A top Hamas political official told The Associated Press the Islamic militant group is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel and that it would lay down its weapons and convert into a political party if an independent Palestinian state is established along pre-1967 borders.
People dont have as much agency as he thinks. And game theory(a relatively new concept for his era) dictates that the one who convinces/forces more of their people to fight, is the one who wins.
Let’s say that your entire country, every single person, refuses to go to war. And the country next door has a mere 100 people who are willing(or otherwise) to go to war. Now your country is part of their country and those 100 people are in charge.
In a world where noone wants to fight, those who are willing(or forced) to fight, rule everyone else.
And to bring this concept into the modern era, it is near impossible to post antiwar posts in Russia, because of state control of the internet and the cultivated perception that everyone who is antiwar, is antirussian and a traitor. This is literally the law there.
Yet in the liberal western states, you are free to do that. So what is the result of this difference? People in the West are less willing to go to war. Now you might think that is a good thing but ultimately this benefits Russia, who is then free to take over their smaller neighbours. This is just interference, marketing for Russia’s war machine, even if it doesnt feel like that.
The fact that the west was, and still is, the most prolific war mongerers of the post-Enlightenment era blows your hypothesis out of the water as soon as it tries to float.
How about we talk about the last 30 years then. What wars have europeans participated recently? Yugoslav wars? Afghanistan? Iraq?
Yugoslav wars were about ethnic cleansing between different ethnic groups who wanted to go their own ways. Afghanistan was because of 9/11, the taliban refusing to offer Bin Laden and the american thirst for revenge. Iraq was extremely controversial in Europe, pretty much every state opposed it, even if some european governments supported it, the majority of their people opposed it(huge protests).
Even the US, the imperium, which is usually doing imperial things, havent been doing much imperialism recently, after Afghanistan. And because of Afghanistan and Iraq, meaningless and immoral wars for most people, the US has trouble recruiting military personnel nowadays. Thats how democracies work, eventually the truth rises to the top.
The Ukraine war is one of the most clear cut wars since the Iraq invasion. And the West has the opportunity to be on the right side for once. Let me remind you that historically neutral countries like Sweden, joined NATO and countries like Germany are quickly re-arming for the first time in almost 100 years.
Because till recently, Europe was “let’s all hold hands together”, living in their own dream bubble about how war is not only bad but also insane. Putin reminded them that “sanity” is not a requirement for governance.
If the West is so war mongering, why did the West not spend more on military in the last 20 years? Why did the West wait till the Ukraine invasion to start pumping untoled trillions into the military industrial complex?
The only event with bigger impact on military spending was the collapse of USSR. For decades, Europe(and even the US) was taking advantage of the peace dividend. That doesnt sound too war mongery to me. And suddently, with just 1 Ukraine invasion, the West doubled and trippled its military budget.
So is the West war mongering or is Russia that caused an insane re-armament because of the Ukraine invasion?
And in before “nato expansion”, blah blah. Sovereign countries have the right to join any alliance they want. Nato didnt invade those countries and force them to join, those countries literally “blackmailed” to join. Poland threatened to get nukes if they werent allowed into NATO.
If Mexico joins an alliance with China, would you approve an invasion of Mexico by the US? I wouldnt.
Half your examples are older than 30 years old. The other half are literally fighting Al Qaeda and ISIS, on behalf and request of the local governments and population. In fact, in many west african countries, the West was “kicked out” and now Russia is literally doing the same(or promised to). Is Russia going after jihadists in Africa imperialism?
Regarding the Red Sea, Is your argument that the West should allow people/nations/groups to attack commercial vessels? Is that morally ok with you? Is trying to stop them, imperialism? Should the West start hitting iranian vessels? Iran absolutely needs ships to be safe to travel in order to sell their oil. In fact, the Houthis hit a ship that was going to Iran.
As is perfectly obvious to anyone that can read, France and Germany together easily matched China’s military spending and outspent Russia by a wide, wide margin in 2009.
You need to understand what ppp is. And you need to break down the cost to see what each country is paying for. France and Germany have limited but highly paid military personnel. Countries like China have an huge military+paramilitary, that work for low wages while they are spending a lot of money on new equipment(at higher ppp, thus cheaper per identical thing).
Remember when Trump was complaining about Nato allies not spending 2% of their gdp on defense? Literally every country in Europe has almost doubled their defense spending after the invasion of Ukraine. Why is that?
