World War 3 ?

I think it would, considering Putin resorted to violence before discussion. Acting in a manner that forced Ukraine to seek foreign aid in the first place.

If he came up with plausible reasons, then they can be discussed, I have heard sound reasons for Russia needing to fear Ukraine allying with NATO, such as the possibility of NATO missiles being placed at their boarder. But if this is discussed, negotiations to avoid combat could be/have been avoided. And even if good points are made, Russia already has to strikes now, of not negotiating first, and of invading. So any points they do make will be met with strong opposition from Ukraine side. But At least everything could be laid on the table.

Even with points made, Ukraine would also have their reasons, their sound arguments for their actions, and by giving them a platform in the world audience, they can be allowed to discuss their perspective and dilemmas. To which, Russia's good points would have to be disputed against. Russia's unwillingness to aid Ukraine's economy while siphoning it for resources and allegiance is an example.

There is already immense discontent with him in his own country, raising that discontent would further cause the people to corner Putin. Putin most likely won't stop on his own, at this rate, and forcing Russia to change (leaders) without the consent of the people would only earn scorn.



Maybe to a large amount of the world, but there are those who support his decisions in Russia and the rest of the world. Those who feel prosecuted by the West, this would show a willingness to listen and try to work together, to which, Putin could spit in the face of if he decided to ignore. With sanctions, all were doing is indirectly hurting both the people who may agree with us and those who don't, further reinforcing their belief in Putin.

But were not just talking about the US but all of NATO. And I think the US conduct should be addressed too in a world discussion, the US is allowed to get away with too much. But NATO seems to want to use the US as the "intimidating person" of the group in shows of strength. So I'm not sure how much I agree with NATO itself. But this is a separate discussion.



If that is the sole reason presented on the world stage, then there would be little reason to dispute any "non-violent" offensive action, sanctions, against Russia, and may later give rise and justification to armed intervention. And if talks are not made, it could appear as simply Russia and the West clashing once again, but in the Ukrainian territory.



That just sounds like, "you have to punch someone, or show willingness too, before you can discuss your differences and reach an agreement". If NATO won't listen unless you show willingness to kill, then I think that's a problem... "A favoritism towards threatening entities, reinforcing the need of being imposing to obtain attention", is what it sounds like to me.

I think the attempts to negotiate would have been better used first, nothing is lost by attempting it, asking Russia to stand down during. Even with the sanctions would work. A possible agreement to drop/lighten the sanctions if Russia agreed to a ceasefire.



I'm well aware of that, but if I remember correctly, the final ok, was from president Harry Truman, who tried to negotiate Japan's surrender shortly before dropping the bomb, with an intent to avoid dropping it. If they had waited a week or two (forget how long information took to travel back then) longer for Russia's "Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation", Japan may have surrendered without the use of the bomb.

Though this has been pointed out to me, before, as looking in hindsight. My speculations are simply that. But I still look at it as an example of similar goals, if combined and coordinated together, could have avoided the travesty of the nukes, and possibly even avoided the Cold War. Since I translate the bomb drop just as much a threat to Russia's intimidating power displayed against Germany and Japan, pushing them into developing bombs of their own.



They're are a number of news reports discussing it, I happened to learn of it from John Stuart's "Daily Show".

---

I realize mobilizing talks would be difficult, but not impossible. A lot of unfortunate events could have been avoided simply through discussion. I don't believe that discussion would indefinitely change things, but I believe someone has to be willing to try. And I believe there is a chance within trying it. With the longer it takes for discussions to happen, the harder it'll be to discuss differences with the more entrenched they become in their cause.

My overall desire is a united world collaboration towards improving the human experience, while I do think this is near impossible, I don't think it's completely so... And with serious environmental problems occurring from our behavior, I would greatly prefer avoiding more self destructive behavior. I like to try to think of humanity as a whole... Well never be able to terraform Mars at this rate... (Yes the International Space Station event is getting to me, science is able to unite people plenty easily till politics gets involved... and I believe the biggest reason is due to the fact that they discuss concerns and conflicts, along with everything else.)

If Russia wanted land it would take it without discussing it with anybody, because it can, and America or the EU could do nothing about it.

