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Communism Kills: The Soviets Fell and Wars Decreased Greatly
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Communism causes war and strife. That's mostly because, like radical Islam, Communism refuses to play nice in the sandbox with others. It is a jealous mistress and brooks no rivals, as proved by the numbers at the Our World in Data website.

Basically, the number and deadliness of wars across the world dropped off precipitously after the Soviet Union ended up on the ash heap of history, to steal a phrase used by Ronnie Raygun in a speech to the British House of Commons in 1982 (and much earlier by Soviet leader Leon Trotsky in 1917, well before he was killed by his former Communist buddies while living in exile in Mexico City in 1940).

That the number of wars declined so indicates the degree to which Communism of the Soviet style was an engine of conflict. Yet, somehow, we American warmongers are still around and stronger than ever, though we've strangely failed to keep all the wars going. ;-)

1.7 The Number of Wars Increased until the End of the Cold War

"As we have seen, the number of war victims varies hugely between different wars; whereas 1,200,000 died during the the Korean War (1950–1953), other wars had ‘just’ 1,000 victims. For this reason, statistics on the number of wars should not be considered without information on the size of these conflicts.

The following figure shows that the number of wars increased until the breakdown of the Soviet Union and has been decreasing since then. Extrastate conflicts are colonial conflicts that ended with the end of colonialism. Interstate conflicts – wars fought between countries – have almost ceased to exist. As other wars are becoming rare, intrastate conflicts (civil wars) in some parts of the world remain."

Click on the Our World in Data link for the actual graph.

"Politics is just show business for ugly people."
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Re: Communism Kills: The Soviets Fell and Wars Decreased Greatly [big kahuna] [ In reply to ]
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Good thing you're not a data analyst. Don't quit your day job (unless your day job is posting in the Lavender Room, then please, quit).
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Re: Communism Kills: The Soviets Fell and Wars Decreased Greatly [Francois] [ In reply to ]
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Francois wrote:
Good thing you're not a data analyst. Don't quit your day job (unless your day job is posting in the Lavender Room, then please, quit).

Ah, the reflexive French defense of all things Commie. I see that Inspector Renault's usual suspects rush to defend the Soviets. To the reeducation camp with you! Or a Trump rally, take your pick. ;-)

I only post the data as stated word-for-word by the website, Monsieur le Professeur. Do you deny that wars have greatly decreased in number and deadliness since the fall of the Soviet Union? It's science. You're not a science denier, are you?

Just having some fun, sir. Pantaloons need to remain unbunched in this instance.

"Politics is just show business for ugly people."
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Re: Communism Kills: The Soviets Fell and Wars Decreased Greatly [big kahuna] [ In reply to ]
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I'm not defending communism. Your post is just stupid.

http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
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Re: Communism Kills: The Soviets Fell and Wars Decreased Greatly [big kahuna] [ In reply to ]
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I hate communism and believe that a logical consequence of the system are some of most destructive and vile human behaviours seen in modern time.
But I don't fully buy in that its communism per se was a trigger for wars.
I would suggest that it was simply the presence of two competing militaristic and expansionist empires (USSR vs. USA) that resulted in all the proxy wars between 1948 and 1991. The Pax Americana that we've seen since 1991 is a logical result of not having anyone to truly oppose the US.

I would also suggest that is going to change soon. The rise of the Sino-Hegamony will result in global instability and therefore conflict. As China and its allies expand their spheres of influence into what were previously US spheres - i.e. Philippines, Japan, Korea, Australia, Middle East, Africa, the Pacific basin and beyond - conflict will grow. Proxy wars will crop up again as the US and China both will support their factions in civil wars for control of these regions.

And China is now communist in name only. Its a Confucian Oligarchy or maybe Plutocracy but has drifted so far away from the principles of Karl Marx that Sweden is probably now more communist.

Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's
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Re: Communism Kills: The Soviets Fell and Wars Decreased Greatly [big kahuna] [ In reply to ]
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I can't find the chart for the life of me at the moment but one exists showing deaths due to war as a percentage of the population over roughly the last 1,000 years. Things were quite constant for 800 years or so with occasional blips. Beginning in the 1800s there was a steady upward rise and the chart was basically broken by WW1 and WW2. However, in 1945 something rather remarkable happened: the number of deaths due to war as a percentage of the population plummeted and held rather constant.

This could be seen as the result of the invention of nuclear weapons, the "green" revolution (agricultural/Haber-Bosch), or both.
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Re: Communism Kills: The Soviets Fell and Wars Decreased Greatly [big kahuna] [ In reply to ]
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Shocking. More nonsense from Kahuna.

I guess it's a day that ends in "y."

Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)
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Re: Communism Kills: The Soviets Fell and Wars Decreased Greatly [big kahuna] [ In reply to ]
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America causes war and strife. That's mostly because, like radical Islam, America refuses to play nice in the sandbox with others. It is a jealous mistress and brooks no rivals, as proved by the numbers at the Our World in Data website.

Basically, the number and deadliness of wars across the world increased dramatically since America was founded. Compare the number of deaths in wars prior to 1776 to the number of deaths in wars since 1776.


Uh, yeah...
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Re: Communism Kills: The Soviets Fell and Wars Decreased Greatly [slowguy] [ In reply to ]
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slowguy wrote:
Shocking. More nonsense from Kahuna.

I guess it's a day that ends in "y."
I dunno. I'm slow to dismiss BK's idea.

If the US has been "expansionist" since WW2, it's not doing a very good job of it.