Russia is spending 7.1% of their gdp on defense, 35% of total government spending. Are they doing it because they are imperialistic or because they are afraid the West will invade them? And if you say “obviously they are doing it in self defense”, let me remind you that
I am not trying to defend american imperialism, i am trying to rank it on a curve. And the curve is wild but relatively to its past, the US is chilling atm. Maybe because of China, maybe because military recruitment has fallen off a cliff or maybe because it is less cool to do “stuff” anymore.
20+ years ago, Yemen would have been invaded. Nowadays, noone wants to do that, they just dont want the Houthis to fuck with shipping. Thats why only the US and UK bombed the Houthis and even that was very limited, not the usual “shock and awe” kind of bombing.
In order to understand this better, imagine how much a chinese soldier is paid and how much an american one is. And then do the same for literally everything. How much a chinese ship builder is paid vs how much an american one. How much a chinese engineer is paid vs how much an american.
In almost every category, the american worker will be A LOT more expensive. So a chinese ship that needs 100 people would be a lot cheaper than the american equivalent one. Obviously some of the cost doesnt differ, ie raw materials cost around the same in both countries. But wages and other factors make running a western military a lot more expensive than a chinese one.
And thats how you ended up with China having 370 warships while the US has 280. Now this number is extremely misleading, since american ships are heavier and are mostly blue water navy(while a lot of the chinese ones are green water ones) but still.
It isnt a random london based think tank, PPP is a pretty standardized economic measure. It is one of the most used concepts in economics, especially when it comes to assessing wealth and quality of life. 100k in San Franscisco is basic wage, 100k in bumfuck South Carolina is “holy shit, you are rich”.
Trump is charismatic and funny, thats why he was on tv. If only people didnt take him seriously or give him actual power. Let me remind you that /r/the_donald was a joke subreddit.
Hillary has no charisma. Also her campaign literally promoted Trump, because she thought he would have been an easier opponent. She is smart and capable(or was, she is kinda getting older nowadays) but her political positions are abhorrent. She could have been the perfect “reasonable republican” candidate.
Other than the ending dialogue, which i wasnt a big fan of probably because of the writing, her acting is superb. She is almost always silent so that makes it even more challenging. Her eyes do the talking.
Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he is considering a request from Australia to drop the decade-long US push to prosecute the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing a trove of American classified documents.
It is. Europe is commonly defined all the way to the Ural mountains, which are located somewhere in the middle of Russia. Most of russian population lives in Europe.
A yellow-orange haze of dust from the Sahara desert has blanketed parts of Greece, creating spectacular scenes and prompting authorities to issue health warnings.
This looks awful. The rifle keeps going up and down while it is walking, no stabilization and they didnt show any accuracy data. You might as well ducktape a rifle to a roomba.
Aiming at targets far away is very hard. Even if it has to stop to shoot, how does it aim? By moving the body of a giant robot dog? That doesnt seem it has the sensitivity it needs. If the rifle is moving that much during walking, how can you accurately aim at anything, since you dont know where the rifle will be aiming when you stop? The camera seems to be on the robot and not on the rifle and everything is jiggling.
Also why even use a full goddamn rifle? You wont have a human holding it, you can just use a modified barrel basically. Are they not embarrassed by how bad this looks? Are they so clueless?
Because they dont have first hand statements, they are just using different israeli sources that independently verified it. Hence the quotes and the “allegedly”.
Contacted by the Guardian, a spokesperson for Israel’s prime minister’s office said: “The questions forwarded to us are replete with many false and unfounded allegations meant to hurt the state of Israel.” Cohen did not respond to a request for comment. Bensouda declined to comment.
Videogame maker Electronic Arts (EA.O) , opens new tab said on Wednesday it would reduce 5% of its workforce, as the industry struggles to grow amid high interest rates....
Ah yeah, Greece totally fought against communism /s
During WW2, the defacto resistance group was the communists, so most people joined them(even if they werent really communist). There was a right wing resistance group but it was much smaller and less relevant. After WW2, the communist resistance group had literally millions of members and obviously wanted to be part of the government.
That was not desirable by the british(and the americans) for obvious reasons. They demanded the disarmament of the communist group in exchange for some minor role in the new government. Eventually the deal broke down and the communist group protested. Then things turned to violence, leading to the greek civil war.
The greek civil war was the bloodiest conflict in Europe after WW2, till the war in Ukraine, with over 150k dead, most of them civilians. And because the right wing was outnumbered, they freed and armed the nazi collaborators. If you are wondering why a literal neonazi party was polling 15% at some point in Greece, was because the nazi collaborators were not only never punished but actually rewarded.
