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why buy military equipment if no wars?
Topic Started: Aug 7 2009, 04:54 PM (1,023 Views)
zzHombre
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eh i dont have a clue about what Rheinmetall is or its operations are but what im saying is that very few countries are quintessentially developed to afford an mic that's globally useful. developing countries should be focusing on development processes instead of direct procurement.
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Dax
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HombreAmigo
08 Aug 2009 15.59.21
eh i dont have a clue about what Rheinmetall is or its operations are but what im saying is that very few countries are quintessentially developed to afford an mic that's globally useful.  developing countries should be focusing on development processes instead of direct procurement.

Except most countries don't have the capability to domestically produce much, if anything at all. Building and maintaining a relevant domestic arms industry, though it pays extraordinary indirect dividends, is incredibly expensive to establish and maintain, not to mention export. A country like Bolivia, for example, isn't going to start pouring billions upon billions of dollars into developing a domestic arms research and industrial complex, because that's a really great way to lose an election in a poor country like Bolivia, where that money could be put to much better use.

Simply put, procurement is the cheapest and most time-conscious way to maintain an effective defense force for most nations.
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Schwerpunkt
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Rheinmetall is pretty much the leading military industrial corporation in Europe, roughly analagous to Raytheon. They more or less designed the de facto standard NATO tank gun, produce the standard SPArt gun, and lead in pretty much every related land warfare field. But that's neither here nor there.

Smaller countries can't afford to develop their own weapons. Armenia, for instance, is better off buying Russian guns and having Russian protection if Turkey decides to rabble rouse. Syria is better off buying Russian guns because they don't ask questions, which is exactly what Syria wants. India and Serbia are good examples of countries that can design their own weapon systems, but in some cases choose not to for a variety of reasons. India, for instance, has a piss poor record of designing main battle tanks. Serbia, while they can design much better guns than the Russians, can't really design better aircraft.

Basically, direct procurement is cheaper, easier, and comes with improved relations.
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zzHombre
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dax, right but that begs the question again about why bolivia needs an effective defense force. instead bolivia could negotiate regional agreements and extensions with mercosur or the bolivarian alliance to help develop infrastructure and technology. or it could establish agreements with non regional partners like china, russia, iran, or whoever else doesnt matter.

point being that an international agreement is at stake. why should bolivia purchase military equipment instead of codeveloping an industrial project? allow an outside party to help develop the country and respond by giving preferential access to markets, resources, personnel, or whatever else. maybe a cultural and technological exchange? just something that develops capital instead of plain old military equipment that's just going to sit around except for circumstantial parades and demonstrations.
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zzmaikeru
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HombreAmigo
08 Aug 2009 17.18.29
dax, right but that begs the question again about why bolivia needs an effective defense force. instead bolivia could negotiate regional agreements and extensions with mercosur or the bolivarian alliance to help develop infrastructure and technology. or it could establish agreements with non regional partners like china, russia, iran, or whoever else doesnt matter.

point being that an international agreement is at stake. why should bolivia purchase military equipment instead of codeveloping an industrial project? allow an outside party to help develop the country and respond by giving preferential access to markets, resources, personnel, or whatever else. maybe a cultural and technological exchange? just something that develops capital instead of plain old military equipment that's just going to sit around except for circumstantial parades and demonstrations.

Because then Peru will invade you.

Again.
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zzHombre
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ok schwerpunkt, but if a country hold a defensive/pacifist policy, why would it prefer to procure equipment instead of offering a development contract?

say im playing armenia. now the armenian military isnt really all that offensive and my military already engages in regular equipment replacement. so the question is am i going to spend time roleplaying something that gets done on a regular basis or am i going to do something novel.

i mean i could just sign a treaty with russia that says russia will replace my infantry equipment at "x" rate and "y" price over "z" years.

then i could say offer a contract with some company or offer a treaty to some country that says they can assist our industrial and scientific development in exchange for i dunno. relaxed labor restrictions or legal restraints. some way to circumvent customs and cut through paperwork.