The Soviets, and to a lesser extent the Chinese, we're more than happy to support really brutal dictators in their attempts to subjugate their own country, and then attack their neighbors. We supported various "not nice" dictators too, but we were trying to slow what looked like the creep of seriously bad Communist despots. And while we tried to moderate the behavior of our bad guys, the Soviets and Chinese did the opposite.

Was it just the natural headbutting of a superpowers? As defined by GDP, the Soviets and the Chinese (until recently) were just two more 3rd world no account shitholes. They were only "super" in the sense that they poured huge resources into their militaries.

Communism is a tool employed by dictators and oligarchies. Those kinds of governments tend to attack their neighbors and otherwise export violence. It's reasonable that fewer dictatorships and oligarchies would mean fewer dead in conflict.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart
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Re: Communism Kills: The Soviets Fell and Wars Decreased Greatly [RangerGress] [ In reply to ]
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RangerGress wrote:
slowguy wrote:
Shocking. More nonsense from Kahuna.

I guess it's a day that ends in "y."

I dunno. I'm slow to dismiss BK's idea.

If the US has been "expansionist" since WW2, it's not doing a very good job of it.

The Soviets, and to a lesser extent the Chinese, we're more than happy to support really brutal dictators in their attempts to subjugate their own country, and then attack their neighbors. We supported various "not nice" dictators too, but we were trying to slow what looked like the creep of seriously bad Communist despots. And while we tried to moderate the behavior of our bad guys, the Soviets and Chinese did the opposite.

Was it just the natural headbutting of a superpowers? As defined by GDP, the Soviets and the Chinese (until recently) were just two more 3rd world no account shitholes. They were only "super" in the sense that they poured huge resources into their militaries.

Communism is a tool employed by dictators and oligarchies. Those kinds of governments tend to attack their neighbors and otherwise export violence. It's reasonable that fewer dictatorships and oligarchies would mean fewer dead in conflict.

One can argue about whether we were expansionist, and probably successfully defend both sides. But the premise of his post is that somehow there's been less war since the USSR fell, and that somehow that proves communism creates war.

It ignores things like, we've been at a continuous state of war for more than 15 years, that war has raged between tribes in Africa for decades, that there have been ethnic wars and conflicts in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, the North and South Caucuses, our wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kuwait, Civil War in Rwanda, war in Slovenia, Croatia, Sierra Leone, Algeria, Somalia, Bosnia, Burundi, Nepal, Congo, Kosovo, various areas of the Middle East, Darfur, Pakistan, Lebanon, etc, etc, etc.

You know what country has largely stayed out of armed conflict around the globe in the past few decades? China. The largest communist country on Earth.

You know what country has armed military stationed in over 150 foreign nations? Us.

Don't get me wrong, I'm one of those armed military personnel, and have been for more than 20 years. But Kahuna's article is overly simplistic, and designed to be click bait for people who can't think much further than the kind of bumper sticker slogans that pass for foreign policy analysis these days.

Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)
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Re: Communism Kills: The Soviets Fell and Wars Decreased Greatly [slowguy] [ In reply to ]
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Well, in fairness, I think BK was talking about war in terms of its total impact on human lives lost, not how many "wars" you could list in your post. So his argument is a little stronger than you are giving him credit for.

I would say there is undoubtedly evidence for BK's claim -- even though BK overstated his case by presenting it in such absolute terms -- that communist countries are more warlike and cause more wars. By their very founding ideology these are repressive regimes. It's only natural that this internal stance will manifest itself with regards to neighbors in higher percentage than freer and less repressive regimes will show the same manifestations. That doesn't mean only communist countries can go to war. It just means their propensity to go to war will be higher.
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Re: Communism Kills: The Soviets Fell and Wars Decreased Greatly [SH] [ In reply to ]
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In a fabulous display of intellectual flexibility, I will now argue the opposite side.

Repressive dictators mean peace thru stability. Communism is good.

<Read in pendantic tone> Repressive dictators tend to adopt Communism as a political system for the control it gives them over their country. Repressive dictators, once their own country is subjugated, start causing problem elsewhere, supporting other repressive dictators.

The reduced scope of communism means that some of those repressive dictators, think Middle East and Africa, that had enjoyed external support started losing that support and were therefore weakened. This caused some countries to become unstable and led to civil war as different power blocs fought for control. </Pendatic tone>

Sure, there's some weaknesses in that. I tried to connect "stability" and "Communism", when "stability" could just as easily be tied to representative forms of government. But this was meant to be entertaining, not compelling.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart
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Re: Communism Kills: The Soviets Fell and Wars Decreased Greatly [SH] [ In reply to ]
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SH wrote:
Well, in fairness, I think BK was talking about war in terms of its total impact on human lives lost, not how many "wars" you could list in your post. So his argument is a little stronger than you are giving him credit for.

I would say there is undoubtedly evidence for BK's claim -- even though BK overstated his case by presenting it in such absolute terms -- that communist countries are more warlike and cause more wars. By their very founding ideology these are repressive regimes. It's only natural that this internal stance will manifest itself with regards to neighbors in higher percentage than freer and less repressive regimes will show the same manifestations. That doesn't mean only communist countries can go to war. It just means their propensity to go to war will be higher.

If BK was talking about number of human lives lost, then that still falls flat, since the main reason we lose fewer lives to war now is because of the way we wage war, not whether Communists are involved. The way we waged war in WW1 and WW2 and Korea, etc largely guaranteed large casualty numbers.

Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)
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