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Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

economist.com

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Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#11

Post by justinhj »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #3
JeffL wrote: post #2

It's really hard to see anything big starting up in Europe, since all the countries are now officially democracies, and those that are at the corrupt end of the spectrum are not the most powerful. R. J. Rummels arguments about how democracies don't go to war against each other are pretty compelling. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/MIRACLE.HTM I guess the biggest potential problem would be China, but do they really h…

The concern isn't China bombing Germany. It is China pushing to establish itself as the East China Sea's regional hegemon. This would involve displacing Japan, a conflict likely to pull in the U.S. That risks drawing in, at a minimum, the U.K. and Australia. A U.S.-China conflict would shoot decades of progress in the head.

It's mentioned in the article that mutually assured destruction due to each side having nuclear capability is a big difference between now and WWI.

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#12

Post by JumpCrisscross »

sliverstorm wrote: post #4
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concern isn't China bombing Germany. It is China pushing to establish itself as the East China Sea's regional hegemon. This would involve displacing Japan, a conflict likely to pull in the U.S. That risks drawing in, at a minimum, the U.K. and Australia. A U.S.-China conflict would shoot decades of progress in the head.

Of course I would have to wonder what about Japan would be worth a war with the U.S. Logistical value perhaps, for example by denying the U.S. the bases they currently have there, but certainly not for resources?

Same reason it made sense for the U.K. to prevent Germany from invading France and consolidating Europe. A China fearless of its near seas is a China more ready to secure the energy and natural resources it so desperately needs in central Asia, the middle East, Africa, and South America. The realpolitik angle is that it's simpler to balance a consolidating power versus a consolidated one.

Japan's utility is not only as a strategic launchpad. It also represented, in 2012, $216 billion in trade [1]. That is a $5.5 trillion asset when discounted at the U.S. 30-year rate.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_par...

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#13

Post by VLM »

npt4279 wrote: post #9

Thankfully, I don't see WWIII starting anytime soon... But I've always strongly thought the "globalisation will make war unthinkable" argument is naive. We're tribal creatures -Nationalism trumps economic interest at the end of the day. History shows this to be true. As the author hinted at - Russia, Germany, Britain, Belgium, and France were each other's biggest trading partners - by far! Heck, a Belgium company bui…

Another interesting point about globalization is the meaning of WWI style globalization was colonialism, every European power had overseas colonies (other than Germany). Another example where world trade didn't seem to help much.

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#14

Post by npt4279 »

VLM wrote: post #7

Not a very good analysis of the causes of WWI or application to today: Problems: 1) Cultural attitude of "eh, war is not so bad and higher tech means we'll be home by xmas". See franco-prussian war and the most recent "world war" being Napoleon's activities in the decade after the revolution a century ago. I'm not seeing much warmongering as a cultural phenomena. Of course that can change quickly, 90% of everything A…

I've read quite a bit about WWI, and that's a very good analysis.

Although, as a nitpick, I'd reword "the dangers of multicultalism" as "rising nationalism that made old political boundaries obsolete". The Austrian Empire worked well enough for hundreds of years... until it's various peoples started identifying more and more with their language and ethnicity.

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#15

Post by JumpCrisscross »

VLM wrote: post #7

Not a very good analysis of the causes of WWI or application to today: Problems: 1) Cultural attitude of "eh, war is not so bad and higher tech means we'll be home by xmas". See franco-prussian war and the most recent "world war" being Napoleon's activities in the decade after the revolution a century ago. I'm not seeing much warmongering as a cultural phenomena. Of course that can change quickly, 90% of everything A…

I'm not seeing much warmongering as a cultural phenomena.

In the U.S., perhaps not. But nationalism and remilitarisation are flaring up in China and Japan, respectively.

Who exactly is supposed to invade China next decade if they don't invade today?

China, with good reason, perceives itself as being surrounded by U.S.-allied countries looking to suppress its growth. Since growth is the currency the Communist Party trades for its seat of power, this is a potentially existential issue to the elite.

The root cause of the war being the ottoman empire decaying and almost dead and everyone wanted a lucrative piece of it.

The American Pacific alliance would be a loose analogue today. China may think it can establish a suzerainty over, say, the Phillipines, betting the U.S. will balk at another costly intervention.

The Economist's point isn't that we're going to have a war in a mold of WWI - all the seats need not be filled. It's simply warning that while we're watching the S&P 500 soar to record heights on the back of booming productivity and resurgent globalisation we shouldn't ignore the fireworks that are playing out over a handful of unmanned islands in the East China Sea.

