It's amazing how a handful of people can cause the deaths and suffering of millions.. throughout history.
What the fuck is wrong with the human species and its tendency for self-destructive leader-worship??
It's amazing how a handful of people can cause the deaths and suffering of millions.. throughout history.
What the fuck is wrong with the human species and its tendency for self-destructive leader-worship??
An organised army is the most effective coercive tool that money can buy, so every nation has to have one otherwise it'd be crushed by foreign militarys. And an organised army requires a large group of people who obey orders rather than stopping to debate the wisdom or morality of them charging out to get shot or shoot some other people. An army has to obey orders in a hierarchical fashion to be effective.
That basically sets up an equilibrium where you have a small number of people who can cause the deaths and suffering of millions. To escape it there'd need to be an economic sweet spot where armies couldn't cost effectively coerce small groups of people. But that seems unlikely because the economies of scale to outfit an army favour large groups. We've been lucky enough so far in the modern era that a strong army requires supporting a thriving economy.
> most effective coercive tool that money can buy
And how well is it coercing Iranian government right now? It is proving itself not only ineffective, but also ludicrously inefficient in terms of money. And to think all that could have been accomplished by building diplomatic relationships, building schools, hospitals, colleges, and, ultimately, cultural and economic ties… When an empire needs to resort to military might, it’s usually in its final states - the US itself made the Soviet Union spend itself into oblivion, and now it’s falling on that very same trap.
It's very simple, really: we're susceptible to indoctrination and brainwashing. That's what one of the main objectives of military training - throughout history.
Although, you don't know how many species before us caused their own suffering and destruction. Perhaps it's normal and expected. There's a slight chance we'll leave documentation to whatever species comes after us, but they'll probably ignore it, because they know best and it's different that time.
The point is that before the era of modern weapons, many wars were a net positive for the winners. Much of our genome is inherited from successful conquerors, many of whom are long forgotten.
Starting wars has only been unequivocally negative for maybe the last 100 years. Not enough for an evolutionary change to manifest itself.
The US made about $68 billion just by kidnapping Venezuela’s president (and making sure the successor would be next if she didn’t allow the sacking). For something that required intelligence work and two choppers, the margin was great.
The fallout will come later, of course.
On a purely Machiavellistic level, coups with an inside element helping along (and that is what Venezuela was: Delcy Rodriguez going full Judas on Maduro) are a distinct phenomenon with a different profile of risks and rewards. As you say, even today, they may pay very well - but precisely because they don't lead to a large-scale war with all the destruction it entails.
Iran is a true war, where the local elite didn't even partly defect, and it is already becoming an expensive quagmire with nothing of value gained.
Of course some politicians do mistake one for another. Putin in 2022 probably expected a swift coup by his crony Medvedchuk, who instead turned tail and ran. Instead he got a brutal war of attrition.