People dont seem to understand that when a country takes land and makes it a part of itself, it automatically has to take money out of its budget to support the infrastructure, pay the new citizens pensions, etc.etc.etc. In other words, for any normal country (unless it is the former USSR which Russia is not even close to in terms of its structure) it would have no meaning whatsoever, and even more so for the worlds largest country that can barely control its own borders due to size, much less new ones.

Having a dependent state that you are not obliged to sponsor is much more convenient for any major power, and the major power can then simply rob the dependent country blind without having to support it, like Russia did with Ukraine, and like it plans to continue doing. Thats why the US and EU are mad, because they want to do that to Ukraine instead of Russia but are unable to.

The only reason Russia took back Crimea is because it houses (and always housed mind you, even when it was part of Ukraine) a strategic navy base that belongs and always has belong to Russia, not to mention some important military factories.

Also, Crimea residents are predominantly Russian, and were more than glad to get out of a broke ass country like Ukraine and join a rich country and become part of it, so all this talk about Crimean residents being against it is bullshit.

I consider this the other side of the coin of the Americans (and Canadians too, some up here think that way) who feel like all our recent military activity is justified. America and Russia are warmongers, but there are lots of people out there that think that's a good thing, for their side at least.


It's true, sanctions do hurt everyone. I wouldn't take it for granted that that helps Putin's position though. Part of his claim to fame is keeping Russia relatively prosperous and actions that hurt that won't help him.



I don't get that impression from NATO. I think they wanted the US to waffle less, but the relatives I have in it seem pretty happy with putting boots nearby and letting the situation play out without taking any kind of aggressive action.



That seems to be the situation other than the last part. I don't see there being a rise to armed intervention in the near future.



Don't assume people aren't talking just becasue it isn't in the media. But it DOES look like Russia and the west are clashing once again.



Yes, you do have to show the willingness. World politics is not schoolyard games. Passiveness is not permissible. If you have no power you have no leverage to negotiate.



Nuclear weapons lets us live in peace becasue of MAD. Because everyone is imposing everyone can come to the table for discussions. If someone is unimposing, like the Ukraine, and someone else wants to take their land, like Russia, they can do it. No amount of gentalmanliness will dissuade them from what they want.



Too many people think like that nowadays. You can't come in and bring nothing to the table in this game. You have to think in terms of dealing with someone completely different than your mindset.


I think you're right about that. Part of the reason for putting the sanctions in place is the ability to offer to lighten them later.

Doing the sanctions first then offering to lighten them later shows you're willing to do the sanctions in the first place, where talking first and threatening sanctions shows doubt that no one can afford.

I don't think the G8 will be back anytime soon though.



It is entirely possible. I agree with that.



I'm curious as to how you think it would have avoided the cold war? Even without the visible show of power both Russia and America had an idea of what those weapons could do. Perhaps a more ignorant general public would have been more willing to push the cold war too far if not for the trageties of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.



Ah, I see. That could be.


I'm curious as to why you think these kinds of talks aren't happening at all?


Esperanto? :D



That's part of why they're usually either resource rich or strategic or just declared territories without full rights.



It seem countries have to funnel a lot of money into dependant states too. But yeah, thats a point.



Well, it didn't in the last few years. But yeah, that area is historically Russian and has a long, bloody history of being contested.



I said anti-Russian Ukrainians. I don't think anyone talked about Crimean specifically.

Unless you mean in the media, if that's what you mean than yeah, you're right.

Indeed.





True, but nowhere near as much as when it is a part of the country. Its like America and Iraq: currently they only have minimal spending relating to pumping free oil and defending their sites from local militants, but imagine how much they would have to spend if they made Iraq a part of the US... It would simply rape the US government wallet. Same with Russia and Ukraine. Just because they can technically pull it off does not mean they want to or are actively trying to, despite what western media tries to make everyone believe.




It was not legitimately part of Ukraine because the transfer (done inside of the USSR, and almost completely verbally by the general secretary in power at the time, as a "kind gesture" lol) was not legitimate in the first place, it was only accepted by Russia as defacto, because it had good relations with Ukraine and didnt want to bother with the bureaucracy (and the obvious monetary implications if they took Crimea back straight after the USSR dissolution), but as soon as Ukraine decided it didnt want to play house with Russia anymore, Putin said fuck this and bailed out his strategic location before shit hit the fan hehehe



Yes, i meant what the media says.