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#16

Post by Tloewald »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #15
VLM wrote: post #7

Not a very good analysis of the causes of WWI or application to today: Problems: 1) Cultural attitude of "eh, war is not so bad and higher tech means we'll be home by xmas". See franco-prussian war and the most recent "world war" being Napoleon's activities in the decade after the revolution a century ago. I'm not seeing much warmongering as a cultural phenomena. Of course that can change quickly, 90% of everything A…

I'm not seeing much warmongering as a cultural phenomena. In the U.S., perhaps not. But nationalism and remilitarisation are flaring up in China and Japan, respectively. Who exactly is supposed to invade China next decade if they don't invade today? China, with good reason, perceives itself as being surrounded by U.S.-allied countries looking to suppress its growth. Since growth is the currency the Communist Party tr…

Go look at US action movies, video games, etc. There's plenty of warmongering going on. Heck, just within the last year we had a mass media frenzy over the prospect of bombing Syria.

Bear in mind that the US has been fighting wars against far weaker opponents for over sixty years now, and on the whole doing quite poorly. If any country ought to not be warmongering...

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#17

Post by VLM »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #8
sliverstorm wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course I would have to wonder what about Japan would be worth a war with the U.S. Logistical value perhaps, for example by denying the U.S. the bases they currently have there, but certainly not for resources?

The Chinese in general still feel humiliated by their treatment at the hands of the western powers and then their occupation by Japan in WW2. Furthermore they have an issue of not having enough resouces to feed their growth. Who ever owns the islands (more then one set - China is arguing with Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Philippines) has the rights to exploit the oil/gas fields in the ocean beds around them. Now to the…

"it would be a very short war. Blood and a mess but still very short."

You may wish to read up on attitudes immediately prior to WWI. And there were three dominate military powers at the start of WWI, Germany the land empire able to call up 5M men in days, Russia with infinite manpower but so logistically messed up they never get to use them, and the British Navy dominated the waves, which was a pretty big deal as this was toward the end of the colonial era (although Germany didn't get to play colonialism which was arguably part of the problem)

Seriously, the franco prussian war was only a couple months adn the protoGermans won decisively. They really did expect to be done, one way or another, by winter time.

WW3 will probably be something like NK implodes and tries to blow up SK and .jp along with it (australia?), and China and "the west" argue very forcibly about who will dominate the area in a post-NK, perhaps post-SK and post-.jp world. At least if I was writing an Alt Hist type novel thats where I'd generally go.

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#18

Post by ItendToDisagree »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #8
sliverstorm wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course I would have to wonder what about Japan would be worth a war with the U.S. Logistical value perhaps, for example by denying the U.S. the bases they currently have there, but certainly not for resources?

The Chinese in general still feel humiliated by their treatment at the hands of the western powers and then their occupation by Japan in WW2. Furthermore they have an issue of not having enough resouces to feed their growth. Who ever owns the islands (more then one set - China is arguing with Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Philippines) has the rights to exploit the oil/gas fields in the ocean beds around them. Now to the…

Outmatching someone militarily doesn't necessarily forecast a short war. This is especially true if you do not have the resources or interest in total annihilation of your opposition. There are many recent examples of this to choose from. Iraq comes to mind.

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#19

Post by Tloewald »

VLM wrote: post #13
npt4279 wrote: post #9

Thankfully, I don't see WWIII starting anytime soon... But I've always strongly thought the "globalisation will make war unthinkable" argument is naive. We're tribal creatures -Nationalism trumps economic interest at the end of the day. History shows this to be true. As the author hinted at - Russia, Germany, Britain, Belgium, and France were each other's biggest trading partners - by far! Heck, a Belgium company bui…

Another interesting point about globalization is the meaning of WWI style globalization was colonialism, every European power had overseas colonies (other than Germany). Another example where world trade didn't seem to help much.

Um, Germany had overseas colonies, including one where they committed genocide (foreshadowing later bad acts). And do you think today's globalization isn't colonialism? Explain the real differences, including a discussion of multinationals investing in third world nations and gaining defacto control of their governments and Chinese treaties sewing up the national resources of African countries and acquiring long term leases for agricultural land all around the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_colonial_empire

http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-china-leases-farmland/2...

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#20

Post by VLM »

sliverstorm wrote: post #4
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concern isn't China bombing Germany. It is China pushing to establish itself as the East China Sea's regional hegemon. This would involve displacing Japan, a conflict likely to pull in the U.S. That risks drawing in, at a minimum, the U.K. and Australia. A U.S.-China conflict would shoot decades of progress in the head.

Of course I would have to wonder what about Japan would be worth a war with the U.S. Logistical value perhaps, for example by denying the U.S. the bases they currently have there, but certainly not for resources?

Manufacturing plants. 30 seconds after the Chinese can no longer supply Walmart for political reasons, we'll be buying Japanese electronics again.

Aside from the obvious diplomatic ally stuff. Our other diplomatic allies would make sure we don't leave Japan hang.

One minor problem is that stretch of water between Japan and China, of course. At this point in their military development, an invasion of Taiwan would be ridiculous much less the Japanese home islands. In a couple decades Taiwan might be toast, but its still another order or two of magnitude to invade Japan.

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