Ask HN: Would a “War Olympiad” end the war in Ukraine? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Would a “War Olympiad” end the war in Ukraine?

2 pointsamichail9 comments

A "War Olympiad" would allow countries to compete with their actual military hardware and best troops without killing anyone.

In this way, countries like Russia could gain the respect of the world as having one of the most powerful militaries without invading any countries.

P.S. This Olympiad would not decide any wars. All you get are medals like with the Olympic Games.

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Sounds like the premise of Cordwainer Smith's first published story, "War No. 81-Q". A nice, utopian idea but I get the feeling that the winner of such an Olympiad would be emboldened to keep on pushing for more outside the confines of the contest.

But should the country with the best weapons win all wars? It somehow does not sound correct to me

Russia doesn't have to invade any other country, they are already the largest one in the world

This Olympiad would not decide any wars. It's just a way to show the world just how powerful your military is.

Isn’t the backstory of League of Legends that the champions fight in the arena to resolve all conflicts in their society?

Do they still get to keep part of the other country if they win? If not, then no - as war tends to have objectives.

Isn't getting the world's respect an objective?

The Russians put on a yearly Tank Biathlon which is attended by Russian client states (Belarus, Abkhazia, South Ossetia), Communist (China, Cuba, Vietnam) and non-aligned (India, Iran, Kuwait, Zimbabwe) nations. They put T-72 (and derivative) tanks through their paces, testing everything but the ability to take hits. The U.S. was invited at least twice and didn’t go, not least because hardly anybody in the U.S. knows how to drive a T-72.

NATO has only recently started running international tank crew competitions again after a long break.

Rock paper scissors

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