[Link] A rational response to the Paris attacks and ISIS

Gleb_Tsipursky

Here's my op-ed that uses long-term orientation, probabilistic thinking, numeracy, consider the alternative, reaching our actual goals, avoiding intuitive emotional reactions and attention bias, and other rationality techniques to suggest more rational responses to the Paris attacks and the ISIS threat. It's published in the Sunday edition of The Plain Dealer, a major newspaper (16th in the US). This is part of my broader project, Intentional Insights, of conveying rational thinking, including about politics, to a broad audience to raise the sanity waterline.

I would say that a ground campaign would defeat IS in Syria and Iraq. I cannot be bothered to dig for a definite source for that, but USA, EU military is vastly better than IS and I don't want to waste my time arguing with anyone who thinks that an America/EU/Russian alliance would lose a ground war against IS in Iraq and Syria.

Then why didn't the US win against the groups that are precursors to daesh when they had boots on the ground in Iraq?

Did the Allies win WW I?

I think it is pretty obvious that by most measures that the central powers did not win the war, but did that victory create a lasting peace?

It obviously didn't. The way the "victory" in WW I was handled pretty much set the stage for WW II.

It is the same way in the middle east, you can have a "victory" or "win" but that does not mean long lasting peace.

0entirelyuseless11y

The question is what you mean by "win". It would not be very reasonable to describe reality with the statement that the US lost a war against some group or groups in Iraq. But they didn't wipe those people out, and consequently those people can still do things. The US would win in Syria if they did the same thing, and in the same sense, and with the same sort of consequences. Tacitus said that the Romans were accustomed to "make a desert and call it peace." If the US wanted to win a war in that sense, they could. But they don't want to, and won't, basically because pretty much everyone considers it to be immoral. But as long as you don't do that, there will still be people there with the same ideas and intentions, and some of those people will act on those ideas and intentions.