#1

To wit, 'tis the season. We’ll see if there’s sufficient interest to sustain this, but I think we’re getting a bit deeper into the topic than usual.

2 Likes
BL3 Went full Leftist, so many subliminal leftist agendas in the campaign
Random Talk Thread
Keep all politics off of this forum
Confession Thread. (Because no one knows you're a dog on the internet)
#2

Good move. It was starting to feel a bit inappropriate in the RTT.

In other news, (if the old subject has gotten redundant) I’m pretty irritated about Rand Paul being pushed to the undercard debates. Christie or Kasich should be thrown off of the stage instead of Rand.

#3

Interesting, so to be clear you’re of the opinion that our current setup is a good method of dealing with the sort of threat ISIS poses?

It really depends on what you mean by threat I suppose, to stability? Russia is indeed quite a big threat, however just to be clear I was addressing that from a perspective of defense not stability.

I absolutely agree that you have a point here, like I said above I was addressing this from a specific angle. Albeit even if we take a broader, less US centric view I’d honestly be more unnerved by a few other things currently. The EU’s possibility of splintering, how severe and how global the effects of the China slowdown are, Saudi Arabia in general (both internally and externally), are all areas I’d be watching right now in terms of global nervousness. In plainer terms, excepting ISIS, most of what I’d worry about aren’t direct military movements, but things that might make military mobilization more likely. Albeit Russia could always surprise me, since their attitude seems to be to take advantage of situations.

Neither is Test.

Yeah, felt like it’d moved to addressing topics on a level that deserved a dedicated area.

Christie has been strangely on the rise, Kasich, well… He’s a candidate for another race, as odd as it is to say it he just lacks anger. Either that or he just isn’t a very good politician, which would also be a fair point given his debate performance at least. Paul losing support doesn’t totally astonish me, if you look back at how his numbers have moved, since he moved towards a more central position he’s lost his own supporters, but hasn’t gained much elsewhere. To be fair, might be my bias speaking there though - I actually found him occasionally compelling early on, less so now.

#4

Doesn’t matter how the military is set up. ISIS operates off of an ideology, one that you’re not gonna kill with Bombs and missiles. And even if you do defeat ISIS, which I don’t think is likely anytime soon, something worse will come along. Always does.

Didn’t know that

#5

This is true to an extent, but the ability to end an ideology, isn’t the same as saying there’s no use of military force in denying them specific objectives. For that matter, how the military engages with local forces can also have an effect on this. I’ll agree that there are fundamental underlying issues in the area (Saudi Arabia for one), but that isn’t an argument against controlling the impact.

Hm, I admit I’d presumed he’d brought it up before. Could be wrong.

#6

[quote=“TemetNosce, post:3, topic:1199216”]
Interesting, so to be clear you’re of the opinion that our current setup is a good method of dealing with the sort of threat ISIS poses?
[/quote]Not necessarily. As surprising as it may sound given my stance on a lot of things, I don’t follow those issues. ISIS is fighting a battle on multiple fronts and it’s only a matter of time before they start to diminish. And while I do agree with ThatOneGuy that the root of the problem (presumably religion) isn’t going to subside any time, I seriously doubt they’ll be able to continue to push their agenda. The entire world, not just NATO, is tired of their crap. I’m curious to know how much of a threat you actually think they are or what they could accomplish? On a similar note, the immigration in Europe is getting out of control. I’ve been reading about the problems in Germany with Merkel and all of the turmoil with the entire EU. The outlook is disturbing if they don’t do something soon.

Christie’s polls have been surprising me as well. As for Kasich, I don’t really have an opinion on him. How you described him is pretty much the same way I view Carson. Carson is arguably a pretty smart and reasonable candidate, but hearing him speak puts me to sleep. I don’t see him as a leader and I don’t think he’ll change much. If Paul falls out of the equation entirely, I really don’t know who I’ll be voting for.

Test is from India if I recall correctly. I could be confusing him with someone else, though.

#7

I am not from india. I live in Canada atm and I even feel that Canada’s military is too expensive and unnessecary.

No. Perhaps when I said never I was wrong, but the chances of a RU PRC alliance is so out of question it mays as well be approaching never. Neither of those fountries have any interest of invading America. The only clashes they will have is with america’s force projection in certain regions.

ISIS is likely will be a regional problem in middle east in my opinion. There might be a few attacks on the developed world but I doubt it will expand to north america. I do think it is USA’s responsibility to secure and stabilize the region since they destabilized in the region in Iraq invasion.

