Xenophobic Irony

[Wilhammer]

I think it is safe to say that Israeli Policy is not concerned with the well being of the Palestinian People.

Why else target the civilian infrastructure?

Of course, its also safe to say that the Palestinians don't care for the Israeli's well being either. Why else attack their civilian infrastructure (and civilians)?

It is an ugly conflict.

[JonS]

This presumes that people will behave in a rational way.

There are lots of definitions of rational.

Let's say you and I are in a trade agreement, and we are both benefitting from it, but you are benefitting more from it than I, and the easy to project trend is that in a few years I'm going to be completely fux0red by this beneficial trade agreement. One could easily come to the conclusion that the rational thing for me to do is to go to war with you now, while I may still have a chance of winning and gaining overall advantage (at the cost of short term suffering, granted), or at least reduce the imbalance in our relative positions, rather than continuing to trade as your b!tch.

I fact, IIRC, rather similar thinking led - in part - to both WWI and WWII.

[Affentitten]

Well that's more a security dilemma. In the case of unequal trade, there would have to be (in the eyes of the would-be aggressor) at least a chance that they would succeed. eg. Burkina Faso has an unequal trade relationship with France. But under your example, they should attack France, when they clearly have no chance of rectifying the trade imbalance through that means, or of even prosecuting such a war at all.

They would be better off addresisng the imbalance by finding some other trade commodity in which they have a comparative advantage.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

war is not necessarily negative even if your GROUP does lose. it creates a pressure for changes which leads to adaptions in the society. these adaptions keep your higher clan of societies competitive against other higher clans.

even for those who die in battle the war may be a good thing. after all your personal genes are not as important as those of your sibling gene tree. and those are not as important as the whole genetic pool of your society. and so forth.

it applies as much to genes as it does to economics, science, society or memes.

the only exception is a war of total annihilation. then it will suck if you lose. and that's why you need those smaller wars, so that you keep competitive. a multimillenia dynasty of umparalled wealth, science & peace is worth nothing when the white devils arrive with their cannons & opium. "i'm in your base, breaking your vases."

[dieseltaylor]

They would be better off addresisng the imbalance by finding some other trade commodity in which they have a comparative advantage.

Affy - there is a presumption that there is a viable alternative ... why should there be?

[dieseltaylor]

Double post

[Affentitten]

We're talking theory. In the example given, a viable alternative might be not trading with France at all. But with Libya instead. Of course, by choosing Burkina Faso and France I am choosing an example with an extreme disparity in terms of power and wealth.

Rational action by states is another theory. It is the Philosopher's Stone of International Relations theory. But what is rational? As JonS says, there are many definitions. If you're a Realist, rationality is anything that is directed towards the supremacy ueber alles of your state. If you're a Liberal, rationality would involve recognising the commonsense in co-operating within international institutions. If you're a Marxist it would be overthrowing the bourgeoise, seizing the means of production and abolishing states in favour of an international brotherhood of the proletariat. If you're some sort of post-modernist, it might mean having the world run by vegetarian lesbians instead of meat-eating repressed homosexual men.

But everyone's rationality is someone else's stupidity. In the case of Iraq versus USA, we have some pretty irrational behaviour from both sides leading up to a war that was hugely costly and detrimental to both sides in blood, treasure and reputation.