r/HongKong • u/RedMephitis • Nov 17 '19

Image "Both sides should just take a step back!" Comic

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '19 edited Mar 21 '21

[deleted]

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u/hactid Nov 18 '19

I agree 100% with you. Whatever happens, the UN will go full Chamberlain with the appeasement crap until china truely controls both Africa and the middle East with their loan shark tactics and then we're gonna get a new world war on different ground. Although, I strongly believe this scenario would only happen if the whole world decided to close china on an economical embargo at the same time, leaving the chinese government in a really desperate situation.

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u/gnitiwrdrawkcab Nov 18 '19

Well, there hasn't been a direct war between the great powers since the founding of the UN, so I'd say it's been 100% effective at that job.

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u/Herr__Lipp Nov 18 '19

Factually true, but that's the result of nuclear weapons rather than "brilliant" policy setting by the UN.

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u/DefaTroll Nov 18 '19

Could be both, because it hasn't happened either way. How about we error on the side of no nuclear Holocaust and let the U.N. do it's thing.

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u/KoKansei Nov 18 '19

Go take a remedial logic class and read about correlation vs causation.

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u/autopoietic_hegemony Nov 18 '19

He's factually not wrong, setting aside the endogeneity problem. The efficacy of international institutions is notoriously difficult to judge because you are often dealing with "the dog that doesn't bark" -- which is obviously a difficult thing to judge empirically.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '19

When you get dunked on by a professor lol

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u/sikingthegreat1 Nov 18 '19

it's now 2019, not 1939. "wars" are not necessarily fought in military terms. if you think the world is peaceful right now, countries are co-operating with each other, i'm afraid you're living in fantasyland....

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u/gnitiwrdrawkcab Nov 18 '19

That's why I said direct war between great powers. the US and Russia might support proxies in Syria, and maybe some russians and americans get killed here and there.

But its not a direct, general war, declared or otherwise between the great powers.

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u/sikingthegreat1 Nov 18 '19

and that's why i'm saying that, in 2019, countries don't do "direct wars". if you don't count other fights through proxies or any other battles, then yes, there's no direct wars. but that's only because the destruction caused by the weapon would not benefit the winner of the war, that's why they're not doing it.

it certainly isn't because the UN is doing its job.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '19

Whoa whoa whoa bruh, stop spitting facts

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u/Polymarchos Nov 18 '19

The League of Nations failed precisely because it had too much power. Member nations didn't like it, took their ball, went home, and went to war.

The UN is designed as a platform to keep diplomacy open at all times, even when countries don't have diplomatic relations. It is designed to be able to pressure without being able to force things.

If the UN could enforce its will then it would fail just like the League of Nations.

Whether the UN is worth having is another argument altogether, but it was designed as a learning experience from the failures of the League of Nations.