Following up on my previous post about modern wars, I have these additional (and mostly unrelated) thoughts: 
  1. Generally speaking, I believe that violence defeats violence.  The stronger guy wins the fight.  Often the best way to defeat an opponent is with force.
  2. However, sometimes this isn't true, such as when the violence is terroristic in nature.  Most terrorist action is fueled by beliefs and emotion, thus largely disregarding logic.  A history (or maybe psychology) professor in college once said, "You can't rationalize with irrational people."  So no amount of force or violence will convince terrorists that they're in the wrong.
  3. In situations where violence won't work, diplomatic and/or economic sanctions seem to work quite well.  Money is an extremely powerful motivator.
#psychology