I was thinking of places like Panama TBH. The US spent a lot of money to keep control there.

I think your analysis is quite right though.




That's interesting. Good addition to the thread.



I tend to think it's 1\3 true, 1\3rd exadurated, and 1\3'rd outright lies.

You're right they (carefully) paint the picture that the same people who are protesting Russia are the ones getting invaded.

While they couldn't communicate as fast as we can now they still had telephones back then and for the long distance stuff they used telegraphs still I believe. They could hold a conversation within a day if need be.

The allies issued their terms for Japans surrender on July 26th. The Japanese knew about it that day. 2 days latter Japanese issued a statement to their people that they would not surrender. August 6th is when the first bomb was dropped.

A faction of the Japanese government wanted to surrender but they were wishing to talk to Russia about it and no one else. They wished to surrender on their terms which was keeping the emperor and keeping all of the territory that the allies had yet to take from them and keep their military and not be occupied. Basically they just wanted to stop and that's it everyone go home were done. However that was just a faction.

There were also factions that wished to keep fighting. In fact even after unconditional surrender was agreed to a Coup d'état was attempted by a faction of the military that did not want to surrender. Hell there was some soldier's that held onto remote positions for years after the war was over (one guy lasted into the 70's).



A saying I like: Believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see.

What I am talking about are "public talks" on the world stage, where representatives hold accountability.



Mahatma Ghuandi and Martin Luther King proved otherwise. There are other forms of leverage than military power.



It prevents those with "nukes" from attacking each other with nukes. Cyber Warfare, terrorism, and bullying/extortion of countries without still goes on. As long as you can sweep up anything that traces back to the source, or have something you can use as a trade off for failure, it still happens. And all it takes is a suicidal world power with a cause to end it all. I would hardly call "people holding guns to each other head attempting to look for and execute any means to disarm the other of their gun" any form of peace.



I don't see power and/or coercion as the only two things that can be brought to the "table", or the only things that ever makes any kind of influence. The nation's leaders are not the only ones who need to be convinced.



But countries that shows sanctions without any form of negotiation, in the peoples eyes, only accumulate resentment from that country's people who are the ones who end up suffering (leaders simply take a blow to their public image, if people are hesitant/divided in their opinion of). It can even be used as a source of accountability for future instability in the countries economy later on down the line.

No one is disillusioned about affordability (with exception to those who refuse to inform themselves), the West is in a shit load of debt. Most country's economy are in the crapper and a google (news) search will inform anyone in how unstable ~insert country~ is.

Pretending to be able to afford it is one of the things that prolonged the Vietnam War and one of the things that allowed Iraq/Afghanistan. So I can't find myself agreeing with financial bluffs.



Talks to avoid making them could have been in place of talks to avoid use of them. And it was the arm race that pit America and Russia against one another so hard. While America did demonize Communism, we didn't have a direct conflict between each other (to my knowledge) till we became a threat to one another. Once we did, it became a mission to arm ourselves and our allies with enough firepower to destroy our enemies and their allies.

and the...






I've yet to see articles from either side depicting any form of "in the public's eyes" talks.



I had never heard of this before... Really interesting... Still learning Japanese, JavaScript, Ruby, with Korean and C++ on hold, but I would like to learn this.



Your forgetting "religious fueled fights/claims to land" such as the ones waged in the Middle East by the Muslims, Christians, and Jews that have been waged for hundreds of years.



I was understanding it as, mostly from wiki, so I assume I can be wrong, but that... Harry Trueman called a week or two before the bombs were dropped, since the bombs and planes were not finished till a little less than a month before and the prep work wasn't done till two weeks before they were dropped. But Harry Trueman talked to Japan in advance to be able to call it off the mission.

And that it was not a faction but the highest authority of military leaders who demanded that they maintain their independence, military, and emperor's positions. They realized they were at a loss but didn't want to come out losing. With the combination of "Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation" and the nuke drops on heavily civilian populated areas, the emperor went above the military and publicly announced Japan's unconditional surrender. Which I think took 1-2 days to reach the US president, and a week or 2 to reach all the fighting soldiers. And, as you said, some continued fighting regardless.

