What feels "different" today is not necessarily risk, but visibility.
We now see every war, cyber incident, threat, and speech in real time. I have to imagine the Cuban Missile Crisis (for example) was a much more serious existential risk, we were just largely in the dark while it was happening.
Not to minimize the current crises, I just wonder if this isn't what has always happened, we're just more informed now.
News reporters sometimes consume their own sensationalist content, which was strictly meant for customers only. This actually causes wars at larger scale, which would have been small local conflicts, if starved of visibility they never deserved.
A lot of people won't bother arguing or fighting if there are no observers.
For rural populations in those countries l, it hardly matters who is the ruler at the capital. The response of the West is largely influenced by media, disguised as public opinion, of the Wesst, but not opinion of the populations of the subject countries.
Russia has spent four years in this, fighting a country a fraction of its size, getting set back by homemade drones, and will now seemingly only win by a slow, expensive attrition and get only a concession. Why is anybody supposed to be scared of them?
> His henchmen make bloodcurdling threats about wiping the UK and other European countries off the map with Russia's vaunted new weapons, but he's usually much more restrained himself.
Is it a good personal shield, for him to have the next of succession look even more undesirable to his adversaries?
It has more to do with Mafia traditions. Attack dogs like Medvedev and Rogozin[1] threaten to burn everything down if you don't pay up, and Putin plays the more dignified philosopher who sits on a high chair in a mansion and speaks in vague terms about the importance of fire safety. It would be unbecoming for the big boss to openly and directly demand money and obedience. The top dog asks nothing from anyone; he wills things into being.
[1] The same who decades ago suggested Musk build a trampoline if he wanted to reach space.
> There is Ukraine of course, where the UN says 14,000 civilians have died.
Point of order, the UN says they have documented that number, and certainly dont count it as anything representing the actual death toll for civilians. The count doesn't cover most of the areas where civilians are dying at high rates. Sure, the UN stayed in Gaza to see what happened and delivered, but occupied Russian territory is too dangerous for the UN and they don't even try to monitor the death and atrocities happening in the occupied areas.
The correct time to stop Putin's war of aggression was the day he sent troops over the border. He should have been met with ferocious force from the entire western world. But he observed the weakness in the West for decades and knew he could get away with it. Obama's failed "red line" was the end of any nation on earth taking the western world seriously. The end of western liberalism is nigh.
This article makes me think of The Great Filter. If the threats are indeed real, and humans are unable to use their bigger brains to bypass tribal instincts, then maybe we are doomed.
It still seems wild to me that almost 5 years into this war, Europe is still relying on America to help them with Ukraine. Should be pretty obvious by now that Americans have no real interest in this war one way or the other.
>...World War Three ... more likely to be a collection of diplomatic and military manoeuvres, which will see autocracy flourish
I think we may be getting wise to that though. I'm sure Trump would be like to be ruler for life but the US voters seem to be getting fed up. Also probably Putin would like the Russian world to extend to Berlin but the costs of the war, sanctions and recently Ukraine hitting his shadow fleet are causing Russia to run out of money.
Russia seems to have a bit of a habit of overdoing the wars and collapsing. After WW1 and defeat by Japan the Tzars got overthrown, After Afghanistan the USSR collapsed. Maybe this time the Putin government will collapse and we'll get something more democratic? They only got saved in WW2 because after starting as allies of Hitler, he turned on them so they ended up on the winning side against by accident.
US voters also have the memory of a goldfish. The next cult of personality to come along will tell enough of what they want to hear, and people will gobble it up.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 55.2 ms ] threadIn the meantime the rest of the free world are going to have to step up.
We now see every war, cyber incident, threat, and speech in real time. I have to imagine the Cuban Missile Crisis (for example) was a much more serious existential risk, we were just largely in the dark while it was happening.
Not to minimize the current crises, I just wonder if this isn't what has always happened, we're just more informed now.
A lot of people won't bother arguing or fighting if there are no observers.
For rural populations in those countries l, it hardly matters who is the ruler at the capital. The response of the West is largely influenced by media, disguised as public opinion, of the Wesst, but not opinion of the populations of the subject countries.
Is it a good personal shield, for him to have the next of succession look even more undesirable to his adversaries?
[1] The same who decades ago suggested Musk build a trampoline if he wanted to reach space.
Point of order, the UN says they have documented that number, and certainly dont count it as anything representing the actual death toll for civilians. The count doesn't cover most of the areas where civilians are dying at high rates. Sure, the UN stayed in Gaza to see what happened and delivered, but occupied Russian territory is too dangerous for the UN and they don't even try to monitor the death and atrocities happening in the occupied areas.
Whether current preparations lead to peace or lead to war, is left as an exercise to the reader.
I think we may be getting wise to that though. I'm sure Trump would be like to be ruler for life but the US voters seem to be getting fed up. Also probably Putin would like the Russian world to extend to Berlin but the costs of the war, sanctions and recently Ukraine hitting his shadow fleet are causing Russia to run out of money.
Russia seems to have a bit of a habit of overdoing the wars and collapsing. After WW1 and defeat by Japan the Tzars got overthrown, After Afghanistan the USSR collapsed. Maybe this time the Putin government will collapse and we'll get something more democratic? They only got saved in WW2 because after starting as allies of Hitler, he turned on them so they ended up on the winning side against by accident.
US voters also have the memory of a goldfish. The next cult of personality to come along will tell enough of what they want to hear, and people will gobble it up.