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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   884 thread views

Transnational Thursday for December 12, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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I was checking on the status of Israel's various wars today and found this article.

UNITED NATIONS — When Israeli troops captured a demilitarized buffer zone along the border with Syria, they violated a 50-year-old ceasefire between the two countries, the United Nations warned Tuesday.

“The presence of the Israeli Defense Forces in the buffer zone is a violation of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The agreement “needs to be respected, and occupation is occupation — whether it lasts a week, a month or a year, it remains occupation.”

Israeli leaders announced plans earlier Tuesday to keep troops in the buffer zone for the foreseeable future.

"I can't believe that America would violate a treaty that they made with Tsarist Russia in 1905," quips the USSR.

I fail to see how this is not the best play for all parties possible:

  • Israel is guaranteed this slice of the pie if Syria devolves into chaos
  • Syria doesn't have to worry about quelling chaos in that area for now
  • Israel can give it back free of charge if things stabilize in the rest of the country
  • Israel can keep it if the government is clearly permanently collapsed

Or maybe it's bad in some way I'm not seeing? What do you guys think of this?

To a first-order level, it's good to respect treaties insofar as they function as a Schelling point, ethical value aside(?).

That being said, the Assads have ruled Syria for about as long as said treaty has existed, though, no?

I suppose it depends upon whether treaties are generally made between governments, or between countries. Does the presence of the country override continuity of government, or can they functionally be tied to specific regimes or governments?

If this is to be believed, Britain is basically Ancapistan where you have to pay for private police if you don't want to be robbed. But it's actually worse - you still have to pay taxes for a useless state. The police are too busy stealing lethal weapons like bike wheels and kitchen knives from law-abiding citizens. Or locking you up for harmful tweets.

https://unherd.com/2024/12/the-private-police-patrolling-london/

In 2018, the area suffered 65 break-ins, a criminal romp that nonetheless failed to stir the short arm of the law. Such an experience now marks suburban life in the capital, with the Met failing to solve a single crime in 160 residential areas of London over the last three years. “The police gave up on this area years ago,” one shrugging resident explains.

British businesses and residents will soon spend £10 billion on private security

Between low morale, a defunding of specialist units, and a generational loss of talent, to say nothing of a “Spanish Inquisition” culture that leaves officers now “afraid to arrest suspects”. A worrying focus on “low hanging fruit” around communication offences hardly helps either, bemoaned one serving officer, even as they lament leadership that wanted to “solve societal ills” instead of busting criminals.

Yet if these private efforts are successful on their own terms — My Local Bobby helped cut vehicle crime in Hadley Wood by 38% — communally financing can be tough, even humiliating, for those who can’t afford it. One man in Fulham describes how a neighbour, who chose not to pay for the road’s private security team, discovered that they were contractually obliged to stand by as his house was robbed.

Need a British version of the Ancap song but it's the grimdark anarcho-tyranny British version where nobody's having fun: https://youtube.com/watch?v=tBH05IowMCE

The cited article should clearly not be believed. It's cherry picking statistics and painting an unrepresentative picture of the realities of crime in London.

There are many legitimate problems with the Metropolitan Police. In recent years they've suffered from poor leadership and a number of incidents that have undermined public trust. Furthermore, many middle class residents have real frustration with a lack of progress combatting crimes such as bike thefts and burglaries.

My understanding is that political decisions have been made to focus policing on more severe crimes - especially counter terrorism operations and sexual offences. Despite this lack of focus from the Met, the article isn't representative of the IRL vibe I've experienced - my partner continues to feel safe walking around our relatively deprived borough alone at night.

London is a big city, there's room for many experiences. But the Home Secretary got mugged in 2018. There are apparently 50,000 phone thefts a year, especially targeting tourists in the city of Westminster. That's way too many. Furthermore, regardless of how many crimes are happening, the police should be working hard to catch criminals as opposed. Law and order is a core duty for the state, it should not be outsourced.

I'd be happy to see them refocusing to crack down on sexual offences but they're starting from a very, very, very low baseline: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/grooming-gangs-iicsa-racist-fears-b2007649.html

My understanding is that political decisions have been made to focus policing on more severe crimes

Like locking people up for tweets?

It's worth noting that our black murder rate is about the same as the US white murder rate, and that high-volume violent and property crime is still at less than a quarter of the 1990's peak when measured by victim surveys (which are not affected by declining police reporting) which have used a comparable methodology throughout the period. Knife crime is probably up (it's hard to measure accurately because it isn't common enough to show up in victim surveys or serious enough to be reliably reported to police) but that isn't what the burghers of Hadley Wood are complaining about.

Crime is always out of control according to the media. Crime is always out of control according to the "children, nowadays" crowd. Crime was out of control according to the media and the "children, nowadays" crowd right through the dramatic drop in crime in the nineties and noughties. Media coverage of crime being out of control tells you nothing unless backed up by some form of reliable numbers. And even then you can cherry-pick numbers - the same people claiming that the police-recorded numbers showing falling burglaries are fake are citing police-recorded numbers to prove that violent crime is increasing despite victim surveys showing the opposite.

