The Polish government wants NATO to help defend it against possible Russian aggression.
NATO was founded in 1949 as a mutual defence organisation. Mutual defence is fundamentally wrong, although I can't think of anyone other than the fictitious Edmund Blackadder ever saying so.
Is there any evidence that mutual defence discourages wars from happening? I can't think of any, although comments are welcome. What I do know is that the past twenty years have witnessed wars in such countries as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria - and neither NATO nor any other mutual defence arrangement prevented a single one of those wars from happening.
Rather than preventing wars, mutual defence treaties tend to make wars - when they occur - much larger and far more destructive than would otherwise be the case. The two world wars would not have happened had it not been for the insane and immoral belief in mutual defence. Wars would still have happened, but they would not have been grotesque calamities on a global scale.
I often wonder what right the United Kingdom - or any country for that matter - has to go to war against another country which every other country in the world does not equally enjoy. For example, Britain took part in the bombing of Libya in 2011, shortly after David Cameron became Prime Minister. If Libya were ever to bomb Britain, then David Cameron would either have to condone the bombing, or else be guilty of monumental hypocrisy.
Of course we are often expected to believe that certain countries have not merely a right but also a duty to go to war. Maybe the people who hold to this point of view could explain in what circumstances another country might have a duty to go to war against Britain. For example, should any country have gone to war against Britain in 2011 in order to punish the British for waging war against Libya, and murdering Libyan civilians?
Related previous posts include:
George and Baldrick
What is a patriot?
Saturday 16 April 2016
Sunday 3 April 2016
Is the steel industry worth saving?
As I write, there is a lot of comment in the national press about whether or not the British government should try to save jobs in what is left of our steel industry.
Allowing our steel industry to close would leave Britain dependent upon imports of steel from other countries. We would have to accept what those other countries offered us in terms of price and quality.
I am not advocating a return to the days of state ownership, with its flair for incompetence. After all, how many people nowadays regard British cars from the 1970s as design classics?
Nevertheless I cannot see how a country which can afford to squander billions of pounds on vanity projects like HS2 cannot also afford to require that the steel used in constructing HS2 be produced in this country.
Britain has lost its coal industry. Money that was once spent on keeping the coal industry afloat is now spent on other things, and yet I cannot help but wonder if we are really better off for having lost our coal industry. If the coal mines were such a drain on our economy, then their closure ought logically to have heralded a new era of prosperity. If that happened, then I for one failed to notice.
Britain has yet to return to the low levels of unemployment last seen in the 1960s, and many people still queue for food banks. I wonder if that situation could really be improved by the loss of our steel industry.
Related previous posts include:
How important is manufacturing?
The end of coal
Allowing our steel industry to close would leave Britain dependent upon imports of steel from other countries. We would have to accept what those other countries offered us in terms of price and quality.
I am not advocating a return to the days of state ownership, with its flair for incompetence. After all, how many people nowadays regard British cars from the 1970s as design classics?
Nevertheless I cannot see how a country which can afford to squander billions of pounds on vanity projects like HS2 cannot also afford to require that the steel used in constructing HS2 be produced in this country.
Britain has lost its coal industry. Money that was once spent on keeping the coal industry afloat is now spent on other things, and yet I cannot help but wonder if we are really better off for having lost our coal industry. If the coal mines were such a drain on our economy, then their closure ought logically to have heralded a new era of prosperity. If that happened, then I for one failed to notice.
Britain has yet to return to the low levels of unemployment last seen in the 1960s, and many people still queue for food banks. I wonder if that situation could really be improved by the loss of our steel industry.
Related previous posts include:
How important is manufacturing?
The end of coal
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