An organized, armed, and often a prolonged conflict that is carried on between states, nations, or other parties.
Questions tagged [war]
137 questions
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votes
3 answers
Has weather been weaponised?
A letter in The Guardian makes the following claims:
While seemingly fantastical, weather has been weaponised. At least four countries – the US, Russia, China and Israel – possess the technology and organisation to regularly alter weather and…
Tom77
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Are US-sold aircrafts not able to shoot on Israeli targets?
According to this article,
the old U.S. system ... automatically identified all Israeli targets
as a "friend," preventing Turkish fighter jets from firing at them,
even if Turkish pilots were ordered to do so.
and the Turks have to develop…
Himawari90
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Was the UK's drive to acquire civilian metals to use in WW2 necessary for the war effort?
This question was asked here recently:
Were World War II scrap drives in the United States truly necessary for the procurement of raw materials?
And it has produced some very solid analysis and fascinating statistics.
But the USA had a very…
matt_black
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16
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Was the Browning Automatic Rifle kept from US troops during WWI?
On the History Channel show Modern Marvels: Engineering Disasters 2 (S05E30) there is a segment on the French Chauchat rifle. Dr. Jack Atwater, former director of the US Army Ordnance Museum, makes the claim that American soldiers were issued…
Tom
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16
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Do gun homicides and suicides kill more Americans than war?
In a 2015 column in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof, the following two claims are made:
More Americans die in gun homicides and suicides every six months than have died in the last 25 years in every terrorist attack and the wars in…
TheEnvironmentalist
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16
votes
1 answer
Have more British Muslims joined Islamist groups than serve in British armed forces?
From the New York Times: Her Majesty’s Jihadists
Her Majesty’s Jihadists
More British Muslims have joined Islamist militant groups than serve
in the country’s armed forces. How to understand the pull of jihad.
and from the body of the…
Andrew Grimm
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16
votes
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Did doctor/journalist Sanjay Gupta perform brain surgery on a wounded soldier in the heat of war?
According to this recap of an interview of Dr Sanjay Gupta on the Dr Oz Show, there was an incident while he was acting as a journalist in a war zone in Iraq:
While in Iraq, he encountered a soldier with a critical head wound. He
switched roles…
yuritsuki
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16
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Is there a "cyber war"?
I've been extremely sceptical of this new concept of a cyber war. That is, a malicious country or organisation could attack another country by bringing down their network through, say a DDoS or a well targeted virus attack on vulnerable systems.…
Thomas O
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15
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Were younger people more likely to support Vietnam war than people older than 50 years old in the 60s?
Claim: “According to Gallup polls done throughout the 1960s, young and educated people (meaning college students) were far more likely to support the war than their old and educated fellow citizens. In fact, it was the over-50 crowd that opposed the…
S182
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Is the the "civilian casualty ratio" in modern day warfare about 3-4:1?
This site claims that, in modern warfare, about 3 civilians are killed for every combatant killed.
This concept can be scientifically proven by understand (sic) the basic concept of “civilian casualty ratio”, that is in every conflict you need to…
Publius
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14
votes
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Were more Americans fatally shot by March this calendar year than died during DDay as the Washington post claimed?
As above - seems either scary or unlikely? Is this claim accurate?
Washington Post: More Americans were shot to death by March 6 this year than died on D-Day
From the linked article:
user1703844
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14
votes
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Did Churchill urge the US to ‘wipe out’ Moscow with an A-bomb
I read the following article:
https://www.icij.org/blog/2014/10/churchill-urged-us-wipe-out-moscow-bomb/
from a seemingly reputable source (although it is a blog post).
The key claim:
Privately, Churchill suggested that America strike first, before…
Andrey
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14
votes
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Was Monsanto the primary manufacturer of Agent Orange?
Saw this on my Facebook today.
Agent Orange
Agent Orange wasn't invented by Monsanto... The primary manufacturer wasn't Monsanto. It was Dow Chemical. When Dow couldn't manufacture it fast enough, the government turned to overflow suppliers,…
dwjohnston
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14
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Did global warming exacerbate the Syrian conflict?
Newspapers have recently reported that research shows that Global Warming can now be assigned as a major contributor to the ongoing conflict in Syria. For example, The Independent:
Climate change was a key driver of the Syrian uprising, according…
matt_black
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14
votes
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Can Exocet missiles be remotely disabled with secret codes?
It is reported that Margaret Thatcher, during the Falklands War, put pressure on French president François Mitterrand to give her secret codes so that the British armed forces could disable French-built Exocet missiles in use by the…
Graham Borland
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