Comment by jacquesm
6 days ago
In your world everybody will be at war with each other. The way to deal with the risk of foreign nationalization of your assets is to price it in or to forego the opportunity. Expecting your country to go to war for your private interests is ridiculous. You can go to court if you want and if you lose you'll have to take your lumps.
1898 is a while ago (the Banana wars).
No, people won't be at war with each other because the cost and the likelihood of war will play a role in the decision on whether to enter war or not.
In this case, the administration (correctly!) assessed that there was virtually no cost or risk (albeit, a very high profit.)
Damn man, no risk?
It must be lovely to exist in a world where you think you can punch someone in the face and nothing will ever happen to you if they don’t respond immediately.
Good thing the window of opportunity for retaliation is now firmly closed and we’ll never see anyone come back years later for revenge.
Unrelatedly, has anyone seen the twin towers lately? I visited NYC for the first time in 30 years and I couldn’t find them anywhere.
Indeed, and that was just a loosely knit organization of US haters that figured if they can't do anything in a direct confrontation maybe an indirect one would work.
One of these days someone is going to set off a nuke in a capital somewhere and we're all going to wonder where that came from...
Incidentally, I believe Bin Laden is in part responsible for Trump's election.
2 replies →
Who is going to come back for revenge? Maduro was vehemently hated.
2 replies →
Ordinary citizens were bombed in Caracas. There are videos of such bombings. Please do consider that the loss of the lives of ordinary people is a risk.
I am obviously speaking from the perspective of a superpower or a nation, not my own perspective. To a superpower, the lives of 40 people is indeed "virtually no cost" for the benefit of $17T worth of oil reserves and a favorable regime change.
> Expecting your country to go to war for your private interests is ridiculous.
At the risk of coming across as flippant: Why? I don’t think the math has worked out on most peer conflicts during the past hundred years. The cost of the operation has likely already exceeded the value of whatever infrastructure was left in Venezuela to be reclaimed. But why should we expect courts and bailiffs to enforce the law domestically and not expect soldiers to enforce it internationally?
Maybe because war is terrible and no one wants it? Especially if it means protecting private companies’ revenues.
There is always a cost/benefit done for these decisions, it is never as simple as "war as terrible so we just shouldn't do war."
1 reply →
What if military intervention was an explicit part of the investment agreement in the first place? I’m not saying it was, but would it affect your judgement?