chinese military threats to Taiwan are important because of the vast wealth and industrial knowledge base in Taiwan.

We live in a new era, where gov't, finance, and tech, are increasingly consolidating power to form super-national power structures.

Haven't Silicon Valley companies had trouble getting their activist staff to work on any government projects? Especially anything connected to the military.

They're perfectly happy to help out regimes the US would come up against in a military conflict are these the the people you want unseating the MIC?

No, there's just a vocal minority on Twitter that would like you to think that.

Good. For all of its faults, I can’t think of another country that I would like to have military supremacy.

The US navy protects global shipping & trade, which ties into why it provides the USD as the global reserve currency.

It makes sense that silicon valley protect this linchpin of the global economy - and the majority of their revenues.

It would be nice to have a global democracy, but unfortunately the best we can hope for is the cohesion of the US/EU/NATO alliance.

Is any non-hegemonic model of international relations truly unrealistic?

GHW Bush thought it was possible.

Would you want the UN running things?

It’s worse than our Congress. They got a couple of decent programs but for the most part it’s a corrupt organization.

If the world became a global direct democracy, most humans would lose many human rights over-night.

It is folly to think there is wisdom in the average intelligence.

Agreed. Which country’s ”war machine” would you prefer Silicon Valley powered??

Switzerland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_neutrality

They wouldn't be neutral if they carried that much power. ...at least not for long.

From 1943 Switzerland stopped American and British aircraft, mainly bombers, overflying Switzerland during the Second World War. On numerous occasions during the war, Allied aircraft trespassed on Swiss airspace; mostly damaged Allied bombers returning from raids over Italy and Germany whose crews preferred internment by the Swiss to becoming prisoners of war. Over a hundred Allied aircraft crews were interned and placed in ski resorts which were left abandoned due to the lack of tourists after the outbreak of war. They were to be held in there until the war had ended.[20] At least 940 American airmen attempted to escape into France after the invasion of Normandy, but Swiss authorities intercepted 183 internees. Over 160 of these airmen were incarcerated in a Swiss prison camp known as Wauwilermoos, which was located near Lucerne and commanded by André Béguin, a pro-Nazi Swiss officer. The American internees remained in Wauwilermoos until November 1944 when the U.S. State Department lodged protests against the Swiss government and eventually secured their release.

>From 1943 Switzerland stopped American and British aircraft, mainly bombers

Because of those "incidents":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_incidents_in_Switzerlan...

And a pretty good Video from a fantastic channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FILxoQyKzDg

You have to imagine Switzerland with 100MM and then think about it.

So, Indonesia, Nigeria, Russia, India, Brazil, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Japan, Mexico…

Which one would you prefer to wield the sword other than the US.

How would Pakistan feel if India were the hegemon, and vice versa? Use your imagination.

In order to be a hegemony you need to be able to sustain that. You can say: I grant thee Andorra or Singapore hegemony over the world. You rule. That’s like giving a toddler in a village a Kalashnikov. It’ll ‘rule’ for an hour till it can’t feed itself and then the brute wrests it away while it sleeps.

>I can’t think of another country that I would like to have military supremacy.

You need to travel more.

Which country that has a realistic shot at military supremacy right now would you prefer and why? I can only think of two, and neither would be good for the rest of the world.

> Which country that has a realistic shot at military supremacy right now

Moving the goal posts.

Germany. It is pretty anti-war and peaceful.

If the United States disappeared tomorrow, Germany would have approximately a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming the world’s leading military power.

Not if they hand out free beer and sausage.

You’re being sarcastic, right? You’re aware of which country started the last two WORLD WARS, right????!??!

There are not many things harder to imagine than today’s german society starting a offensive war. So yes i am serious.

Uhhuh. Give them power and weapons and see what happens.

It would happen to anyone. Just look at how Germany uses its marginal heft to boss the EU around.

Denmark

Thanks, but no thanks. Personally I prefer the asshole I know over its licker helping him.

https://www.politico.eu/article/vestager-you-should-not-spy-...

https://www.politico.eu/article/edward-snowden-is-back-spyin...

https://grapevine.is/news/2021/06/03/danish-intelligence-ser...

easy to say if you're not the one being indiscriminately bombed

I could dispute the use of the word “indiscriminate,” here, and even ask who is being bombed, but instead: who (that has a realistic chance) would you rather have as the world’s leading military superpower, and how would they be better?

Didn't the military start Silicon Valley?

Yes.

https://steveblank.com/secret-history

That is the argument of Yasha Levine, author of Surveillance Valley.

If the US is a war machine, with all the power it has and barely uses, what on earth do you call oppressive regimes, warlords, totalitarian states, genocidelists, and others?

