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[Helgoland]

Of what importance are the lengths of those lists, Reelya? The US being shit doesn't excuse others' misbehaviour, just as the Soviet Union being even more shit in some respects makes the US stink any less. Harping on about the relative degree of stink is lots of noise without much signal.

[Reelya]

when someone says "country X is known for Y" then that's only a valid observation if it's specific to that country. Basically every power meddles in affairs of neighbors. Except maybe Switzerland.

France for example is particularly shit, even resorting to actual terrorist attacks against people who questioned their nuclear testing in the pacific. Both French officers who carried out the terrorist attack (and were caught, imprisoned) were later promoted after their release.

[Frumple]

when someone says "country X is known for Y" then that's only a valid observation if it's specific to that country.

N... no, that's not correct. Like, at all. Something being known for something does not necessitate or even particularly insinuate exclusivity. You can apply it to something more innocuous to make that obvious; there's a handful of countries in the world all known for their lumber industries, ferex. That any particular one is known for that, is an entirely valid observation.

[Helgoland]

Also, only Poo did that, Reels, and that was a tangent. Countering noise with noise doesn't really work...

[Reelya]

there's a handful of countries in the world all known for their lumber industries, ferex. That any particular one is known for that, is an entirely valid observation.

But when all the major powers are known for doing basically the same stuff, then citing selectively does imply that the others are less known for that. I'd argue that for example all the nations in the UN Security Council are on about the same level with this sort of stuff.

Also, only Poo did that, Reels, and that was a tangent. Countering noise with noise doesn't really work...

Not sure why that matters. I made it clear in my statement that I was directly addressing the specific statement made by 'Poo

[Helgoland]

China?

[Reelya]

All 5 of them. China, France, England, USA and Russia all have a strong history of meddling.

The only main difference is that the ones in Europe meddle with places further away, because they have equally strong direct neighbors in Europe, whereas USA China and Russia enjoy overwhelming dominance of their nearby areas.

[ChairmanPoo]

All 5 of them. China, France, England, USA and Russia all have a strong history of meddling.

Yeah, I grant you that pretty much all nations meddle if they can. Not even only those five. Consider the bullshit geopolitics Germany pulled in the past (and arguably still does from time to time - eg: the ugly business in Lybia, strongarming small EU countries, etc...).  And in LatinAmerica it's a FFA, as far as I know. Hasn't come to open blows in the last 20-to-30 years but several times it has come close.

My point was that the Russian intervention in Afghanistan wasn't any more altruistic than American support of the Taliban was. Though probably a Comitern-Afghanistan would have been less of a boil in the perineum than the Taliban ended up being.

[misko27]

How does that conclusion relate to the fact that the USSR collapsed in 1991? Either we consider those unrelated (in which case, it's supreme foolishness that we could have ignored, because obviously commie Afghanistan wouldn't have lasted long without the USSR), or those things are related (in which case, it's a masterstroke of diplomacy which contributed to the destruction of the US's greatest geopolitical antagonist and which is worth the pain later down the road). Of course these things are only obvious in hindsight, but then again so is everything else.

[ChairmanPoo]

*shrug* alt-history is pretty much random speculation. I tend to think that in the great order of things not much would have changed. Afghanistan was a stupid quagmire for the Soviets. (Just as it was for the British and arguably would eventually become for the Western Coalition).  It would likely have been a pain in the ass one way or the other. I don't know to what extent it contributed to the USSR's geopolitical dissolution, but I tend to be skeptical about claims about policy X Y or Z bringing huge sweeping changes to, well, anything. It probably hurt to some degree, I guess.

[Sheb]

My unpopular idea: the Powell doctrine is fundamentally misguided. Exactly like doctors that care about their patient on the long term, working incrementally (GPs, therapists of all kind) can do more good than doctors that specialize in flashy rescue (surgeon, many specialists), or like infrastructure maintenance can do more good than building new infrastructure, military intervention that focus on big flashy operation with a beginning, a middle and a end can do less good than sustained operations on the (very) long term.

Having low amounts of troops fighting a war for decades isn't necessarily bad.

[Reelya]

Or, you know, having a Cold War stand-off can be a lot less destructive than invading in the first place.

[Helgoland]

Do you have an example of such an anti-Powell intervention working out?

[overseer05-15]

This is probably being pedantic, but surgeons and therapists can do equal good in different situations.
i.e. I probably wouldn't get a therapist to remove a malignant tumor. (Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're calling a therapist)

[Frumple]

Eh... in the small scale. On the net, preventative stuff -- therapists physical and not, GPs, etc., as mentioned) -- is freakishly more effective in terms of overall benefit. Forget the exact numbers, but the whole ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure (i.e. 16x more effective) thing isn't that hyperbolic, from what I can recall. The GP that catches a tumor before it turns malignant helps a lot more, with much fewer downsides and risks, than the specialized surgeon that removes a late stage one. The therapist that keeps someone in the right sort of shape to prevent surgery being necessary doing a fair bit more good. So on, so forth.

I'm not sure I'd agree with the principle in regards to military conflict -- long term low intensity can easily damage a society (economically and otherwise) worse than short term high intensity (I.e. "flashy") and is often more likely to cause regional rather than country specific issues -- but for medical, emergency services in general (firefighting, law enforcement, etc.), stuff like that, with zero doubt a long term program, particularly those prevention focused, is more effective by pretty much any metric than something focused on reactive, put-out-fires type stuff. Not that the latter isn't still important, it's just significantly worse at reducing harm et al on the net.