[jmyeet]

There is no such thing as a defensive weapon.

You might be tempted to say "what about a missile shield?" but such a thing allows the owner to act with impunity with levels of violence we arguably haven't seen since 1945.

As a real example of this, the only reason a deeper conflict didn't develop with Iran this year was because Iran demonstrated they could overwhelm the various layers of Israel's missile shield and Iran seriously depleted the various munitions used by those air defense systems (eg interceptors, THAAD) and those take a long time to replenish.

[JumpCrisscross]

> There is no such thing as a defensive weapon

I agree if we reframe it as “purely defensive,” though there is a bit of tautology invoked with the “weapon” qualifier.

That said, there is legitimacy to developing defensive arms, even if one doesn’t like the ones doing it.

> the only reason a deeper conflict didn't develop with Iran this year was because Iran demonstrated they could overwhelm the various layers of Israel's missile shield

This hypothesis is not sustained by Iran’s reduced firing rate throughout the conflict. All evidence suggests Iran lost its war with Israel and would lose it again if they go for round 2.

[jstummbillig]

> You might be tempted to say "what about a missile shield?" but such a thing allows the owner to act with impunity with levels of violence we arguably haven't seen since 1945.

I would still say "what about a missile shield?".

If a missile shield is a weapon, because of its affordances, then any object is a weapon. And while that's marginally true I don't think we get anywhere by entertaining category errors.

If something enables aggression, because it makes counter attacks unreasonable, that seems like a fairly nice thing to have more of, in a world where destruction is far too easy and construction is fairly hard.

[kennywinker]

> If something enables aggression, because it makes counter attacks unreasonable, that seems like a fairly nice thing to have more of

You’re imagining a world where this kind of tech is equally distributed. It’s not. Israel spends something like $30b/year in defense (in part due to ~$7b/year from the US). Gaza has something like $0.3b to spend. The consequence of that asymmetry is one of them has a missile shield, the other has more than 80,000 dead citizens, famine, and virtually no infrastructure left standing.

[FunnyUsername]

Gaza's "air defense" is hundreds of miles of tunnels, civilians just aren't allowed to shelter in them. Hamas having better technology wouldn't change the fact that they're not interested in protecting civilians.

[kennywinker]

I’m not going to defend hamas’ choices, but i think it’s disingenuous to say that they have the ability to protect the people of gaza. A few thousand fighters in tunnels is possible, but millions of civilians? And wouldn’t that be more of this “using human shields” stuff people like to point out so often?

[jstummbillig]

I am imagining a world, where cheaper access to defensive technology will make defense more viable. That's seems like it will simply be true directionally.

[wat10000]

> then any object is a weapon. And while that's marginally true I don't think we get anywhere by entertaining category errors.

We get a really ripping novel from Iain M. Banks, at least.

[belorn]

If you want society to be more vulnerable to military action, then the biggest innovation is health care. Improved health care is what allowed nations to create and maintain larger military forces. Through out history, disease and malnourished caused more death by a large margin than actually violence in combat, and many war campaign stopped suddenly because one or both sides became unable to continue.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Improved health care is what allowed nations to create and maintain larger military forces

Isn’t it the other way? With a lot of medicine’s modern advances being rooted in combat medicine?

[wat10000]

I think they mean communicable diseases, not combat injuries. For example, around 2/3rds of the military deaths in the American civil war were from disease, not combat. I don’t think much of the medical advances that prevent that came from combat medicine.

[JumpCrisscross]

> don’t think much of the medical advances that prevent that came from combat medicine

Triage and ambulances come from battle medicine [1]. (Not sure about communicable-disease prevention.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Jean_Larrey

[wat10000]

Right, those are relatively minor improvements compared to soldiers no longer dying en masse from typhoid, smallpox, measles, etc. Good improvements to be sure, but not quite as significant.

[_DeadFred_]

America's school lunch program was created so that it would have healthier soldiers. We better stop feeding children.

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_School_Lunch_Prog...

[wat10000]

That’s gross. You’re basically saying that hundreds of millions of people need to be held as hostages to ensure good behavior, and that trying to rescue those hostages is morally wrong.

[drnick1]

> As a real example of this, the only reason a deeper conflict didn't develop with Iran this year was because Iran demonstrated they could overwhelm the various layers of Israel's missile shield and Iran seriously depleted the various munitions used by those air defense systems (eg interceptors, THAAD) and those take a long time to replenish.

Lol no, Iran was utterly humiliated in this conflict, and outed as a paper tiger.