I am not sure about the migrant problem in Europe, but I dont think it will alter anything fundamentally.

Fundamentally, I cannot see how these regional conflict will significantly affect those in NA.

#8

This^

Religious extremism thrives in impoverished areas, dropping bombs just adds fuel to the fire. I know it sounds like hippy BS but we have been bombing ISIS like crazy and they just use it to recruit more. Even if you kill off enough of them a splinter group of more extreme views will split off.

You fight religious extremism with stabilizing the areas where they spring up, you do it with education and medicine. I know what it sounds like but just look at history.

Even the catholic church tries to grow its ranks in developing nations when developed nations become less religious. It’s because they also know that in hard times people cling to religion more.

Help develop and educate those nations to shut down extremism is really the only way to fight it. Bombs don’t help.

2 Likes
#9

[quote=“testierjamaj, post:7, topic:1199216”]
I am not from india. I live in canada atm
[/quote]Sorry, bud. I’m trying to remember who I confused you with now lol. Must have been some other guy from India that was into tech’ at one point.

[quote=“testierjamaj, post:7, topic:1199216”]
I am not sure about the migrant problem in Europe, but I dont think it will alter anything fundamentally.
[/quote]Maybe, maybe not. Mass immigration can make or break certain economies and the culture shock is causing a lot of problems with riots. Riots lead to political changes that can lead to civil wars.

#10

Thats a lot of assumption made. Riots dont automatically correspond to political changes. European is gonna riot off soccer a hell lot more then migrants.

#11

There have been multiple murders during these riots and many of these supposedly peaceful migrants or ‘refugees’ are calling for Shariah Law and spitting on the countries that are trying to help them. I’d say that’s a few notches worse than a sports riot, but hey, maybe I’m just negative.

#12

Ehem, sports riot have higher death tolls. I dont know, I just feel like a lot of people in NA are overplaying and paranoid about external threats while we still have a lot of urgent problems to fix at home.

2 Likes
#13

You do have to address it, I 100% agree but how we have been addressing it I think has been wrong. Prevention, intelligence, and support to the local areas effected by it, but not attacking it. Attacking it is what they want.

Look at America, we loose way more life to extreme Christian domestic terrorism than extreme domestic and foreign terrorism. We spend billions bombing one that kills less Americans and we kinda leave the other alone.

I’m just saying our approach has been terrible and look at our history in the middle east, how many times have we ended up fighting groups that we supplied weapons to? And we have recently been in talks of now arming the taliban to fight ISIS, the people responsible for 9/11 and we have had serious talks about arming them AGAIN.

Our government and military have to start learning from their mistakes because history is repeating itself

#14

That’s fair, it’s an involved issue. It’s not exactly front and center of most news, given that discussing changes in military operations to take into account asymmetrical warfare isn’t exactly high drama. Yeah though, we’re seeing a serious change in how warfare is pursued, whether we’re discussing the modern version of asymmetrical warfare or the newfound importance of cyber warfare. Not exactly unusual to be fair, countries always tend to prepare for the last war rather than the next one.

Define threat I guess, they’re definitely destabilizers both locally and abroad, but if you mean in traditional terms, I’m shocked they’re holding this much territory. It’s sort of the reverse of the militaries problem in dealing with them, they just aren’t really set up in a way to traditionally hold territory. I’m not willing to predict much in that region though, there’s just not much to stand on there.

To clarify, are you discussing the problems between the parties which wish for more/less open borders (and the possibility of someone leaving the EU), or saying the immigrants themselves are a problem? Economically they certainly aren’t, but that’s based on long term trends from past immigration rather than shorter term issues.

I’d honestly expected Christie to be steadier early on, then basically discounted him. So this sudden move later on has me somewhat bemused. Admittedly it’s not to an extreme, but still. Carson is honestly a pretty traditional candidate if you look at where he draws support from and his polls. I admit I was somewhat surprised by his endurance, but he wasn’t going anywhere in the first place.

Well, Test already answered, but yeah. You’re thinking of DW.

The idea that you can’t end a threat with simple force isn’t the same thing as saying force has no place - far less saying the military has none. It’s good to remember that the military can also serve a defensive and diplomatic role. I agree that we aren’t going to just bomb them out of existence though.

While I’ll concur in general I feel like you missed the third, and arguably most important part of this triad, namely the economy. A stable, functional economy where the citizens are well employed plays a major part in discouraging armed extremism.

I’ll simply say on this that I think we need a more clearly defined foreign policy, the idea that throwing everything including the kitchen sink at a problem (or even things that aren’t problems) is a solution has repeatedly come back to bite us in the ass.