For people near a phone, communication was fast, but from the fields, it takes a lot longer. Especially when you have to piece together a large scale operation from the perspective of the soldiers fighting, and the ones they relay the messages too. To get a whole picture, it took quite awhile, back then. This is what I meant by the speed of traveling information, how long it would take to obtain and piece together the effectiveness of the operation, taking into account it's scale and duration, and then to relay it over secured information networks. If US and Russia were working in tandem, this may have taken a week or two to be relayed, during that time period, I would think.

And I don't remember much about them "wanting" to talk to Russia, but I do know that Russia and Japan had a pact (forgot the name, non-aggression treaty or something.) to not fight one another, which was broken, by Russia, with the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation. Any talks with Russia were pointless, Russia had already decided how they were going to act towards Japan.

In that case yes, you're right that would be a good thing. But the cynicism in me says that none of the leaders actually wants anything like that kind of accountability.



Canada got it's independence and sovereignty via diplomacy before them. I know it can be done.

But note that all these cases are English (as in speaking, America inclusive) and European cultures using more or less European ideals and values to push forward their cause non-violently.

When dealing with middle eastern warlords or central American dictators it's not the same. Many of them won't give a damn if you go on a hunger strike, they'll just view you as an enemy that destroys himself and move on.

I'd opine that that kind of peaceful resistance only has a chance in the context of a cultural morality that respects it. Most do not.







Yes, thus it stops major scale wars like world wars. It also protects people with strong allies.



Of course, neither ideals nor cynicism will stop that. It's doubtful anything will short of divine intervention.



That is naive. All lasting peaces in history are that way. The seeds of peace are fertilized by the blood of soldiers. Even Pax Romana was Rome with a sword to everyones necks too.

It seems to me that history either has a period of war or a period of a dominant military power. Nukes only change the game in making many powers 'dominant'.






What else do nations barter with? Military power, economic power, social power, territory.


I honestly don't think people take that much of a simplistic view. Or rather, people who follow the politics understand more or less why the things happened, and the ones that don't don't really understand what a sanction is enough to have a strong opinion on it.



Yeah, it defiantly can be used as an excuse latter.



Canada is OK, our import\export debt is relatively stable, though our municipal spending is terrible.

But yeah, Russia is scary cause they don't have that problem. They actually have a balanced economy more or less.



By afford I meant no country can afford not to look strong and assertive at these kinds of talks. I agree with you about the problems with the cost of war though.



Quite right. I was only talking about non-public communications and talks.





Esperanto is interesting just because of what it was intended to represent.

I don't personally think it would work for world peace, but it's on the right track.

The idea is that the differences in understanding each other tend to lead to conflicts, and different languages lead to different ways of thinking. So a universal language would allow for more than just less translation. It would lead to deeper intellectual communication and more similarities in ways of thinking and thus values.

And with similar values you can negotiate based on those values rather than just on brute force (like Gandhi or Luther).

It's an interesting idea, I don't think it's enough, but it has potential.



I'm not. Even Catholic Jerusalem was not supported directly by the HRE other than a military presence. If there's no resources there usually isn't any major government support of holdings.

I realize this, but this is simply speaking in terms of desirability.





US doesn't teach much (any) Canadian history, outside the basic colonization, only time it ever covers other countries, it has to be ancient history or European history older than 200 years or specifically about major events/people. The more I learn about other countries history, the more I find my middle/high school history classes mostly useless. Off topic though...



I have to study more about Gandhi, but Europe or not (other nations), Americans really don't care for any of them. Anything, from outside America, is met with a default hostility as "backwards/communistic". I'll admit speaking English probably helped their cause, but it being European or not wouldn't have changed anything for Martin Luther King Jr and the fight against segregation. It was simply a request for equal treatment, nothing complicated or difficult, or something that required looking at another nation for. It was something that was desired (to my understanding) from the American founding fathers themselves. Because it was non-violent, military (federal) intervention couldn't be used without shaming America and completely dividing America again, the risk of another civil war was present. (People still re-enact it in the south...) This is opinion of course, I might find out more if I read some documents by those in office from back then, but I hate reading (Love books though).

I don't fully understand what you mean by "European culture and ideals", but I think I addressed it. But, opinion, I would think that Gandhi's protest was a clash "against" European culture and those ideals, for Gandhi's and his followers own ideals.