say your rhinemetall and theres some ore deposits in my country. i could offer you cheap access to them in exchange for constructing vehicle armor facilities or training engineers.
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Royis
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,08 Aug 2009 16.20.31]
HombreAmigo
08 Aug 2009 17.18.29
dax, right but that begs the question again about why bolivia needs an effective defense force. instead bolivia could negotiate regional agreements and extensions with mercosur or the bolivarian alliance to help develop infrastructure and technology.  or it could establish agreements with non regional partners like china, russia, iran, or whoever else doesnt matter.

point being that an international agreement is at stake.  why should bolivia purchase military equipment instead of codeveloping an industrial project?  allow an outside party to help develop the country and respond by giving preferential access to markets, resources, personnel, or whatever else.  maybe a cultural and technological exchange?  just something that develops capital instead of plain old military equipment that's just going to sit around except for circumstantial parades and demonstrations.

Because then Peru will invade you.

Again.

Last time... hehe...
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Dax
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HombreAmigo
08 Aug 2009 17.18.29
dax, right but that begs the question again about why bolivia needs an effective defense force. instead bolivia could negotiate regional agreements and extensions with mercosur or the bolivarian alliance to help develop infrastructure and technology. or it could establish agreements with non regional partners like china, russia, iran, or whoever else doesnt matter.

point being that an international agreement is at stake. why should bolivia purchase military equipment instead of codeveloping an industrial project? allow an outside party to help develop the country and respond by giving preferential access to markets, resources, personnel, or whatever else. maybe a cultural and technological exchange? just something that develops capital instead of plain old military equipment that's just going to sit around except for circumstantial parades and demonstrations.

Internal security, for starters. A defense agreement with a regional player or even an international power isn't going to protect Bolivia, to use the same example, from internal drug lords. Or, at least, not very effectively.

Or, given that the most threatening confrontations in the 21st century come not from national capitals but from stateless actors, such as international terrorists, such defense pacts are becoming increasingly irrelevant in the modern political and military landscape without undergoing significant, fundamental changes that not only change the way the pact is viewed and called into effect, but also the way relations are run and war is waged.

Additionally, even if a nation such as Bolivia signs a defense pact with another regional player, somebody has to have the military in that relationship. Sure, Bolivia might ally with a much stronger country, like Brazil, but that essentially makes Bolivia a protectorate of Brazil, and that's bad for national morale, don't you think? The capability to defend yourself and fight for your own homeland and ideals therein is a major part of patriotism of any kind, and a major component to sovereignty, no?

But, again, you're debating political and military theory. I am simply trying to explain why players on 21c buy military hardware; you're questioning the usefulness of militaries in principle which, not for nothing, is entirely outside the scope of the purpose of these boards.
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zzHombre
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what im questioning is why players prefer procurement over development considering the defensive and pacifist strategies many players have.

you bring up two points that have questionable relations to militaries. first extreme civil unrest and terrorism are priorities for paramilitary and police forces not technologically advanced or even developed military forces. the cost-benefit of procuring military hardware just isnt worthwhile there. what is worthwhile though are training, organization, and logistics programs that could make national defense more efficient. i mean if i saw a couple of players pursuing the hardware route then id sympathize with the exceptions from the norm but thats not whats happening.

second many undeveloped and developing countries bear populist platforms because of how the parity of standard of living makes wealth an easy political target for identifying corruption. bolivia and many other south american countries fall into this category but they dont associate populism with traditional patriotism since they recognize political establishments as being forms of obsolete colonial oppression. call it a class war or a culture war the people dont recognize nationality automatically as something to be patriotic about. there are right wing populist and left wing populist countries and the left wing countries are less prone to appreciate militarism.

this also bothers me because i dont see groups such as the bolivarian alliance receiving much attention which is important since this is exactly what the alliance aims to achieve - military and economic security across borders that puts the peoples welfare first. making sure everyone has a job, good health care, clean drinking water and other fundamentals are certainly goals that could be easily roleplayed yet i dont see the existence of that sort of internationalist humanitarian theme.
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J.B. Hemlock
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HombreAmigo
08 Aug 2009 11.53.15
and why would japanese-korean relations be souring so quickly after a couple of slip ups? sure there has been token tension in the past about token activities, but south korea and japan have worked their ways around japanese oppression due to cultural and technological exchange as well as generational forgiveness. the two countries have bigger problems to worry about and for this to happen without third party manipulation makes me raise a brow as to whether this happened because of anything else besides immaturity. also article 9's revocation gets rescinded because of an american offer yet south korea still overlooks north korea's and china's blatant displays of militarism? america has historically had an extremely successful role in mending japanese-korean relations so something's missing here.

