It weakens legal constraint by substituting conjecture about hypothetical futures for shared rules and standards.

Who knows? So, a humanitarian cost-benefit analysis prior to Iraq would not have provided clarity about whether invasion was justified. Adding this kind of speculative reasoning into international law does not strengthen the case for intervention.

It remains unknowable now because we can't rerun history. We can't observe what Iraq would've looked like had Saddam remained in power. Would there have been intensified repression? Another regional war? Continued sanctions and rising infant mortality? A delayed but equally violent regime collapse?

Consider the months leading up to the Iraq war. What guidance would a humanitarian cost-benefit analysis have provided at the time? Suppose the Bush admin had asked: "How many Iraqis will suffer or die if the US doesn't intervene, versus if it overthrows the regime?" The answer was unknowable then.

The problem is not just that these judgments are difficult, but that they depend on counterfactual scenarios that can't be reliably specified or evaluated in advance.

Any such analysis requires comparing the expected costs and benefits of the status quo against those of intervention: two hypothetical futures involving extremely high stakes, innumerable contingencies, and unpredictable downstream effects.

"Canada would have a maximum of three months to prepare for a land and sea invasion. The first indications that invasion orders had been sent would be expected to come from U.S. military warnings that Canada no longer has a shared skies policy with the United States."

"Conscription has been ruled out for now, but the level of sacrifice that would be asked of Canadians remains a central topic, the officials said. General Jennie Carignan, Chief of the Defence Staff, has already announced her intention to create a 400,000-plus-strong reserve force of volunteers."

"One of the officials said the model includes tactics used by the Afghan mujahedeen in their hit-and-run attacks on Russian soldiers during the 1979-1989 Soviet-Afghan War. These were the same tactics employed by the Taliban in their 20-year war against the US and allied forces that included Canada"

"Canada does not have the number of military personnel or the sophisticated equipment needed to fend off a conventional American attack, they said. So, the military envisions unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military or armed civilians would resort to ambushes."

Had to exhaust myself to guess this one.

Wordle 1,675 6/6

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Happy (and relieved) that I got it in four. Impressed by those who complete it in three guesses or less.

Wordle 1,674 4/6

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"The Kremlin will not stop fighting at home. By continuing political persecution and repression within the country and searching for enemies among dissidents, the regime will compensate for the stark crisis it will face with the economy."

"Until the country becomes if not democratic then at least rationally organized, it will remain a chaos agent on the international stage. That is why, even if a peace deal is reached in Ukraine, the West will not be able to make Putin’s Russia go away."

Ha!

Not a revoltin' development, that's for sure.

Obviously a very lucky Friday for me.

Wordle 1,672 2/6

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A "mix of woeful ignorance and expert brutality may appear odd, but it is a hallmark of regimes that are born of marginalized, typically rural, victims of prior rulers. The downtrodden take power and exact revenge against the previous elites, and mete out violence against every suspected opponent."