British Politics Thread

I'm talking Iraq 2, bad choice of words on my part, and most of the conflicts we get involved with are the "look at us! we're still relevant!" type, we're just not used to being a minor power

we don't have a plan, all that we can do is make things worse at the moment (if that, we won't have two planes), bombing isn't doing shit, the Yanks have been doing it for months to no avail, say we do wipe out ISIS, what then? Pig Fucker doesn't know, he's only using this as an opportunity for some cheap points scoring

You're right that we don't have a plan, that means we need to come up with one, no we shouldn't follow Cameron's lead, we need to come up with something better.

The innocent people in both Syria and Iraq who are now free of ISIS, particularly the Kurds, would disagree with that assessment. Has it done enough? No. Has it been the most effective weapon? Far from it. But it has helped.

And I refuse to accept that we can only make things worse, we are one of the most powerful countries on the planet, a leading member of both the world's foremost military alliance and the worlds foremost economic union. We have made things better from Sierra Leon to East Timor, across former Yugoslavia and down to Kuwait. we have done good in the world and I'm tired of us acting like we haven't.

Yes it's tough, yes it will paint a target on us, yes it will make them angry and yes we may well loose some of our own along the way. But it's a choice, a choice between that which is right and that which is easy. Me? I'd like us to choice that which is right, helping people and doing some good again.

Oh and Corbyn has asked for public input on Syria, here's the message I sent (with obvious redactions for my own anonymity).

Hear, hear. Cameron's direction is a quick way to disaster on this one.

We need long-term, multi-pronged planning, here: not a short-term, wishy-washy pratfall waiting to happen. And, I'm afraid that's exactly what we'll get. Airstrikes are not the answer. Worse, half-hearted support of local interests has buggered things in the region up enough. Yes, we need to impart skills... but, we also need to put the people there to get them across. Long haul.

edited 27th Nov '15 2:25:19 PM by Euodiachloris

Silas you are fucking awesome.

Again, they are better than doing nothing, and are the most our war weary publics are willing to do.

edited 27th Nov '15 2:47:08 PM by JackOLantern1337

Good one, Silas.

Also, if there weren't the risk of granting ISIS a propaganda victory I would support us putting troops on the ground; only infantry can take and hold territory. Though contrary to popular belief, if memory serves the perennial example of the failure of air power - Vietnam - is misleading, since once Rolling Thunder wound down and the Linebacker I/II campaigns started up they actually did do much more damage than air power's critics care to think (and Rolling Thunder's issues were at least partly down to boneheaded use of aircraft). But that's another story for a different time.

And on a different note...

My comment about that being The Rumour That Will Not Die despite not a pip of evidence being produced hence seems to have been remarkably prescient if this is any indicator.

edited 27th Nov '15 3:01:01 PM by Flanker66

If destroying them grants them a propaganda victory, than so be it. The problem is that unless their is a plan to deal with Assad as well, and to rebuild Syria and Iraq in the long term, any ground offensive would be pretty pointless.

Edit: Propaganda and image are important, but what people often forget is that war is not a popularity contest.

edited 27th Nov '15 3:18:06 PM by JackOLantern1337

Thing is ISIS are really good at propaganda, whatever we do we grant them a propaganda victory. Do nothing, and they spin it as the West not caring about the people of Syria being brutalised by Assad (that's how ISIS and AQ pulled many moderate groups under their umbrella way back). Do airstrikes only and they get a propaganda victory in the form of the inevitable civilians hit and terror that comes from even precision bombing. Go for a ground invasion and it will be spun as Iraq 2.0, return of the crusades.

So we have to look at what also gives us a propaganda victory back, what we can spin to the people of Iraq and Syria to make us look good. That is rebuilding Iraq, it's not driving ISIS out, it's providing what ISIS can't and won't. It's providing security, it's rebuilding home, it's getting people stable jobs and safe schools, it's giving them both safety and opportunity.

The soldiers that do the most for winning modern wars are the Royal Engineers, because nobody likes the bomber pilot who took out the ISIS safehosue next to yours, but people do like the engineers who built you a safe sturdy home that will keep you warn come winter, who constructed a new hospital where you can get medical care, who helped erect that shiny school that your kids can learn in safe from any danger.

Actually, it is. Back in ancient times, when wars were fought between small settlements, it might have been possible to kill all their warriors and enslave the survivors, etc.

Even as far back as a thousand years ago, it became impractical to destroy a faction through force alone (the Romans left Britain for a reason). As long as a nation or cause exists, it can drum up more manpower and resources; it takes a lot of effort to destroy all of it.

To put it simply, a country or cause will lose the will to fight long before its wiped out.

ISIS will be defeated when nobody wants to finance it, and nobody wants to join them. Not when John "Shirtless" Beefist personally kills every fighter with his bare hands and the power of democracy.

Oh a quick check. Everyone does realise where I was quoting from with the "a choice between that which is right and that which is easy." bit of my post, right?

It's not the first time I've used that quote to make a very serious point, and I doubt it will be the last.

edited 27th Nov '15 3:55:25 PM by Silasw

PR is important, but it is certainly not everything.

