Cash-strapped Britain looks to sell off embassies

Posted by ObjectiveObserver420@reddit | anime_titties | View on Reddit | 5 comments

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BarnabusTheBold@reddit

Lol. At a time when diplomacy and internaitonal engagement is more important than ever, we're just trashing the foreign office even further than its already dysfunctional state. Figures

More than happy to near triple the defence budget though. Because why prevent wars in the first place. Not like that's infinitely cheaper. Arguably the ukraine war could have been prevented with a few phone calls and pragmatism oover base ideology, rather than wasting so many lives and so much capital.

fun factoid: The last time the US state department's budget was actually properly passed by congress was when it was rolled up into the defense budget.

The very concept of diplomacy has been utterly destroyed by the so called 'unipolar moment' in the developed world. Meanwhile developing countries actually have complex foreign policies balancing various interests between different 'poles'.

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Yetanotherdeafguy@reddit

Ukraine was unavoidable, it's been in the works since before Crimea was taken.

A few phone calls won't change the fact that Putin is happy to fuck other countries up - nukes are an insurance policy few people are willing to take a chance on.

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ohhaider@reddit

Not defending the decision, but you had them all this time yet war is still here...

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BarnabusTheBold@reddit

You're alwyas going to have wars. The problem with the mythology of appeasement (a stupid concept) is that it ignores the infinite number of times that basic diplomacy or concessions did in fact avoid conflict. In fact that's how literally every conflict or potential conflict in history has either been avoided or concluded. Clausewitz was in fact correct when he stated that war is politics by other means. I can't think of a single war that didn't have a legitimate perceived motive in the eyes of the combatants. Contrary to every propaganda campaign in history, people don't just randomly declare war for glory in the modern era. The risks, costs and consequences are too great. Even the few who have warred under the engine of genuine ideological zeal/ fanaticism have been subject to basic reason and pragmatism.
The problem of course is that you need to understand 'the eyes of your opponents' (i.e. their perspective) which requires leaving your own ideological bubble behind and engaging in basic cognitive empathy. Something that most people are seemingly incapable of, only being able to see things through their own ideological lens. Even then it's very easy to radicalise yourself into an intransigent position without even intending it.

We've had them (diplomats), but they've been useless for a long time now (arguably they always were). However that doesn't need to be the case and we could decide to focus on it.

As an example, over the past few years, people with knowledge or experience of china have been treated with suspicion or hostility on the basis that they're in some way associated with the country and openly blocked from positions of any influence within the civil service. How can you have functioning diplomacy or policy when you are self-selecting for ignorance based on nothing but ideological zeal? When the people making decisions have curated an echo chamber with zero knowledge?

IIRC in the UK foreign office they have a weird rule where they won't assign you to work in an area if you already speak the language or something similar... which has some weird historical roots, but it clearly a bit questionable