Can foreign intervention lead to peaceful solutions?

Despite potential good intentions, interventionist policies are often viewed by classical liberals as violations of individual freedoms.

  • Intervention covers a range of activity broader than just war. Some interventions have more humanitarian aims, such as disaster relief and development aid.
  • Oftentimes, the drive behind many instances of intervention involves some form of political, economic, or social outcome.
  • There are important questions to consider regarding knowledge, goals, incentives, and unintended consequences. The answers to these indicate whether an intervention is necessary and appropriate.
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Secret bunker from WWII found in Scotland

Winston Churchill had a secret army, and bunkers like this would have hidden them during a German invasion.

Image: © FLS/AOC Archaeology
  • Scottish foresters have recently stumbled on a hidden bunker dating back to WWII.
  • It is one of hundreds of bunkers designed to hide a secret guerrilla army in the event of a German invasion.
  • For the sake of protecting the site, its precise location will not be made public.
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How the Nazis faked part of Hamburg to fool Allied bombers

'Operation Invisibility Cloak' was a waste: Hamburg would soon be firebombed to bits

Image: Reddit
  • In 1941, the Nazis camouflaged an entire lake at the centre of Hamburg.
  • A painted tarp was made to look like a bunch of city blocks from above, in the hope of misdirecting RAF bombers.
  • But the Brits weren't fooled, and Hamburg would later suffer horrific firebombing.
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Humans evolved for punching, study confirms

University of Utah research finds that men are especially well suited for fisticuffs.

Image source: durantelallera/Shutterstock
  • With males having more upper-body mass than women, a study looks to find the reason.
  • The study is based on the assumption that men have been fighters for so long that evolution has selected those best-equipped for the task.
  • If men fought other men, winners would have survived and reproduced, losers not so much.
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Does drone warfare reduce harm? Maybe not.

Proponents of drones in foreign conflicts argue that it reduces harm for civilians and U.S. military personnel alike. Here's why that might be wrong.

  • There has been a huge increase in drone usage since the war on terror. Proponents of drone warfare claim it reduces civilian casualties and collateral damage, that it's cheaper than conventional warfare tactics, and that it's safer for U.S. military personnel.
  • The data suggests those claims may be false, says scholar Abigail Blanco. Drones are, at best, about equivalent to conventional technologies, but in some cases may actually be worse.
  • Blanco explains how skewed US government definitions don't give honest data on civilian casualties. Drone operators also suffer worse psychological repercussions following a drone strike because of factors such as the intimacy of prolonged surveillance and heat-sensing technology which lets the operator observe the heat leaving a dying body to confirm a kill.
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