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

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

#101
post #89
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that reality is always more complicated than theories attempting to simplify things, but Germany was officially an empire, with an emperor who had the power to declare war and appoint the chancellor. The Reichstag had no power to dismiss the government. The Austro-Hungarian empire was also ruled by a hereditary monarch who was in charge of war and foreign policy. I admit it's all a bit hand-wavy, but wasn't th…

Sure. But you can come up with equally plausible standards that cut the other way: for instance, Germany had achieved universal male suffrage while Britain still had property requirements and was much more vigorously fighting women's suffrage with state repression. The German High Command could mobilize troops and declare war without parliamentary approval, but, hell, we effectively allow that in the USA today. And i…

I'm not quite up to speed on how bad the UK's and US's electoral systems were at the time, but a lot of the British Empire had universal suffrage, e.g. AU, NZ.

Germany had tiered suffrage until the 1918 revolution.

"This distribution meant that a first-class vote had 17.5 times the value of a third-class vote." and "... one result of which was that the industrialist Alfred Krupp was the only person able to vote for the electors in the first class in Essen."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_three-class_franchise

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

#102
post #89
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that reality is always more complicated than theories attempting to simplify things, but Germany was officially an empire, with an emperor who had the power to declare war and appoint the chancellor. The Reichstag had no power to dismiss the government. The Austro-Hungarian empire was also ruled by a hereditary monarch who was in charge of war and foreign policy. I admit it's all a bit hand-wavy, but wasn't th…

Sure. But you can come up with equally plausible standards that cut the other way: for instance, Germany had achieved universal male suffrage while Britain still had property requirements and was much more vigorously fighting women's suffrage with state repression. The German High Command could mobilize troops and declare war without parliamentary approval, but, hell, we effectively allow that in the USA today. And i…

One argument you might make is that the democracy peace theory is really just the Anglosphere. As Bismarck put it, "never underestimate the fact that Britain and America speak the same language."

You wouldn't imagine a civil war amongst a homogenous culture. I wonder if the Parliamentarians/Royalists or the Unionists/Confederates were more culturally different than the Anglosphere cultures are today.

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

#103
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

> NK implodes and tries to blow up SK and .jp along with it (australia?)

I certainly wouldn't want to live in Seoul if (when?) that comes to pass but wouldn't be too worried even in Japan - it's a good 1000km, and I don't think NK has the tech to get much precision at those distances. Certainly they don't have stealth missiles which would be able to evade JP's considerable number of aegis equipped vessels. They could likely do some damage but I doubt it would be catastrophic.

As for Australia, I wouldn't be worried at all - that's well into ICBM territory, a whole different technological level and NK have never demonstrated anything even close. Not to mention Hawaii is actually closer to Pyongyang than Sydney - if they really can lob missiles ~8000km, why not go for the Great Satan himself?

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

#105
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see you've inferred I am a "left winger" full of "USA hatred" and a "troll". You've also skillfully defeated arguments I have not made (e.g. blaming millions of deaths or lack of democracy in communist countries on the US). And having done this you've declared "enough". Well played. Incidentally, I love the US and happen to live here. I simply wish the US would stop making really foolish decisions that waste blood…

You troll, then insinuate I troll. Classic trick to blame others for what you do yourself -- someone browsing will just see two people calling each others names. You wrote this weird garbage: >>Communism isn't worse than anything no matter how bad. That is typical left wing dishonesty, motivated with some Western country (usually USA) being dependent on and cooperating with an unpleasant dictator that is opressive an…

OK, can anyone explain why I am down voted for noting this is stupid and/or trolling? We are talking about a theory about societies that has repeatedly resulted in slavery and many millions dead.

>>Communism isn't worse than anything no matter how bad.

And similar claims.

(This was off the front page before the votes, so it might be some idealists sending emails and asking for votes.)

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

#106
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think the point is that Iraq was essentially positioned as a police action against the government - not a war against the whole country, so it has been relatively restrained, especially since Iraq couldn't hit back. An all out war against a powerful nation that could hit back would be far less restrained.

Agreed which is why I mentioned 'total annihilation' of the enemy. But if you want to keep infrastructure or be able to exploit their resources after the war... You can't really do that. Its a decision that has to be made.

Modern (21st century) war in a semi-modern (early 20th century or earlier) vein would be hard to predict for a great many reasons. But thinking that the equation would work out the same seems pretty dicey to me.

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

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree. Having experienced it personally I can assure your - the hands of the military were tied. They have been since the Korea "police action". If the gloves came off it would be over quickly, but very messy. If a war developed with China in this case, for whatever reason, I hope that our civilian leadership would have the sense to allow the military to do their jobs quickly. Remember the job of the military is "t…

See my comment above. I agree on many points... But also see the possibility that 'total annihilation' in a pre-21st century sense of war may not be in the cards for numerous reasons.

