The whole Venezuela v Guyana thing is complicated as hell. It essentially started with the Dutch & Britain drawing Guyana’s maps wrong. Flash forward and Venezuela is all pissed that Guyana’s maps include their territory so arbitration is called in…and the arbiters are the US and UK of all nations. And of course they vote in Guyana’s favor.
So Venezuela of course is once again pissed and doesn’t accept the binding arbitration agreement. Flash forward again and now it’s been made even more complicated since oil has been found off the coast of the contested territory. Even worse, Guyana is poorly equipped to defend it.
I think the Daily podcast today framed it pretty well from both sides’ perspective. You’re welcome to take a listen, even though it may not fit your narrative around here.
Essentially, Israel got their cojones because they saw how Iran didn’t do much to react to the assassination of Soleimani. So Israel acted on the consulate. The Biden administration was unhappy about it, but Israel is an ally (I don’t need to tell you that Iran is not), and so when Iran retaliated, UK and US came to their aid.
It's that simple, not that hard to understand, allies gonna align, and Israel is an important one in the region.
The difference, from an Israeli perspective, is that Iran didn’t use one of their proxies to retaliate this time, and that is a significant difference. The US allowed tit for tat last time and then let it slide, at least publicly. It seems that Israel’s hardliners aren’t willing to let this one “slide”, they want to continue tit for tat. I’m hoping cooler heads prevail before this dominoes.
I really hope he donated his brain to science. The man went from world famous to villain in a single car chase. It's rare that people fall from grace so far, so quickly. I am not excusing his heinous acts, but I will say it would make a lot more sense, in my mind, if this man's anger and impulsivity was predicated on a TBI.
I see nothing with this other than the title is semi misleading. Latvia is training these draftees to be reservists, not professional military members. They are intended to augment the professional military.
As much as I would have hated this when I was young, looking back it could have helped me and a lot of other folks. I wish we had a two year requirement for public service, though I wouldn’t limit it to military. I’d expand it to forestry, trail building, boys and girls clubs, trade guilds, etc.
Service encourages civic engagement, it’s fosters a sense of duty to one’s country, it teaches a skill or trade, and maybe, just maybe, it will foster some sense of pride and discipline as well. Two things lacking right now in the states are a sense of comradery and civic engagement (I’m not talking about the whiny social media kind).
Afterwards, perhaps an additional incentive would be that it would count as one year of core curriculum at a Uni, and/or maybe a discount to tuition. For the trades routes, it would count as years towards journeyman, etc.
Moreover, I don’t think this is really a unique idea, Israel employs it. I think the Soviet Union did to some extent as well.
I’m 20 years past the time when people are typically conscripted, so I’m likely at no risk of mandatory service now, nonetheless I’d gladly serve as a mentor and pass down the knowledge I’ve gained over the years to a group of youngsters.
So that all is to say, just as the Latvian foreign minister is saying, there can some real advantages to employing some flavor of conscripted service, and, if employed well, I think we’d all be better for it.
Unfortunately at the geopolitical level, things are not always so morally easy, as I suspect you already understand.
Even in my brutish example, it depends on the lens in which we see things. In an orthodox culture, it may be the parent’s duty to harshly discipline a child. Perhaps meddling would be seen as a faux pas. Or perhaps leaving matters to authorities would be considered cowardly. Even still, maybe it just depends on the day and who’s tribe witnessed the event. The human experience is paradoxically wonderful, isn’t it?
You are walking on the street in the public square of your town. You encounter a child and someone who you perceive as a parent having a struggle. The struggle escalates and you see the parent start bludgeoning the child with their fists. Other than the absolute trauma of the experience, you fear the child is going to receive some long term injuries from this. How do you act?
The problem with giving away the assets, and I’m just parroting Simon Whistler here, is that they have never been used this way while in war time. This would be essentially funding one side’s war machine and could come back to bite western countries if they opt to overthrow a bad actor in the future.
For example, what if Bashar Al-Assad decides on the heavy use of chlorine gas on the majority Sunni in his country. The West opts to overthrow. The West are then the aggressors. Does Euroclear then freeze US assets and give them to Assad according to the precedent set by Russia v Ukraine?
The judiciary likes to follow precedent and consistency, it fairs less well when there is nuance and subject to interpretation. From a geopolitical standpoint, do we really want the judiciary determining who the good guys and the bad guys are?
If you think all capitalists are nazis then your ideology has blinded you.