#15

[quote=“testierjamaj, post:12, topic:1199216”]
I just feel like a lot of people in NA are overplaying and paranoid about external threats while we still have a lot of urgent problems to fix at home.
[/quote]Believe me, I agree with you and Derch. I think lines need to be drawn with current approaches and we need to go back to the chalkboard. However, I think a lot of people only interpret America’s action as an offensive one and fail to realize that a lot of it has to do with preventative measures. Leaving people alone seems all fine and dandy, but if you give an enemy enough time to grow and develop, it then becomes your problem. A lot of America’s military involvement overseas has to do with previous bases from older wars or from countries that have requested assistance. It’s not always about trying to control the whole world.

#16

Just wanted to give commendation on splitting the topics up and having the foresight and concern to see that it had become too big for the RTT.

Well done @TemetNosce.

2 Likes
#17

A lot of the so called “preventive measures” seem to spawn a lot more issues. I think history has proven just using force to deal with things like this doesnt work. Just calm down and to see instead of always using the hammer, maybe some gentle pushes on economic side might help.
I think we definitely need to find a way to stop these thugs from terrorizing the region but I dont think a clear solution exists.

#18

Probably thought about this question more than I should have. I’d say something becomes a threat once it is significant enough to cause harm to a country’s national security if left untreated. It’s hard to determine whether the cost to resolve this conflict (regardless of approach) will save us more in the end or if we should just withdraw. I’m personally not one to stand around, especially when it’s not just our own people that are being hurt, but I acknowledge that we need to go about it in a different way.[quote=“TemetNosce, post:14, topic:1199216”]
To clarify, are you discussing the problems between the parties which wish for more/less open borders (and the possibility of someone leaving the EU), or saying the immigrants themselves are a problem? Economically they certainly aren’t, but that’s based on long term trends from past immigration rather than shorter term issues.
[/quote]
Both. They may not be hurting the economy currently, but if it leads to civil wars or part of the EU disbanding, that’s economic damage. My problem with the immigration is that it’s simply not just immigration. They’re not packin’ their bags, adapting to their new culture, contributing to society, or even being appreciative of the help. The media might like to portray it that way and capitalize on guilt or compassion, but that’s simply not what’s happening. They’re practically swarming in through other countries’ borders and they’re not bringing flowers and cooking recipes from their native lands. They’re bringing religious, political, and cultural standards that are blatantly incompatible with western civilization.

[quote=“TemetNosce, post:14, topic:1199216”]
You’re thinking of DW.
[/quote]Thanks for reminding me. Is he still around by any chance?

[quote=“testierjamaj, post:17, topic:1199216”]
A lot of the so called “preventive measures” seem to spawn a lot more issues. I think history has proven just using force to deal with things like this doesnt work. Just calm down and to see instead of always using the hammer, maybe some gentle pushes on economic side might help.
[/quote]History has repeatedly shown that doing nothing can also lead to problems. I want to clarify that I’m not supporting going in all gung-ho and blowing up anyone that opposes us, though. That’s not what I’m trying to imply. I just don’t understand where all of the complacency has come from within our borders and all of the disdain that everyone else has for anything and everything America does.

#19

The military should never be involved in domestic affairs unless there’s another civil war here.

That’s probably not going to happen because those in charge tend to do things that’ll keep them in charge - with one of those things being armed responses to threats to America because that’s what we want to see. Any politician who says we should fight guns with books is likely not going to see another term.

This doesn’t mean I don’t agree with you, Derch, but I think we have to remove the aggressive element in an area before we can establish schools, hospitals, and what-not. During the Iraq War, our soldiers handed out food, water, and other supplies to villages we kicked Al Queda out of; that wouldn’t have been possible had there been a significant force still there.

1 Like
#20

I would agree with you on that as well, defense and diplomacy is a good way to put it.

Once again, I agree and I kinda feel silly for not having that on the list of things. [quote=“TemetNosce, post:14, topic:1199216”]
I’ll simply say on this that I think we need a more clearly defined foreign policy, the idea that throwing everything including the kitchen sink at a problem (or even things that aren’t problems) is a solution has repeatedly come back to bite us in the ass.
[/quote]

Yeah you would think with all the money and resources we throw at these things and all the very smart people involved we would have better foresight. Sometimes it just feels like kids on a playground throwing rocks at each other.

I didn’t mean that, just making a point about resources and money

Yeah look at Ron Paul, I’m not a libertarian or a supporter of him but I recall hearing boos thrown at him for suggesting less force many times.