After the liberation, the groups were only temporarily disbanded, and were recruited into the Gendarmerie to fight alongside the British and government forces against the EAM/ELAS in the battle of Dekemvriana in Athens. The Security Battalions always surrendered to the British, who usually let them keep the weapons the Germans had supplied them with.[24] General Ronald Scobie, who commanded the British forces in Greece, in contrast to his attitude towards EAM, whom he dismissed as mere “bandits”, treated the Security Battalions as a legitimate military force.[25] The British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had a very favorable view of the Security Battalions, saying, “It seems to me that the collaborators in Greece in many cases did the best they could to shelter the Greek population from German oppression”
The greek civil war still remains a taboo subject in Greece and it isnt taught in schools(because how do you teach that “the bad guys won” to kids). Remember, throughout history, the good guys always win eventually. Winners write the history and they are always the good guys.
PS Stalin didnt help the greek communists because he had agreed with Churchil that Greece would be part of the “West”.
Greece Monday formally agreed to participate in and lead a European Union maritime security operation in the Red Sea to protect commercial shipping from attacks by Houthi militants in Yemen.
Authorities in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia announced a two-day curfew and banned gatherings on Tuesday after violent unrest on the archipelago with decades of tensions between indigenous Kanaks seeking independence and colonizers’ descendants who want to remain part of France.
French President Emmanuel Macron is making a surprise trip to New Caledonia, the French Pacific territory that has been gripped by days of deadly unrest and where indigenous people have long sought independence.
Hamas official says group would lay down its arms if an independent Palestinian state is established (apnews.com)
A top Hamas political official told The Associated Press the Islamic militant group is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel and that it would lay down its weapons and convert into a political party if an independent Palestinian state is established along pre-1967 borders.
Listen to a genius, kids. (lemmy.world)
Chechnya bans all music deemed too fast or too slow (edition.cnn.com)
Authorities in the Russian Republic of Chechnya have announced a ban on music that they consider too fast or slow.
Hillary Clinton celebrates Donald Trump verdict with 'She was right' merch (www.irishstar.com)
Box Office: ‘Furiosa’ Just Barely Beats ‘The Garfield Movie’ in Disastrous Memorial Day Weekend — the Worst in Decades (variety.com)
Why has no one thought of this before?! (lemmy.world)
Biden says he is ‘considering’ Australian call to drop Julian Assange charges (www.theguardian.com)
Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he is considering a request from Australia to drop the decade-long US push to prosecute the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing a trove of American classified documents.
Emoji "anomalies" by European countries (jlai.lu)
Athens turns orange, Helsinki goes white as Europe’s weather springs a surprise (edition.cnn.com)
A yellow-orange haze of dust from the Sahara desert has blanketed parts of Greece, creating spectacular scenes and prompting authorities to issue health warnings.
China’s military shows off rifle-toting robot dogs (www.cnn.com)
Coming soon to a western military near you…
Israeli spy chief ‘threatened’ ICC prosecutor over war crimes inquiry (www.theguardian.com)
Electronic Arts to lay off 5% of workforce, reduce office spaces (www.reuters.com)
Videogame maker Electronic Arts (EA.O) , opens new tab said on Wednesday it would reduce 5% of its workforce, as the industry struggles to grow amid high interest rates....
Who do you choose? (sh.itjust.works)
Russian missile nearly hits Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis (www.ft.com)
The two leaders were a few hundred metres away when the port of Odesa was struck in lethal attack
The losing battle against Greece's tumbling birthrate (www.reuters.com)
Greece takes the helm in an EU naval mission in the Red Sea (apnews.com)
Greece Monday formally agreed to participate in and lead a European Union maritime security operation in the Red Sea to protect commercial shipping from attacks by Houthi militants in Yemen.
France imposes curfew in New Caledonia after unrest by people who have long sought independence (apnews.com)
Authorities in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia announced a two-day curfew and banned gatherings on Tuesday after violent unrest on the archipelago with decades of tensions between indigenous Kanaks seeking independence and colonizers’ descendants who want to remain part of France.
Macron is making a surprise trip to New Caledonia amid deadly unrest and indigenous frustration (apnews.com)
French President Emmanuel Macron is making a surprise trip to New Caledonia, the French Pacific territory that has been gripped by days of deadly unrest and where indigenous people have long sought independence.