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Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

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Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#61

Post by andruby »

jeffdavis wrote: post #29

What's the point of war in the modern world? Gain land/people? If there's a thriving economy there, war will probably change that quickly. If there's no thriving economy, what's the point? You could try to exploit the people/resources there, but the profits in that seem (at least compared to a world power) pretty thin. Unskilled labor and unimproved land are just not worth what they used to be. Specific resources mig…

> What's the point of war in the modern world?

To create reasons to keep funding the military industrial complex.

To assert political and economical power.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#62

Post by AcerbicZero »

us-throw1 wrote: post #19
AcerbicZero wrote: post #6

A modern "great war" would require countries of relatively equal military industrial power, so either it would be a great war without the US involved, i.e. China/India, Russia/China (with caveats), etc. In those situations the countries may temporarily forgo the use of nuclear weapons, at least until one side is pressed beyond the point of rational response. I'd also suggest the last time countries were so dominant i…

Are you really sure that the US is undisputed in those 4 categories? A list of obvious weaknesses: * The US economy and industrial power is dependent on IT and brittle supply chains. Nobody knows how much the cyber infrastructure holding this up is already compromised. * Russian S-400s can already deny air superiority to Israeli planes, which are not far behind US planes. * How does the US have space superiority when…

I can happily go point by point here, but my original comment wasn't intended to suggest I agreed with the current state of world military balance and shouldn't be taken as implicit support of US policy.

That said - * The S-400 is an impressive system. The Russians have so built ~300 of them, and like any system, the soft factors are more important than the paper facts suggest. Training, deployment, doctrine, and strategic/tactical goals would greatly affect the viability of it on any modern battlefield.

* Space Superiority is more than just ASAT capabilities, but its an area that few other countries have ever even attempted, and with the US's dominance in rocket technology (arguably anyway) and high altitude laser platforms, I'm fairly confident it would be a stalemate at best, with even the closest competitor. I would agree its an area of US defense that will need special attention over the next ~10 years.

* Insurgency =/= Great War.

* OIF was heavily supported by carrier based aircraft, and there are exactly zero countries that posses a modern enough navel force to threaten US control of the actual blue water areas. US Submarine technology is decades ahead of everyone else at this point. There are concern developments in this area, but again, we're talking "Great War"

* True point. Wars tend to get people pointed in the same direction though. Especially "Great Wars"

* US pilots put in more seat time than every other country combined. This is a factor that cannot be overstated. Putting 10x the number of the worlds best plane in the air means nothing if the actual operator cannot leverage those tools effectively.

In the end, these are all great points as to why the US has room to improve its lead, but none of them really address the core point which is that the US is currently the undisputed leader in almost every military category, and any "Great War" involving the US would be a very lopsided affair. You're more than welcome to pick your challenger and we can see how long it takes me to make a list twice as long with their problems, although I can't guarantee I'll actually spend the time doing that today :)

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#63

Post by mirekrusin »

turc1656 wrote: post #43
jeffdavis wrote: post #29

What's the point of war in the modern world? Gain land/people? If there's a thriving economy there, war will probably change that quickly. If there's no thriving economy, what's the point? You could try to exploit the people/resources there, but the profits in that seem (at least compared to a world power) pretty thin. Unskilled labor and unimproved land are just not worth what they used to be. Specific resources mig…

I think that's a possibility but that's provided everything else holding up the system(s) actually holds up. The minute supermarkets stop having enough food on their shelves is the minute panic sets in. After that it's not long before any nation runs the risk of turning into Venezuela and people are killing their neighbor's dog for food. I don't think you're giving enough weight to the grim reality of human nature. T…

Also it feels like food supply is much more fragile now (more dependent), almost 8 bln people now compared to ~1.5 bln 100 years ago, if this collapses, it'll collapse big time.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#64

Post by peterwwillis »

mrfredward wrote: post #41
jeffdavis wrote: post #29

What's the point of war in the modern world? Gain land/people? If there's a thriving economy there, war will probably change that quickly. If there's no thriving economy, what's the point? You could try to exploit the people/resources there, but the profits in that seem (at least compared to a world power) pretty thin. Unskilled labor and unimproved land are just not worth what they used to be. Specific resources mig…

I'll add trade as an important deterrent to war in the modern world. The more countries' economies become intertwined, the more incentive there is to work things out peacefully. Unfortunately, the wave of protectionism we're seeing undermines this incentive.

That's the same thing they said at the turn of the 20th century. Didn't work out too well...

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#65

Post by acqq »

vvillena wrote: post #44

At this point wars between powerful nations are almost impossible. Proxy wars are the current fashion, and those tend to be controlled in scale by the puppetmasters behind it. I'm more scared about a great civil war in a powerful nuclear nation. Civil wars are a savage affair where no rules apply.

> At this point wars between powerful nations are almost impossible.

That is exactly what "everybody" assumed before 1914, as pointed by the article.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#66

Post by gonehome »

vvillena wrote: post #44

At this point wars between powerful nations are almost impossible. Proxy wars are the current fashion, and those tend to be controlled in scale by the puppetmasters behind it. I'm more scared about a great civil war in a powerful nuclear nation. Civil wars are a savage affair where no rules apply.

I'd like to think this is true, but I think it's naive - there was similar sentiment before WWI too.

Nationalism and hysteria can lead people do things that are bad for both individuals and the group. Increasing free trade between countries and globalism is a good way to try and prevent wars, but the current reversion to nationalism makes me nervous.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#68

Post by jbattle »

vvillena wrote: post #44

At this point wars between powerful nations are almost impossible. Proxy wars are the current fashion, and those tend to be controlled in scale by the puppetmasters behind it. I'm more scared about a great civil war in a powerful nuclear nation. Civil wars are a savage affair where no rules apply.

This book was hugely influential in the years just before WW1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion

Premise: the large nations of the world are far to intertwined by commerce and culture. Large scale war would be suicidal and the leadership of these countries would never do something so foolish.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#69

Post by elygre »

21 wrote: post #54
kobrad wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect some incredibly stupid reason. Post-brexit UK tries to nuke somewhere in the EU, or the USA decides we need to get Jesus here faster, or actually anything on this spectrum of insanity. Right now it seems like science fiction that anybody will try doing anything about the climate. So, in reality we'll probably see a failing ecosystem and the strongest military killing the rest of us.

> Post-brexit UK tries to nuke somewhere in the EU What is stopping pre-brexit UK trying to nuke EU? The EU treaties?

A lack of anger. Anger comes with the brexit effects.

(Probably not. But for the sake of argument.)

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#70

Post by claytoneast »

21 wrote: post #59
stareatgoats wrote: post #28

> This is why the U.S. chose to stay so deeply engaged in the affairs of Europe Aside from this rather endearing naivete, the gist of the article is fine: we need to fear another 'Great War'. Modern warfare grants (perceived) first-strike capability to almost any state, rendering the power of MAD and military alliances close to negligible. We live in the 21st century now, things are different than before, and highly…

> Modern warfare grants (perceived) first-strike capability to almost any state What are you talking about? Only 9 states have nuclear weapons. Of them, only 5 have any significant number.

Do the others really matter, then, in this context?
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