Comments on: Military Strikes Are An Extremely Cheap Way To Help Foreigners

By: Link catchup | Rhymes With Cars & Girls

Link catchup | Rhymes With Cars & Girls — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 14:21:26 +0000

[…] Military Strikes Are An Extremely Cheap Way To Help Foreigners […]

By: Nick de Vera

Nick de Vera — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 22:56:04 +0000

Not quite USAF, but Warren Ellis’s Global Frequency comics are about a utilitarian extralegal paramilitary force. Which, disappointingly, just hints at but doesn’t engage with how it’s kind of a utility monster: “collateral damage” murder, coverup, whatever it takes, keep the wheels spinning, avert current crisis.

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By: Erik

Erik — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 19:56:51 +0000

Sweden has just headed in this direction, granting blanket asylum to Syrian refugees. No word on paying for airfare though.

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By: Max

Max — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 16:21:08 +0000

I wouldn’t label what the US has as “superwealth” in the sense that I’d read into the above comment. For the U.S. to, for instance, pay for infrastructure improvements which would bring everyone in North Korea to a first world standard of living would be very expensive by the standards of the United States’ purchasing power. I would start using the term “superwealth” around the point when that sort of intervention becomes cheap. Let’s say, for instance, a society that has solar satellite energy production which allows it to produce many times more energy than the current energy consumption of the world, driving energy prices down and making cost effective procedures which are currently cost prohibitive.

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By: Erik

Erik — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 13:42:36 +0000

I’ll add this commentary by the War Nerd via Isegoria. Here’s my summary:
-the Alawites are a minority group in Syria (about 2 million in a country of 20 million), who used to be persecuted a lot back in the Ottoman Empire
-when the French took over, the Alawites signed on with the secular foreign power which treated them rather better
-the Alawites inherited power from the French and now run Syria
-the Assad family are Alawites
-the rebels may conclude from western support that they have western endorsement for violent non-democratic triumph over the Alawites
-if the Alawites lose under these circumstances, they are likely to be figuratively and literally fucked.

So the calculation of military intervention should take into account some likelihood of accidentally causing some genocide or ethnic cleansing against a 2 million minority group. Or should we also budget for some semi-colonial intervention afterwards to make sure the rebels run the country nicely?

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By: Tom Womack

Tom Womack — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 09:39:57 +0000

For example, the capabilities of a superpower include printing three million green cards, making a polite suggestion that they would buy every ticket on up to thirty 747 flights that United might wish to run daily from Diyarbakir to New York, and declaring that every Syrian refugee is welcome in the United States. That costs two billion dollars up-front and, since the quality-adjustment in the US is higher than in any conceivable post-war Syria, improves happiness by even more.

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By: Rtistry & Rbominations :: linklist, sunday 2013-09-01

Rtistry & Rbominations :: linklist, sunday 2013-09-01 — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 08:59:57 +0000

[…] Military Strikes Are an Extremely Expensive Way to Help Foreigners and the rebuttal: Military Strikes Are An Extremely Cheap Way To Help Foreigners […]

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By: Douglas Knight

Douglas Knight — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 04:47:00 +0000

This post needs a link to If It’s Worth Doing, It’s Worth Doing With Made-Up Statistics. Perhaps in the first paragraph, with anchor text “checking any actual numbers”?

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By: Platypus

Platypus — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 03:53:05 +0000

This is probably a dumb question, but I can’t help but wonder: a few years ago we tried to help out the people of Iraq by toppling their corrupt dictator, and once the dictator fell, Iraq promptly broke out in civil war and religious terrorism.

Do we have any reason to believe that toppling Syria’s corrupt dictator won’t have the same result? Is this just a “there’s already so much terrorism and civil war in Syria that removing the corrupt dictator can’t possibly make it worse” argument?

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By: Scott Alexander

Scott Alexander — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 03:32:40 +0000

Damien: No, I agree correlation isn’t always causation. But Deiseach seems to be saying “Invading countries doesn’t cause them to become civilized” and then giving an example of a country that was invaded and became civilized – which, while it doesn’t *prove* my point, doesn’t even *support* hers.

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