naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #2
This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
Your strategy doesn’t sound too different from the steelman for intervention in Afghanistan. Roll in, fuck up the Taliban, set up a functional government, roll out. There may have been something about hearts and minds in there, too. But instead, we exchanged munitions for 20 years and barely changed anything. If we’d skipped those 20 years, and didn’t even try to fill the power vacuum, would an agreeable Afghan government have materialized?
I mean the difference is that, in the hypothetical provided, Israel expends roughly the same resources, gets attacked roughly the same amount, and uses roughly the same force in both scenarios, but they get significantly less international flak for one of them.
As opposed to the US Invasion of Afghanistan, where the option was between a costly invasion and occupation and a ton of international flak, and expending roughly nothing because Afghanistan wasn't exactly a threat (possibly some assassinations and drone strikes still happen in this scenario).
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Notes -
I mean the difference is that, in the hypothetical provided, Israel expends roughly the same resources, gets attacked roughly the same amount, and uses roughly the same force in both scenarios, but they get significantly less international flak for one of them.
As opposed to the US Invasion of Afghanistan, where the option was between a costly invasion and occupation and a ton of international flak, and expending roughly nothing because Afghanistan wasn't exactly a threat (possibly some assassinations and drone strikes still happen in this scenario).
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