I believe there's more to be gained out of such protest than simply a clash of morality. A exhibition of unified thought, that if pushed enough, could even become violent, requesting a peaceful means of an end to the cause they are fighting against. Hypothetically, while dictators could send, what is left, of there army on 80% of the population, the stress and insecurity it can cause for said regime, and the fear of them turning violent (including those in their own military), the possibility of their neighbors and friends changing sides. I would think is a viable option. And with this, you have people who created change from a peaceful base as opposed to a violent base. If conflict between ideals are met from within the protesters, peaceful means would be strongly sought before anything else. (I'm using Egypt's reaction to Morsi, which may have not even needed the violence, as an example of a violent revolution maintaining the violence.)

As for Warmonger/Warlords... As much as I prefer peaceful means, I am a hypocrite. I can not find myself being able to believe wholly in the ideals of peaceful resolution. I believe that peace, or the type wanted, has be something that can be understood by all sides, to be achieved. If a person "only" ever knows how to deal with conflict by killing, and when they are in a position of power, they are incredibly dangerous and I don't believe negotiation is a viable option. Even if they can be talked down, the resentment they've collected through their misdeeds would be too strong to forgive for those who suffered under, and can breed even more chaos...

Peaceful protest unites people, for a difficult and violent cause, under a peaceful means, that, as it grows in numbers, pushes those in opposition into the corner. Not just from within the country by also by those watching from outside. (I'm breaking this down for simplicity sakes, I realize major countries getting involved through "alliances", make these things all the more complicated... but under the pretense that no country involves themselves by buying out the government.)



Using.. "Peace is an occurrence of harmony characterized by the lack of violence, conflict behaviors and the freedom from fear of violence." -wiki

I don't consider this, or your examples of history, as anything that can be defined as anything more than "delusional perceptions of peace". True peace, is something I gave up on a long time ago as something only capable of existing in ideal. Efforts can be taken to get closer to this "ideal", but it ultimately can never be fully achieved.





To quickly clarify, I use "suicidal" in relation to those who seek "war" or armed conflicts. It may be "peace" for the nation with the gun, but those without are terrorized, far from the "ideal of peace". You used Rome as an example, which was prosperous due to their power, but those around them suffered greatly from.

In that way, current countries are forced under the near dictatorship of horrible regimes in exchange for alliance with those with the guns. Where the guys with guns hand them out to anyone who will fight for their cause, militarizing radical groups. Best example, Osama Bin Laden, being funded and militarized by America to fight Russia, turning against America. There are other examples of groups militarized by the US or Europe, many in Africa, the events of Rwanda for example, that created chaos and suffering. (A lot of the suffering there is explicitly due to the West, even up to this point. (Tracing arm sells.)) I would never call this peace, any "perception of peace" attained by the ones with "guns" is simply self sought delusion that ignores the reality outside their everyday.



I would prefer you define Economic and Social power a bit more, I don't understand what those are supposed to be.

Economic wise, fusing currency or increase currency exchange rates. Economic stimulus or import/export deals. Jobs.

Social relations helps greatly, tourism brings in a lot of outside money. Humanitarian acts, that lowers the severity of poverty, such as food and medicine.

Ya, territory can be given, traded, sold.

These are the few I can come up with off the topic of my head.



I think using America as an example should work well enough...

General public follows what media portrays and the general consensus of the country. Example, America's readiness to invade the Middle-East without questioning the validity of the statements made by the Bush administration, or the reasons given for. Media outlets portray an incredibly bias view, and people "are" stupid enough to take it at face value.

I can not make claims about Russia's media outlets, but for all I know, they could be justifying their actions, to their people, while everyone else, outside the country, objects, in a very similar fashion as America did/does.

Politics, in the US, is one side stand for one thing, so the other side absolutely doesn't and refuses to compromise because "compromising = weak". This lead to the our Government being shut down for 2 weeks, costing us greatly. The side who shut it down, trows out ridiculous reasons to justify their actions, and their constituents believes and agrees, without a single shred of doubt, because it was told to them by a representative of "their side".

Politics have been reduced to a matter of "sides" that decide what you want, as opposed to formulating independent ideas from data collected. (It's like the Olympics where people cheer for representatives of their country, as opposed to people they may find favor with.) And media outlets are the means in which they use to decide for the people.

