[it_does_follow]

I'm surprised to see so many moral narratives, like this one, surrounding war start popping up. I thought it was pretty well understood and established that the narratives we tell about war are mostly propaganda/myth making after the fact.

War is about resources and control. That's it. There are no "good/bad" guys (or more specifically they're all "bad" guys). We're not participating in some grand moral struggle, we're taking calculated risks to maximizes gains when the opportunity appears and minimize losses when we have no other options.

For the last 70 years world power has be set so there was primarily one global hegemon (the US) so there was not much movement on the world stage among powerful nations. Economic strategies remained the safest way to control resources among world powers, but military actions still dominated in cases of extreme power asymmetry. The US has been invading and bombing countries and regions virtually continuously for the last few decades.

The resource situation is starting to change, so risks that made no sense suddenly start to seem more reasonable. But absolutely none of what we're seeing now has anything to do with some silly narrative about NATO powers and Russia. Russia has ceased the opportunity of low risk acquisition of resources, NATO powers have worked to minimize their own loses given the risk of any major action is high.

As resources grow more scare we'll see increased military conflict. The severity of which will be proportional to the scarcity. None of this will "haunt" anybody, it's just a game to survive which as been fairly easy the last few decades and that is changing.

[TManlius]

People on internet, especially on twitter, reddit and here are too innocents and/or naives. War is what you described and that will never change.

It doesn't matter what system or ideology people invent, war will always appear in order to to get power or resources. Or just because there are bored, just like Dostoevsky said it.

[nickpp]

> Or just because there are bored

You just contradicted your entire first 3 sentences :)

[TManlius]

How? If power and resources are not scarce, then people will start doing despicable things just because they can and want to. As I said, most of you here are naive and will not see it.

[tablespoon]

> I thought it was pretty well understood and established that the narratives we tell about war are mostly propaganda/myth making after the fact.

I suppose that includes the one you just spent five paragraphs expounding upon?

> NATO powers have worked to minimize their own loses given the risk of any major action is high.

NATO is avoiding short term losses to risk long term ones.

[nickpp]

Don't you think conflicts and wars also have an ideological/cultural component? Freedom vs dictatorship, communism vs capitalism, democracy vs authoritarianism?

[it_does_follow]

No, these are always the tools used to convince people to go to war, and later to justify the results.

They are part of the ways power maintains power. Every first king is just a warlord, a thug more brutal than the rest, and after defeating their enemies they suddenly declare the role of king is ordained by the god(s) and to challenge it is heresy. They set up the notion that rulers are more noble than common men, which is why they should rule over them and control the land. In later years they will use these tools to again convince their people to fight for them in the name of "country" or some other such notion.

And what peoples are against "freedom"? Do you really believe terrorists attacked the US because they "hate our freedoms?" No, it's because the US systemically destroyed their homelands, denied them of their own freedoms, and forcibly took their resources. But when you fill your gas tank you aren't comfortable recognizing that a hidden part of the price of the gas is the civilians murdered so you could have it.

I'm endlessly surprised to see educated adults buying into the stories will tell children about how the world works.