Bah.

Just because the US isn't perfect, doesn't make it a war machine.

The British Empire was a war machine, more than the US has ever been!.

So we are playing what-aboutism?

My turn: I am trying to find a list of warlords and oppressive regimes who have destabilized other countries, invaded and subjugated countries under false pretenses caused millions of deaths etc. etc.

I put that sentence:

"warlords and oppressive regimes who have destabilized other countries, invaded and subjugated countries under false pretenses caused millions of death"

Into google and the 3rd result was that ;)

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRECB-2006-pt8/html/CREC...

"Global war on terror "

Yet that google ranking was likely about the US's citizenry, a portion of them, using political process to curb, and reduce military usage.

In other words, the US curtailing itself.

What-aboutisms are not about comparing actions against others.

I did not say the US does not go to war. I merely said, call a thing what it is.

In terms of empires, compared to its power, the US empire is the most peaceful empire in the history of mankind.

Imagine the Roman Empire, The British, with the power the US has. Imagine any other empire in history.

The entire world would be directly, ruled by the US!

Now look at the US again.

> the US is the most peaceful empire in the history of mankind.

i want some of whatever the hell it is you're smoking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

In any measure of global per capita rates of violent deaths, or military spending as a fraction of global GDP, we are currently in a golden age. Certainly, across the millennia. Arguably, post industrialization.

If peace means quietly sitting in the corner while havoc is wrought around you, then no, America isn't very peaceful.

If you consider the US to be an empire, then the statement is legitimately true. In terms of modern era “empires” it could only be compared to China or Russia, and the US is certainly more peaceful than those countries. If you want to look back through history, then all 3 of those countries are more peaceful than any empire that’s come before. The Roman Empire was kicked off by defeating Carthage twice, making them pay war reparations for 50 years, and once that was done going back and erasing their entire society from existence just to make sure they were never a threat again.

“peaceful empire” is a total oxymoron. the concept of empire is predicated on the subjugation of other countries and people.

and please, citation very much needed on the assertion that China is more warlike than the US.

So is “peaceful country”. The ongoing existence of every country is predicated on its ability to wage war (or make friends with countries that wage war). Nearly all of the borders on the globe were defined by war. But that doesn’t mean countries or empires can’t have differing views towards peace and aggression.

In regards to China, I said it was less peaceful, which seems obviously true to me. China has ongoing territorial disputes with ever country close to it, which extends to raising man-made islands out of the sea to push back the sea borders of its neighbors. It believes it outright owns two neighboring countries, occupying one of them, and constantly threatening to conquer the other. A large amount of its northern region used to be Mongolia until the government one day sent millions of Chinese people to live there, and just redrew its maps. As a country it was also founded upon a revolution that included arguably the most brutal mass slaying of civilians in history.

The US fights more wars, but China is far more belligerent imo, and engages in outright territorial conquest every opportunity it gets.

> Just because the US isn't perfect, doesn't make it a war machine

I don't think the article claims it is. The U.S. has a war machine. And Silicon Valley wants to sell to it.

Wait...can you name another country who was involved or started more wars then the US in the past 80 years?

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/america-war-machine/

>>Eisenhower warned the nation against the threat of the military-industrial complex

Ah. Involved.

You know, the US does do peacekeeping, and does at times invade for actual humanitarian reasons.

But I guess those are bad things too, and war making.

> You know, the US does do peacekeeping, and does at times invade for actual humanitarian reasons.

yes, I too am very smart and unquestioningly parrot my rulers' propaganda lines.

Give this person some ketchup licking the empires boot can't be that tasty.

> does at times invade for actual humanitarian reasons.

For example?

Korean War, Grenada, first Iraq war, Somalia, Panama (depending on your view of conspiracy), Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo.

Ah yes the humanitarian Korea War who hasn't heard of that one, the peace mission in Vietnam and Myanmar not to forget, and the first Iraq was a great point for Human rights...what a human loving war-machine the US is.

But the US "forgot" to sign the "Convention on the Rights of the Child":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_th...

Michael Parenti, Darker myths of empire

Somehow the imperial managers always stumble into a conquest direction. Like every imperial force before it the US also denies its imperialism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOF56wYTl1w

If world hunger isn’t just a hoax, why do I have food on my plate?

It’s really quite bizarre to say the US isn’t a war machine when it has the world’s biggest arms industry and readily sells to nearly anyone. That’s before even getting into its history of invading the most bizarre countries that most can’t point out on a map, going back to the Philippines over 100 years ago, to the insane level of competition it reached with Russia in the 20th century, to Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

I don't think any solution to world "hunger" you may be dreaming of would end in any other way than 15 billion people in Africa and more world hunger.