To shorten this, I greatly disagree... A lot of people are so simplistic, to have others tell them what to think/feel and why they should, regardless of the legitimacy of the statements. I realize there are different forms of politics, and the example of America, is an incredibly poisoned (by greed) example, but I wanted to provide a different example of and the use of media to influence vthe easily shifted national consensus as an old thing.



The regulation of your banks helped greatly by comparison to our unregulated system.

Russia makes a lot of money by exporting arms, especially to China.



HRE? Holy Roman Empire?

And America's support of Israel belies your statement.

If the voice of the people had more tangible power it could be done.



I quite agree, I took some High school in the States, not even their American history was very good. Mind I have quite a few gripes with public education as it's become period, but history was especially weak.



When I say European I mean our larger set of cultural mores that the European influenced world shares. That includes the colonies like India, Canada, and Australia, and includes America as well as it's culture is very much an offshoot of European culture.



Indeed but if people didn't already have concepts of 'all men are created equal' and everyone has potential and other such intrinsic values the call for equal treatment would be meaningless. Only withing a cultural framework that allows for such things can the call make any progress.



Yes, exactly. Despite all the segregationist deuches around the heart and soul of American culture was on Luthers side, this is why he could appeal in a civilized non violent way.



Quite right.



Quite the opposite. Gandhi's protest was against European occupation and dominance, but stuck at the heart of Englishman's ideals (So much so that their culture very much respects him) If Gahndi's protest went up against someone like Stalin or Mao he'd be dead and his work would be meaningless. That goes for Ghandi vs many other world leaders and cultures. It is precisely because of the humanitarian ideals of the English that he could do anything. Not that the English or Europe are uniquely humanitarian, the old Ottoman Emperors would by and large have valued Gandhi's protests, and IMO quite a few ancient Asian rulers may have.

The point is most rulers would just kill him and move on, ending his protest as it began.



Quite frankly peaceful protesters have been slaughtered on masse in history quite a few times, even when they represent a decent chunk of the population, getting 80% of the population to agree on anything is unrealistic though.

And in many cases it precisely 'that they could turn violent' that they're slaughtered. Even if it's a group like the Mennonites who clung to pacifism as one of their primary virtues. Dead, by the hundred thousands, and that was when a hundred thousand people was a lot.

IMO Nothing is achieved by this.

What I'm saying, and I think we're talking past each other and agree, is that unless you already have some agreement and similar morals in place you can't do non-violent protests. If you have a culture that is empathetic to your cause peaceful protest is very powerful, if not it's pointless.



This seems to be the truth of the matter.


Yeah, that sounds right. As long as they aren't killed before they can pick up steam it's a good thing.

It's just, a lot of times peaceful protesters are killed before they can pick up steam :(



The lack of violence happens when the violence is spent and no one can gain an advantage using violence. If you can't reasonably get ahead by waging war then your violence is suppressed. That is peace as it exists for humanity.

That it's merely 'Pax' and not true 'peace' I'll grant you readily, you are quite right about that.



Yes and no, most great powers used their power for their own benefit, but they also had a tenancy to value diversity and offered things of value to their vassal states. One could say that Alexander created trade as we know it, and spread valuable goods and knowledge across the known world.

Rome brought stability to a massive region with a long history of wars. It created roads and trade routes, spread knowledge. Anyone, even a slave could become a respected citizen if they excelled in some way (a long shot, but that it could happen is pretty huge).

The Ottomans by and large did the same. They preserved the works of Rome so we have them today and in some ways war with them and recovery of these works lead to the scientific innovations of today via the creation of universities ect. They also valued diversity and where renown for their hospitality.

The Spanish and latter the UK again developed incredible technology for it's time and opened up the the first truely global trade and commerce routes. (props to the Dutch, who also did huge things but never had enough colonies survive and not get taken over, and to the French who helped the US and pre-Canada a lot and helped Africa somewhat). The Spanish, weren't so tolerant, but their era of power wasn't so long... The English on the other hand where quite tolerant and fascinated with other cultures.

The U.S. brought quite a lot of economic stability to it's 'puppet states' in the past, and they're usually more developed and stable than their surrounding areas. The U.S. also shares that common thread of valuing diversity and contributing to technological and social advances.