Actually, Japanese-Korean relations in the game aren't too far outside of what they are in real life. My own news items with regard to Japan have mainly come from real life. Ditto on President Lee's statements regarding Japan. Ditto on the poll numbers showing South Korean feelings about Japan. The mere fact that South Korea named its first freakin' aircraft carrier, in real life, after the most disputed piece of real estate sitting between the two nations is telling.

If you dig a little deeper, too, you'll see that I've been holding a fairly hard line with regard to North Korea. I just haven't had as much of a chance to display this, as we've been without a North Korea for a decent portion of this round.

As far as China goes, Chinese-RoK relations are currently quite warm. Total trade between the two countries runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars, if I recall correctly. I don't think either nation has any intention on risking that.
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J.B. Hemlock
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HombreAmigo
08 Aug 2009 17.37.34
(A bunch of complaints about how the game is being played.)

The world is a complicated place. Any game, such as this, which makes an entire nation the responsibility of a single player is going to see the actions of that country greatly simplified. Things which are less important to the player are going to fall by the wayside, typically under the assumption that they continue with "business as usual" without attention being explicitly called to them.

The obvious answer to your complaints, of course, is for you to make a claim and then play your nation the way you want to play it.
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zzHombre
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im asking questions in order to understand the community so i know what kind of tone to portray. i dunno why you think im complaining. every flaw i note here is an opportunity for me to work on when i get my chance.
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Russia (X)
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Because if you don't want a war, someone else does. Logic comes second to a thirst for blood lol.

The international balance of power, if not maintained, will invite certain aggressor states to exercise what power they hold.

For example, if the United States suddenly declared everlasting neutrality and downscaled it's military, what's to stop China from invading Taiwan?

India decreases security in Kashmir, and Pakistan will invade, or at least consider such a move.

Saudi Arabia's military was weak in 1990, especially compared to it's present strength. Instead the Kingdom relied on oil wealth for power. After Saddam crushed Kuwait, where did he turn his attention?
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zzHombre
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ive been asking about bolivia for a while and havent gotten any feedback despite getting plenty of feedback about what else ive said. :-/
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zzHombre
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that was to hemlock.
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zzHombre
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ok now we have a real issue to discuss. thank you x.

aggression as you've described is a matter of authoritarian regimes coming to power to want to expand their glory. their prestige. their might. their control. however you want to put it it's because they want to strut their stuff.

so for example what youve done attacking india makes sense in that regard for the sake of changing the government to a kingdom and generating a sense of renewed prosperity to your realm. i just hope there wasnt any behind the scenes catering going on there. :-)

most players here arent militant aggressors though so it wouldnt make sense to worry about balancing. at least neighborly balancing that is. i mean if bangladesh decides to demobilize then denmark shouldnt sail a force around the world to colonize it else it suffers the wrath of economic isolation from other democracies. this isnt the age of imperialism after all.

im just curious as to why there isnt more interaction in the other direction.
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zzHombre
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anyway i think this thread can be closed now. i have my answer and i have some content to work with. thanks for talking with me.
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J.B. Hemlock
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HombreAmigo
08 Aug 2009 17.55.39
im asking questions in order to understand the community so i know what kind of tone to portray.  i dunno why you think im complaining.  every flaw i note here is an opportunity for me to work on when i get my chance.

Meriam-Webster
 
Main Entry: com·plain
Pronunciation: \kəm-ˈplān\
Function: intransitive verb
Etymology: Middle English compleynen, from Anglo-French compleindre, from Vulgar Latin *complangere, from Latin com- + plangere to lament — more at plaint
Date: 14th century
1 : to express grief, pain, or discontent <complaining about the weather>
2 : to make a formal accusation or charge


According to Webster's, you're complaining. I think you're associating some additional baggage with the word, but when I say you're complaining it's this definition that I'm referring to.
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