Care to explain why?

Because you can't win a war just by having everyone like you. Because sometimes people just won't like you no matter what you do, and because of human nature. If a faction is ruthless enough, and stays around long enough, people will just accept them.

For example, the Soviets actually had terrible PR outside of the major cities during the Russian civl war. But because of skilled tactics, ruthlessness, and the incompetence of their enemies, they were able to win the war. And the people eventually came to regard them not as usurpers, but as the rightful leaders of the nation.

PR cannot be ignored, but it is not the end all be all of international relations or warfare.

edited 27th Nov '15 4:44:08 PM by JackOLantern1337

First and most obvious question here - what can we as a country achieve? There appears to be bipartisan opposition to a ground intervention, and assuming we got past that, our massive defence budget (sixth biggest in the world) does not translate into the large, effective military necessary for an extended ground war and peacekeeping operation.

We would, de facto, need to operate as part of a large international coalition, which does not appear to have materialised, unless we want to join up with the Russian and Iranian-backed Iraqi militias who are now bearing the brunt of the fighting - the Kurdish-centred Syrian Democratic Force do not have the manpower or inclination to serve as a nationwide peacekeeping force. The problem there, of course, is that said militias are murderous fanatics almost as bad as ISIS who literally cook people and then post the videos on Youtube. Also, they're working with the biggest mass-murderer in the entire conflict, Bashir al-Assad, who isn't almost as bad as ISIS - in terms of civilian kill-count, he's five times worse than everybody else (including ISIS) combined, and has openly stated that he doesn't intend to negotiate until his opposition is completely wiped out.

If we want to create a coalition to (meaningfully) peacekeep in Syria, then, we'd have to make it ourselves, lobbying powerful nations with radically different political interests into a messy and unpopular ground campaign that we, due to our feeble military, would be expecting them to bear the brunt of. It'd be one of the biggest diplomatic challenges of the century, requiring a genius in international negotiation.

We have David Cameron and Philip Hammond.

... Yeah, I can very much see why Corbyn and company are of the 'fuck it, let's not even bother' opinion here.

edited 27th Nov '15 5:03:44 PM by Iaculus

I'm pretty sure I would have heard of it if the Kurds cooked someone alive and posted the vid on Youtube.

I was talking about the Iraqi Shia militias, who have largely supplanted the crumbling Syrian Arab Army. The biggest of 'em, Kataib al-Imam Ali, has a unique and innovative internet cookery program.

The YPG and their buddies in the SDF are much nicer, but only interested in fighting ISIS insofar as it allows them to secure an independent Kurdistan. They have no interest in serving as national peacekeepers, which is honestly a good thing because a Kurd-centric coalition running Syria would give everyone a screaming shitfit.

edited 27th Nov '15 5:11:36 PM by Iaculus

The Kurds indeed, but the Arabs of the SDF do want to overthrow Assad, and I think with the promise of an autonomous region, and the prospect of a friendly government in Damascus would convince the Kurds to fight farther against ISIS, especially if the west truly went to bat for them, as opposed to the current half measures. Also, when you talked about the international coalition, you left out the US.

Edit: And the Shia militias have taken over the fight not in Syria, but in Iraq, where Britain is already conducting airstrikes.

edited 27th Nov '15 5:14:29 PM by JackOLantern1337

Read the article I linked. After taking over the battlefield in Iraq, the Shia militias have started getting pumped in in considerable numbers by their Iranian sponsors to bolster the failing SAA. They're Assad's frontline troops now, too.

As for assisting the SDF's FSA elements against Assad, there's a real question about how the Kurds at the core of the alliance would feel about that - they're presently neutral with Damascus, and nobody likes fighting a war on two fronts (well, three, because everybody knows that once ISIS dies, the Turks will do their level best to wreck an independent Kurdistan's shit, at which point we have to either stand back or shatter NATO). That brings them up against Russia, Iran, and Iraq, too, which is a hell of a tall order for a nascent nationlet.

edited 27th Nov '15 5:54:46 PM by Iaculus

I don't. You're right that to negotiate such a thing would require diplomatic genius and that's something that neither Hammond or Cameron have.

So show the nation that. Put forward that what we need to do is build a strong international coalition, outside how we could agree with the Russians, the Americans, the French and others to build a truly international answer to Syria. Call upon Cameron to follow such a roadmap to succeed, put the pressure on him to build towards the solution that is being put forward.

And when he fails nail him for it.

Cameron can't do what needs to be done to fix Syria, that doesn't mean Corbyn should go "well we're fucked, screw it", it means he should be going "This, this and this are what we need to do to fix Syria, and the PM is too incompetent to get it done, if I was PM I'd be getting it done, vote Corbyn 2020.".

I have serious doubts over whether anyone is competent enough to get it done, though. Let's look at the potential allies. America is still wounded by Iraq and Afghanistan - they're helping as much as they have the political will to do as is, and they... uhh... kind of have a rep in that region of the world (which none of the more aggressive potential leaders seem likely to improve on). Germany is a big nope. France might be willing, but their military is badly overstretched. Turkey... lolnope. Russia already has a script they're following happily, and it's getting them what they want. They have zero reason to seek an alternative.

