Mastodawn

War is a tactical error

"This suggests a principle that ought to be obvious but apparently is not: any nation powerful enough to mount a serious military campaign is, almost by definition, powerful enough to pursue its interests through diplomacy, economic leverage, and strategic patience. The return on investment of war is almost always catastrophically negative compared to the alternatives. Even when you win."

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-war-failure/

#WorldPol

Fighting the same war, again and again

Aggressors rarely emerge victorious from conflict. So why do they fight?

Responsible Statecraft

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Wulfy—Speaker to the machines 1d ago

@benfulton

#SunTzu says, and I thought to this day it was compulsory canon in all militaries;

War is fundamentally about winning through preparation, strategy, and deception, rather than sheer fighting. The "formality" or true art of war is securing victory in the "temple" (through planning) before the physical battle, where supreme excellence is winning without conflict.

None of the clownshow that the #iran #Epsteinwar is shows there was any planning...or even any reading involved.

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lobster 1d ago

@benfulton

Exactly so! Well said.

Has to be repeated continually as the blatantly obvious.

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ben 1d ago

@benfulton hello, uh, I wonder though if the goals of war are really anything but war —- the economic value of the war is that they are expensive & an excellent way of taking money off the state and putting it in the pockets of military business. It also projects and enforces as view of the world which is highly beneficial to people like trump & Putin - ‘each of us is at war, all the time’ justifies their insistence of power and aggression being the foundations of the human unit

An excellent digression on "War doesn't determine who is right, it determines who is left"

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Yora 18h ago

@benfulton It's not economically bad for the Profiteers.
The nation pays the price to make some people rich.