Hacker News Reader

Comment by threatripper | Hacker News Reader

Problem is the fragile political situation in North Africa and the reluctance of the European militaries to ensure stability with force.

View on HN

Helping kill Gaddafi does nothing to help the situation.

From my perspective European militaries are the cause of regional instability, not a solution.

Have you been watching French moves in Africa as of late?

Would you mind elaborating on what you’re referring to? I’m quite curious.

Beau Geste? Battle of Algiers? No I've no idea either.

In 2013, the President of Mali asked France for help in stopping an attack on the capital Bamako by Islamic groups from the North of the country, whose goal was to establish a second Islamic state in the Sahel region, modeled after the Islamic State of Iraq which was developing at that same time. Four fighter jets were sent from France to stop the attackers as they were driving down south in pickups and were just a few hours away from taking the capital Bamako.

7 years later, the French forces are still on the ground, trying to help in stabilizing not only Mali, but also the whole Sahel region. With little stabilization success so far, but a second Islamic state in this area was avoided thanks to this intervention.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barkhane

> the reluctance of the European militaries to ensure stability with force.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Because it is a bad thing for the project. You're reading into this too much.

Re-occupying North Africa for its natural resources also guarantees the doom of the project in short order, as well as a huge cost of money, lives, CO2, and everything else.

"Ensuring stability with force" does not work. Stability can only be ensured with prosperity.

This seems incorrect, and maybe wishful thinking?. There have been many brutal societies (and colonies, empires and so on) that lasted for centuries.

Certainly a lot of military "interventions" in the past couple of decades have been pretty disastrous though.

I propose a "you break it you buy it" model. Until such time as Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have peace and good governance, no more military adventures to spread liberal democracy.

Ensuring stability with force certainly works at the small scale the project needs.

Nobody is talking about re-occupying North Africa.

Again, you're reading too much into this. Maybe go back to Portland with that rhetoric?

Got any sources? You sound like you're poorly educated on the topic.

Well, it can't say it's bad, but it may not be realistic. Don't forget the famous war that was supposed to "ensure stability with force", and that's been lasting for almost 20 year. Things are certainly more complicated there, but it's fair to be skeptical that force can bring stability.

Reminds me of the Vietnam era "Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com