The West also has a time-limit - all signs indicate that we're heading for another big crash in the next five or six years. Rebuilding Syria and Iraq into vaguely functional countries would be an extraordinarily expensive, decades-long process, and when the economy tanks, public support for overseas military adventures drops like a rock.

Our best option for doing good with the resources at hand would probably be lending the SDF some help with establishing an independent Kurdistan. Foreign interventions work best when you're helping an established government fix its problems and secure its borders, they're already getting generous help from America (and some from Russia), it'd bite a large and important chunk out of ISIS's territory, and they're nice enough that it's a feelgood sell, too.

Unfortunately, that has its own problems. First off is Turkey. A Kurdistan on their borders would cause serious domestic problems for them (for an explanation why, look at the Kurdish demographic map in Turkey - the country would get filleted like a fish if their lot followed suit and declared independence). They are amongst the most important NATO members, so making establishing Kurdistan a stated objective would be a diplomatic disaster of colossal proportions (and our pet government in Iraq wouldn't like it either). This is why the stated objective of the SDF is to destroy ISIS, and why American spokesmen stare at their feet and fidget when you ask what'll happen to the Kurds after ISIS is destroyed. The second is that it is such a modest objective, and so removed from the media narrative. Britain big, Britain strong, why Britain helping puny nationlet rather than destroying ISIS? As a nation, we really do not like to be reminded of just how limited our international power is, and helping the Kurds has been advertised way less than destroying ISIS.

The third problem is the elephant in the living-room for pretty much every discussion about Western intervention in Syria. There are three million Sunni Arabs in the country. A UN Security Council resolution has just declared their two most militarily-effective champions (I use the word loosely), Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS, fair game for every nation on the planet. Assad and his pet militia attack dogs are closing in on them, and their reputation precedes them. The Kurds have been engaging in soft, infrequent ethnic cleansing across their border - nothing as eye-wateringly appalling as the other factions, but enough to mark them as enemies of Sunni Arabs. They will be genocided, and there is absolutely zero that Britain can do about it. Our only present options are to side with people who will either commit or abet that genocide. It will be an event with repercussions for decades, and the less we are seen as having to do with it, the better. We can't help the Kurds much, and any help we can offer will be undercut by what our support of them (but not the Arabs just south of them, whose land they'll grab and loot while the militias go a-murderin') will say to Sunnis across the Middle East, and by the fact that when Erdogan comes for his wayward children, odds are we'd have to let him.

The world's heading for another economic crash in 5-6 years? That's news to me.

That's my current economy-ish feeling as well.

Right now, 30% of news articles are automated. In another 5 years, 60%.

The automation ratio will be worse in most math-based jobs.

Over here, I'm expecting a crash in 5 years time as well, when those call center jobs dry up, taking the condo market down with it. Two reasons - 1) algorithms for language processing keeps getting better and better, accelerating. Watson, a computer won against Jeopardy champions. 2) Philippine real estate is in a bubble.

On the other hand, Star Trek computers - here we come.

edited 27th Nov '15 7:25:18 PM by probablyinsane

Wait, are you saying 30 percent of news articles are written by computers?

Yup, those short ones. I remember reading at least one article by a computer won an award.

Because standing idly by and allowing genocide to happen on our watch, effectively spitting on the idea of "never again" did us so much good when we did it in Rwanda? If we stand aside again and allow another genocide on our watch, then what the fuck are we playing at? At that point we're no better then the Swiss, willing to haiplly profit from a violent genocide as long as we're safe in our little bunker.

We're better then that.

I refuse to believe that. People will have certainly said to same during the breakup of Yugoslavia, and we did come late to that, a lot of people died who shouldn't have, but we still did some good, we still helped people and we're still remembered fondly for that. The fact that we might not be able to stop every horrible thing is no reason to stand by and allow things we can at least make a little less damaging. Or at least try.

As for your theory about public support dropping when a hypothetical economic crash comes, we kept our work in Bosnia and Kosovo going despite 2008, we can find the money, plus it seems pretty dam callous to throw away the lives of millions today because we might have an economic crash in a few years that we won't be able to withstand that might destroy public support for our actions. There are a lot of mights in that sentence.

Still you could be right, maybe we can't build the alliance needed, maybe we would become the only voice of reason screaming at an unjust world that we want to make things right.

But shouldn't we at least try? Sure we might fail, and even if don't it's gonna be bloody difficult, it will be far from easy regardless. Right now we're giving up without even trying, we're better then that, the human race as a whole is better then that, the people of Iraq and Syria certainly deserve better then that. And again I get that it won't be easy, the easy option is to put our hands in the air and shout "there's nothing we can do so we shouldn't even try", but it's a choice, between what is right and what is easy.

If your doom and gloom is right and there's an inevitable economic crash coming to the West and an unstoppable genocide about to hit the Iraq-Syria region, shouldn't we at least go down in history as the guys who tried to prevent it?