208
Israel's defence against Iran attack overnight 'likely cost over $1bn'
(www.middleeasteye.net)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2024
208 points (93.7% liked)
World News
39050 readers
1138 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
That looks like it's exactly the point. Israel hitting the Iranian embassy wasn't extreme enough for Iran to seriously escalate, yet you can't just leave such a thing unanswered or they'll do it again and again, you also don't want to draw (additional) ire to yourself, meaning you don't want to have any casualties, at least not indiscriminate ones, at the most you want to give people a scare. So you shoot a couple of volleys you know Israel can intercept, maximising not for anything getting through but interception costing them a pretty penny. Now, the next time the IDF considers such a strike some politician somewhere is going to say "we don't have a billion dollars to spare right now for that BS, cut it out".
The next war will be decided on what it will mean for the economy ... not by the danger or death it places on human life.
alwayshasbeen.png
...resources in general, that is. Physical, immaterial, real, imagined, actual gold and timber or actual street cred, heck even peace, but it's always resources because that's what politics are about and war is nothing but the continuation of politics by different means.
If you'll allow me to be extremely cynical, I'll provide two examples.
Raids and wars were easily started prior to the modern era because human populations still worked according to a Malthusian logic: at some point you were already working the best farming lands or hunting grounds, but you had a still growing population that would become less and less productive, so throwing heads at a newfound enemy became a better option until you didn't too much people again.
After the industrial revolution, the fertility rate of the most developed countries has been diminishing, so they've become less and less interested in direct military conflict, unless it is wars they believe will be fast victories. For one reason or another, some developed countries still have other reasons to initiate wars, such as Russia, so they fight against their own natural tendencies by trying to get women to have more children than they would like.
WW2 was over as soon as Japan struck pearl harbor, as an example, neither Germany nor Japan could win the war against such a robust economy. Some lucky strikes might have created some windows but the deck was stacked in favor of the allies.
Wars have always been determined by resources, in the modern world that's industrial output but it's always
Economically, yes, but there's plenty of other factors. Capacity to cooperate with the USSR was a resource, the capacity to see a Nazi-ruled Europe being way more of a long-term headache than facing them off was one, the US wanting to impress ole daddy stiff upper lip was, etc. Different actors come to different evaluations of those not so hard factors and that's why they slug it out, to convince the other side that their evaluation is right. And sometimes they're just plain delusional. And never underestimate the morale boost of an independence war (like Vietnam) or, even more so, an existential one (like Ukraine).
Human capital factors into that evaluation.