International Interventions and their comparability

Indeed, part of the problem with separating altruism and pragmatic self-interest is that they often overlap.

If I save someone, am I doing it because I care about their life or because I want to establish the precedent that saving people is good thus potentially helping myself in the future?

It's often a mixture of both.

There's no reason intervention can't be any different, stability is good for us and helping people advances the greater good.

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

Shit our bodies are programmed to make us feel good when we do altruism, thus we get into the weird philosophical debate of if anything is really altruism because at a minimum you’ll normally get either the satisfied feeling of knowing you did good or you’ll avoid the horribly feeling of guilt from doing nothing, either way that’s a benefit to you.

My answer to “is altruism real if you’re engaging in altruism because it benefits you to act/feel altruistic” is that a win is a win and I’ll fucking take it.

When leading global actors recognise that helping others helps them I stop caring if they’re technically only acting out of self-interest, ill putting that one in the win column and moving on.

I think that’s my big drive behind being an interventionist, I’m a socialist, I believe that “by the strength of our common endeavour we a hive more than we achieve alone”, my socialist principles don’t stop at the border.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

Erhm... No, I wouldn't say so.

What are you basing that on?

You might even say they barely recognise the border at all :P

Edited by Robrecht on Aug 16th 2019 at 11:32:59 AM

Angry gets shit done.

Indeed, I'm not a socialist but that's more or less exactly what why I support internationalism and by extension, interventionism.

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

My own interventionism come from me just wanting to be safe and to ensure the most people is as safe as possible. Plus, we created Human Rights declarations, we better enforce it.

The internationalism also come because I love having availaible foreign goods.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Aug 16th 2019 at 4:36:24 AM

Watch me destroying my country

Not being the UK, France, Russia, China or Japan?

Basically nobody did helpful interventions until the ‘90s, the record since then isn’t great but you’ll see the US crop up in almost every success story.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

Is less Good and more Less Bad. Which frankly...it's something.

Watch me destroying my country

"Erhm... No, I wouldn't say so.

What are you basing that on?"

My inability to think of anybody with a better one. Ok, maybe some small countries like Canada, but they don't have the resources to underwrite enough interventions. Of the Great Power countries, the US has the best overall record re international interventions.

Edited by DeMarquis on Aug 16th 2019 at 5:47:12 AM

You'll also see Germany crop up in more of them. And since modern Germany only came into being in the '90s, and therefore doesn't have anything like the USA's shitty Cold War interventions under its belt...

... Ok. The only response I can honestly give to this that would be accurate would be taken as an insult.

Edited by Robrecht on Aug 16th 2019 at 11:58:20 AM

Angry gets shit done.

I think of a better one. Start listing some. I cant think of anything Germany has done that wasn't part of an international coalition of some kind.

Edited by DeMarquis on Aug 16th 2019 at 7:25:45 AM

One thing is for certain — we can't really trust our current administration to not fuck up interventions.

Or abandon them at the worst possible times.

Yeah, the USA has a very mixed record when it comes to interventions, but at least it has done some good.

Writing off intervention entirely is a mistake.

Edited by M84 on Aug 16th 2019 at 9:08:50 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised

Yeah, much as I despise Trump, at least he doesnt seem interested in starting a war.

Though he likes threatening people with it. It is why he still has Bolton around.

Disgusted, but not surprised

Germany’s interventions can’t really be called interventions in any meaningful sense of the word. Other than Mali and Afghanistan, both led by other countries, all of their deployments are like 20 or 30 guys. They don’t even have airlift and sealift capabilities.

They should have sent a poet.

German military missions abroad all have had required the assistance of the US military in transporting them. The French-German missions in Mali would not have been possible without the USAF's C-17 and C-130 heavy lifters being at their disposal to rapidly lift their troops in Europe across the Med.

I wasn't claiming that government policy is literally incapable of being motivated by genuine altruism, I was observing that, historically speaking, interventions have happened when it benefits the one doing the intervening. I was also pointing out that this is not inherently a bad thing, and that interventions done for selfish reasons can still have positive effects on the situation being intervened in. You seem to be reading between the lines to find a worldview that I don't actually hold.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

So I misunderstood you, my apologies. That's a significantly more reasonable position.

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

Here is a question, let us assume for a moment that we have a nation who is willing to conduct an intervention in good faith. Should they pretty directly benefit from that?

I think they should, they are expending their own military and economic resources on behalf of others who they can morally just not. I would say that is something that should mean they benefit from. A win-win solution.

Yeah, that was my original point of contention with their argument. Just because someone benefits doesn't mean that one cannot also have altruistic reasons, after all, altruism is always connected to some benefit.

When I help someone I love, or someone a person in general, I get a sense of happiness. That is a concrete benefit, but it doesn't make my altruistic desires any less real.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 17th 2019 at 6:44:07 AM

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

Not as a lead you won’t, it took the US pushing for Europe to actually try and stop genocide in former-Yugoslavia, we were far to happy to stand idly by.

If you’re unable to politely educate someone on evidence you think proves them wrong then maybe serious discussion just isn’t for you.

Yes, not just to address the fact that they’re expanding resources to help others, but because as much as we hate Wants a Prize for Basic Decency giving out prizes for basic decency is how we encourage it, it’s how we make a more decent society.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

That's...to be blunt, not a whole lot more polite.

The reality on the ground is that there isn't really a nation interested in interventionism for the greater good. Russia and China are nationalist dictatorships, Europe is too fragmented, India is busy with multiple rivals on their borders, and the USA under both Republicans and Democrats have a track record for contributing to self centered and/or disastrous interventions. Sure, one or more of these can in theory be motivated by altruism, but so often they just...aren't.

If you want an intervention that was for the greater good recently, a few years ago Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, and a few others restored democracy to the Gambia when the President refused to step down after losing an election.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Aug 17th 2019 at 8:42:32 AM

The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -Fighteer

Everyone needs a Prize for Basic Decency.

And those countries deserve admiration.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Aug 17th 2019 at 7:46:00 AM

Watch me destroying my country

I’m aware.

Yep, the slow rebuilding of Somalia by the AU is another example of a good intervention, I wouldn’t call it altruistic due to it being lead by Kenya (who as a neighbour has a strong interest is ending cross-border violence), but it’s very much a net good for the country and the world.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

Sidenote but, do you think that Hispanoamerica can do a similar thing to rebuild Venezuela? Because regardless of the outcome, rebuilding the country will be a LOOOONG work

Watch me destroying my country

Generally, military interventions tend to be more humanitarian when conducted through an international cooperative effort of some kind.