As far as I can tell, clearance rates for burglaries in the UK are around 5%. If that's the case then crime is literally out of control, in that there's no credible police ability to punish traditional criminals, as opposed to political offenders. Even if they do go to prison, they might just get let out again due to overcrowding.

Since the ONS moved to Newport I understand they shed a lot of their most talented staff and their output has been suspect ever since. It may be that they're right and victimization did fall since the 1990s. Even so, getting away with property crime 19 times out of 20 is pretty bad. Private police spontaneously materializing to meet unfulfilled demand is pretty bad.

It's worth noting that our black murder rate is about the same as the US white murder rate

Is this what the kids call "mask off"? Implicit in the statement seems to be the belief that black people will always be more criminal, and therefore things can't be all that bad in the UK if even black people have a lower crime rate than white people in America. That's cool and all, but I was always under the impression that the population being complained in the UK about came from South Asia or thereabouts, plus maybe the Middle East, in a mirror image to what's happening in the US where they wagged their fingers at Europe because they never had that much of an issue with Muslims in America.

Britain trying the South Africa speedrun it seems.

Letter from Biden to the Speaker of the House on US deployments is interesting. I appreciate how it subverts various mechanisms for Congressional oversight.

From doctor to brutal dictator: the rise and fall of Syria's Bashar al Assad

An article in Haaretz openly talks about Israel's nuclear program, noting a shift from Israel's official stance of "strategic ambiguity"

China warships near Taiwan nearly double in 24 hours, ahead of possible wargames. China also expressed dissatisfaction with visits to Hawaii and Guam from Taiwan's president

Syria rebels name transitional prime minister, Mohammed al-Bashir. He was the previous prime minister of the statelet in the region controlled by HTS.

NK saber rattling. My sense is they might test a nuclear weapon in the next few months (15% by April?)

US transition of power soon

Belarus president confirms that nuclear weapons are stationed in Belarus, reports Russia Today.

Putin claims that its intermediate-range missile system, the Oreshnik minimizes the need of using nuclear weapons.

Ukraine war: US gives $20bn to Kyiv funded by seized Russian assets. It's deposited to a World Bank fund, where it nominally can't be spent to buy military assets (though it of course funges with civilian spending).

Zelensky says that Ukraine has lost 43K soldiers since the start of the war, with an additional 370K wounded, and that losses oon the Russian side are around 200K, with an additional ~500K injured. With a population of 37.9M for Ukraine, that corresponds to 0.11% dead, 1% wounded. Wikipedia reports similar numbers. The ratio of repoprted Ukranian to Russian losses is also very steep. The Economist instead estimates 60K to 100K deaths for Ukraine. But these are just... not that high? Very, very far from "total war".

Genetic analysis of H5N1 in kid in California: "the virus gene segments sequenced most closely resemble those segments from recent B3.13 viruses detected in California in humans, dairy cattle and poultry. This analysis supports the conclusion that the overall risk to the general public associated with the ongoing HPAI A(H5N1) outbreak in U.S. dairy cattle and poultry has not changed and remains low at this time."

UK considering ring-vaccination campaign to tackle new mpox outbreak if more cases emerge

Drone strikes UN vehicle on way to inspect Ukrainian nuclear plant

Israel arrested 30 people to whom Iran was paying relatively small amounts of money for spying and sabotage tasks

Assad fell, some good coverage here. Israel also took the opportunity to get a buffer zone in Syria.

Various European countries are stopping or revering asylum claims from Syrians

Arrakan Army now controls the Myanmar/Bangladesh border.

The Russian Federal Security Service arrests a German-Russian man for allegedly planning to sabotage a rail line in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, on behalf of the Security Service of Ukraine.

Saudi Arabia to host 2034 world cup

Ukraine’s losses don’t look that high because Ukrainian official figures are a bunch of lies. Zelensky claims that Ukrainian forces suffered 30 thousand deaths in the first four months of the war, and that they have only suffered 10-30 thousand additional deaths in the subsequent two and a half years.

The Economist gives a higher yet still small number as a proportion of total population.

The claim that the Ukraine even had a population of almost 38 million at the start of the war (which I assume does not include the population under Russian control but nominally of Ukrainian citizenship in this particular context) is rather questionable (there has been no census since 2001). The same goes for the idea that there's only one war dead for every 9 wounded.

Do you believe the war dead-to-wounded ratio is lower, or higher?

Higher.

What ratio and why?

Worse dead-to-wounded ratios historically depend more on the impacts of disease than fighting, with ratios getting better (more wounded to killed) the more access to defensive fortifications, stable rear areas, and mechanized evacuation that are available. This is especially true in artillery wars, where the predominance of shrapnel as a primary threat increases wounds relative to direct kills for forces that are better fortified.

Ukraine certainly has its challenges, but a lack of trenches, helmets, and rear areas to withdraw to are not among them.

The Economist instead estimates 60K to 100K deaths for Ukraine. But these are just... not that high? Very, very far from "total war".

Ukraine had about 8 million military-aged males (25-54), so a loss of 80k is 1% dead. If 400k more were wounded, that's 5% more. I agree this doesn't sound like WWI, where a similarly-sized France lost more than a million dead.

I'd be skeptical about the 8 million figure.

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