Life doesn’t adhere to waterfall methodology: we don’t have to do one first, and then the other. We can progressively disarm as we’re addressing the problems you mentioned…
Comment on ‘Killer robots’ are becoming a real threat in Africa.
pennomi@lemmy.world 5 weeks agoI disagree. War isn’t caused by weapons. It’s caused by racism, religious strife, economic hardship, natural resource exploitation, and more. Those need fixed before anyone will be willing to put away their weapons.
boatswain@infosec.pub 5 weeks ago
pennomi@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Fair enough, but there’s still far too much conflict to begin demilitarization at this point in time. What we can mostly agree on is to limit the world to being destroyed 55 times over by nuclear weapons (by UN estimates). And that’s in a world where nobody has actually used nuclear weapons (offensively) in 90 years.
These kinds of things take so many generations because the fundamental conflict between humans is not resolved. If there had been no Cold War, maybe we would have totally denuclearized by now, but I still doubt it.
NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
It’s enabled by weapons.
And there are people who want to use weapons when they exist, simply because they exist.
pennomi@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Obviously it’s enabled by weapons. But that strengthens my point further - the nation who reduces their weapons first loses.
When has a nation completely set down their weapons, and what was the effect? One obvious case that comes to mind is Ukraine, who fully denuclearized. Ever since that moment they have repeatedly been invaded by Russia (the nation who maintained the weapons).
What you suggest is asking for this to repeat over and over again. The only truly viable path to eradicating war, is to first eradicate the problems that cause war, then to abolish weapons.
If you have factual evidence that your method works, please present it. I shared hard evidence of my perspective.
NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
You seem not to know much. It has happened often, and in very different ways.
Start your studying about Switzerland, because it is easy.
Then try to understand Afghanistan. But beware, it is already a little complicated, and you need to read about 4 - 8 decades of history, and you should not read only sources from one country (they all lie, and you need to overcome that - or stay ignorant).
Last, go for some of the African countries. They are harder to understand, the what and the why. But coincidendually :) our current topic starts there, so it may be important.
pennomi@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Well Switzerland does obsessively stay neutral, which is badass… Sadly that is mostly an anomaly in the world right now. I’d love for everyone to be the same, but I don’t think it’s likely - good luck convincing the US, Russia, or China to be neutral.
Not sure what you mean by the others. Afghanistan has been destabilized repeatedly by a bunch of big nations with big weapons, and they couldn’t do much about it. That fairly well strengthens my point again - the only nations whose rights are respected are the ones with the biggest guns, and everyone else gets trampled by them.
Heck, Africa is also embroiled in proxy wars caused in part (mostly? It’s complicated) by big, militarized nations.
I think very few people would call militarization good. In fact I’d call it explicitly evil. I would also label it as necessary in the modern world dynamic. I desperately hope that people learn to respect each other so we have the option of demilitarization.