The next power has to either share those threads of tolerance and discovery, or we'll go back a good solid 500 years+ of advancement in a very short span of time.

And yeah, all of those 'empires' could be BRUTAL. In some ways more brutal than savages. But they could also be more civil, and more tolerant than others overall.

You don't have to be the top of the world to have a good life, and by and large the empires of earth helped far, far more than they hurt. Being in the shadow of a good empire is not a bad thing. The very weak and poor countries get defence and aid in development (usually technological), the stronger are usually valued assets to said empire and treated with some kind of respect.



I'd say that's because the world powers of the US and Russia are both on the decline and making some very bad choices.



Yep, and I'd say the EU is a failing power as well. They're all screwing up in pretty major ways. But we still don't have a major world war, and if you count conflicts in Africa the world has never seen a single day of peace in all it's history. On that note The Citizen is a satire newspaper that has an excellent article on an element of what you said about the 'perception' people have.

I agree we have nothing like total world peace. But we,locally, are at leisure to live peacefully, which is all one can hope for.



Social power is alliances, potential helps, and prestige from other sources. An example of another source would be Canada's lasting ties with some European nations due to our help in some wars in the past. Another example would be the many Ukrainian-Canadians that have ties to their homeland. Those ties are social power for the Ukraine and part of why we acted so soon.

Economic power is more abstract and more of a pain in the ass, but at it's heart its raw manufacturing power and stocks of valuable goods, most notably gold. I want to say 'currency is a lie' but that's not entirely true. Currency represents debt, and is more or less a 'negative' commodity in that the more a country issues (relative to it's production capacity) the weaker it is. Foreign currency is kind of an asset, though a weak one, and having your currency overseas is bad.

It's kind of like 'Shooting the Moon' in Hearts, if your familiar with the game. If your currency is a global currency you can use that as a source of tremendous power, but if you miss even one other major currency you get in deep trouble...



Kind of. But Territory is also a source of production in terms of food and natural resources, it's also where people live. Territory itself is a form of power, even if you're just holding it and not trading it in any way.



I agree, but in this case nothing matters to people who don't understand. The media can spin anything as hard as they want in whatever direction they want. It's a truely dangerous thing IMO.


Of course they are. America is the father of propaganda (Edward Bernays and like, very good reads) and I guess you could say Russia is her husband. Every nation does propaganda nowadays, but those two (and England) are famous as the best at it.



In practice your parties stand for the same thing. People raged at Bush for being a warmonger, but Obama is the most civilian slaughtering nobel peace prize winner ever :). Both sides pretty much seem to be sold out to corporations at this point.


That 'shutdown' was merely not giving more money to things that where overdrawn. It happens from time to time but the media found the need to sensationalize it.

Frankly if they where a family or small business they'd be really 'shut down' in the way of having their power and water shut off for being so overdue. They really NEED to re-evaluate their budget. Neither side is willing to make hard cuts though.



To people who are that simplistic actual events like sanctions don't matter. The story will be written for them regardless of any real events.



Well noted. That is true.

Nothing hurt your economy as much as how your banks where handled, and still are. And my family had a JVP of a major (not the largest, by any means, but big in one region) bank in the states up till that time. The corruption made her sick, and she knew many of her co-workers going on a multi-million dollar Vegas party when the bailout came though :(

God, it's like Africa where the dictator takes all the foreign aid and throws huge weeks long parties while his people starve. It makes me sick.


Indeed. But they also have natural resources, especially natrual gas that Germany is reliant on.



Yeah, sorry, that was a stupid paraphrase on my part.



Americas support of Israel is also by and large military and military technology. Israel can actually handle it's own infrastructure etc, though they rely heavily on having advanced technology for their economy.

Well, I certainly hope that mutually assured destruction still manages to deter people from starting WWIII. I'm not particularly keen on experiencing nuclear winter, or, you know getting vaporized or blown to smithereens or melted by a nuclear blast.

World war three wouldn't happen because of a strike on Syria.

If it were to begin in the next decade or so, it'd be because Russia or China believe the U.S is too weak to do anything and then we'll be forced to go to war because of their aggression. As long as the democrats stay in power and continue to make America look weak on the world stage then it's a valid possibility