No, people won't be at war with each other because the cost and the likelihood of war will play a role in the decision on whether to enter war or not.

In this case, the administration (correctly!) assessed that there was virtually no cost or risk (albeit, a very high profit.)

Damn man, no risk?

It must be lovely to exist in a world where you think you can punch someone in the face and nothing will ever happen to you if they don’t respond immediately.

Good thing the window of opportunity for retaliation is now firmly closed and we’ll never see anyone come back years later for revenge.

Unrelatedly, has anyone seen the twin towers lately? I visited NYC for the first time in 30 years and I couldn’t find them anywhere.

Indeed, and that was just a loosely knit organization of US haters that figured if they can't do anything in a direct confrontation maybe an indirect one would work.

One of these days someone is going to set off a nuke in a capital somewhere and we're all going to wonder where that came from...

Incidentally, I believe Bin Laden is in part responsible for Trump's election.

"Incidentally, I believe Bin Laden is in part responsible for Trump's election."

I assume you don't mean he does that from his secret base on the dark side of the moon, but rather 9/11 -> patriot act - war on terror -> ..?

That and the wider division between humans with different amounts of melanin.

Who is going to come back for revenge? Maduro was vehemently hated.

You may have not seen the update, but as per the king we will be running Venezuela.

This isn’t over and out adventures like this tend to create adversaries that bite us in the ass later, even when a competent admin is the one with their hands on the wheel

The US has sent nun rapers all across Latin America, puppet leaders, outright military takeovers, and everything in-between. The people we make enemies with haven't forgiven us for all those things, and I can't imagine there is much remaining unaccounted overlap between people that disagreed with all the other stuff, and those who were ok with the other stuff but not this.

This is one of those weird moments where I have a hard time wondering what new people we can even piss off that somehow weren't already against us from prior LA incursions.

Ordinary citizens were bombed in Caracas. There are videos of such bombings. Please do consider that the loss of the lives of ordinary people is a risk.

I am obviously speaking from the perspective of a superpower or a nation, not my own perspective. To a superpower, the lives of 40 people is indeed "virtually no cost" for the benefit of $17T worth of oil reserves and a favorable regime change.

> Expecting your country to go to war for your private interests is ridiculous.

At the risk of coming across as flippant: Why? I don’t think the math has worked out on most peer conflicts during the past hundred years. The cost of the operation has likely already exceeded the value of whatever infrastructure was left in Venezuela to be reclaimed. But why should we expect courts and bailiffs to enforce the law domestically and not expect soldiers to enforce it internationally?

Maybe because war is terrible and no one wants it? Especially if it means protecting private companies’ revenues.

There is always a cost/benefit done for these decisions, it is never as simple as "war as terrible so we just shouldn't do war."

The benefits definitely do not accrue to you, though. There is no direct or indirect benefit to you supporting the invasion of another country where you can now bomb locals with impunity.

What if military intervention was an explicit part of the investment agreement in the first place? I’m not saying it was, but would it affect your judgement?