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

#108
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…

> 5) The dangers of multiculturalism. Austrian Empire was a multicultural nightmare basically think conditions in modern Iraq, no majority and everyone hates everyone and the only thing holding it together is a strong empire.

Where in the world do you get this from? The core of the empire was built through negotiations, and functioned well. Austria-Hungary's problems, and the eventual assassination, came from areas the empire had forcibly occupied and/or annexed. The rise of Serbian resistance, for example, was to a large extent due to the empire eventually annexing Bosnia-Hercegovina after more than four decades of occupation.

Why you believe you can draw inferences about multiculturalism from either Iraq or Austria-Hungary is beyond me.

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

#109
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The industrial base of the US is geared to manufacturing cold war weapons. Chinese industry is geared towards consumer electronics. Which could produce 1 million drones faster? Remember that a smart phone contains many of the key components for a drone.

>Remember that a smart phone contains many of the key components for a drone. how about stealth supersonic self-landing on aircraft carrier satellite networked drones? Not that i doubt Chinese military or economical might, especially those of tomorrow, it is just they still have some distance to go.

In a conflict with thousands of drones none of that high tech stuff has really proven itself. What good is a satellite network, when satellite communication can be blocked? Why make something disposable stealthy?

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

#110
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see you've inferred I am a "left winger" full of "USA hatred" and a "troll". You've also skillfully defeated arguments I have not made (e.g. blaming millions of deaths or lack of democracy in communist countries on the US). And having done this you've declared "enough". Well played. Incidentally, I love the US and happen to live here. I simply wish the US would stop making really foolish decisions that waste blood…

You troll, then insinuate I troll. Classic trick to blame others for what you do yourself -- someone browsing will just see two people calling each others names. You wrote this weird garbage: >>Communism isn't worse than anything no matter how bad. That is typical left wing dishonesty, motivated with some Western country (usually USA) being dependent on and cooperating with an unpleasant dictator that is opressive an…

With respect to his statement of communism, I believe you misread what he wrote, and so you are down-voted because others interpretation does not match yours.

Read it as "communism is not automatically worse that any other possibility you can think of". E.g. compare Cuba under Castro with Germany under Hitler. The latter was obviously worse, simply because Castro did not initiate any genocides. That does not mean Castro is good, just that his stated ideology does not automatically place his regime in the "worst" category - there have been too many really nasty regimes for that.

This is assuming and accepting a right wing interpretation of "communism" to begin with.

> I can only read that as: "These enslaving juntas would have implemented human rights if it weren't for USA". Stupid.

Then your imagination is rather poor.

There are many reasons to think that overall suffering in these countries would have been less, even if the political restrictions might have remained the same. But even that is too simplistic. Castro went to the US first, including a "PR tour" where he was unable to get a visit with anyone senior in the White House. He was rebuffed over the issue of nationalisation that affected US interests, and first then did he walk into the open arms of the Soviets. It took a further several years before his party added "Socialist" to his name, and officially started adopting Soviet terminology.

Similarly, Ho-Chi-Mihn was a nationalist first, who looked to the US as a model for Vietnamese independence, and who appealed to Woodrow Wilson for support for Vietnamese independence.

It was first when this failed that Ho was radicalised further, but even then he largely held on to a nationalist outlook for a long time, while turning to socialist groups for support. Despite his radicalisation, which eventually lead to becoming one of the founder of the French communist party, and an official of the Comintern, during World War II he was supported by the US OSS in fighting the Vichy French and Japanese occupation forces.

But after the war, US support again disappeared when France attempted to re-occupy the country, and he saw no other alternative but to expand warfare and eventually fight those he originally hoped would be the guarantors of a free, independent Vietnam,.

This is a common thread with many of the revolutionary groups over the last century, who have first turned to the US or other democratic countries for support, found that they as groups are "inconvenient" because the dictatorships they oppose or opposed were often considered safer partners, and who have then instead turned elsewhere.

You even see it with the ANC in South Africa, which had an extremely tight relationship with the SACP (South African Communist Party) that deepened as Cuba provided assistance as well as intervened militarily in the South African puppet states of Angola and Namibia. ANC received support from that camp for decades while the West still provided extensive support and/or trade to the Apartheid regime. It would not have taken much for SA to have ended up taking a similar turn to Cuba or Vietnam.

A vast number of these regimes would either have looked very different, or even been open to extensive concessions to the West if "our" governments had been at all concerned with supporting democracy movements rather than propping up convenient trading partners or regimes they saw as strategic partners against the Soviets or Chinese.

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