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Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

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Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#31

Post by jcranmer »

mschuster91 wrote: post #22
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #2

How is it possible to write this article without mentioning MAD? The presence of nuclear self defense is what keeps nuclear armed nations from engaging in aggressive wars with other nuclear armed nations.

The presence of nuclear self defense is what keeps nuclear armed nations from engaging in aggressive wars with other nuclear armed nations. The US and Russia are already in the midst of several proxy wars: Ukraine, Syria and Libya. In addition, Russia is directly destabilizing Europe by funding alt-right parties financially (AfD/DE, FrontNational/FR, FPÖ/Austria, Jobbik/HU, Lega Nord/IT) and by promoting their crap o…

> The Chinese seem to be playing the long game by strategically investing in infrastructure like roads and rail across Africa, probably both for strategic advantages (given Africa's large reserves of anything from rhino horns over diamonds and uranium to rare-earth metals) and economic advantages (the US and EU markets are saturated, South America is going down rapidly, but Africa can only grow and buy Chinese products in return - basically the Marshall Plan just without the war).

There is a key difference between the Marshall Plan and China's modern African investment. The Marshall Plan was pretty emphatically a plan to help coerce Western Europe into supporting what effectively became the West, and combined vigorous restoration efforts with criterion for supporting certain kinds of economic reforms. In particular, it was very much meant to build up Europe not so that it served as a market for American goods but rather so that Europe could be useful junior partners in a coalition. China's current investment hews much closer to neocolonialism: it's building African infrastructure, but managed by Chinese, owned by Chinese, and even built by Chinese imported for the labor. It is not engendering local goodwill for China, and unlike the Marshall Plan, it isn't helping move these countries into China's camp in a putative global war.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#32

Post by hrktb »

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…

Another great war could mean at least one country preparing for it and building weapons in advance.

As of now the US have the greatest army, but if let’s say China were to prepare for it for enough time in a somewhat stealthy way, couldn’t it bring the USA into a long and dirty foght ?

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#33

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

mmastrac wrote: post #3
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #2

How is it possible to write this article without mentioning MAD? The presence of nuclear self defense is what keeps nuclear armed nations from engaging in aggressive wars with other nuclear armed nations.

IMO mutually-assured destruction only really guarantees that powers won't use nukes against each other.

the fear of MAD also implies that a big power spends a lot of effort to avoid running into a direct military confrontation against another great power; direct confrontations run the risk of escalating into all out war. That's why you have so many proxy conflicts - these ugly little conflicts add some layers of indirection so to speak.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#34

Post by jcranmer »

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, rendering the power of MAD and military alliances close to negligible.

That is folly. The idea of MAD is that you have second-strike capabilities that are sufficiently hardened that no first-strike attack is capable of preventing the second-strike retaliation from occurring. In essence, the idea is that the calculus becomes "if we go to war, the only outcome is that we both lose."

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#35

Post by Erem »

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…

Your post reminds me of some pre-WW1 opinions shared by Dan Carlin in his great podcast on the topic. There were a number of intelligent observers that thought a pan European war could not happen at that time because the economies of the great powers were going so well.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#36

Post by resoluteteeth »

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 would think any modern war would be very different and less bloody than we're used to. Some kind of weird power play that results in a takeover but is not disruptive enough to damage what was taken. Something more like Russia taking Crimea and less like Germany invading Poland.

The annexing of Crimea was "less bloody" because nobody attempted military intervention to stop it. If this sort of thing continues it will result in war that will absolutely involve plenty of blood being shed.

Thinking this is fundamentally different from how various wars started in previous eras is a mistake.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#37

Post by beachy »

I believe that the likeliest cause of another Great War is not to save the planet from dictators, but from environmental destruction.

At some stage, a consensus must build for stopping our destruction of the climate. (Well perhaps it won't, but in that case we're doomed, so there's little point in evaluating that path).

At that point, some countries (presumably rich ones) will have cleaned their own houses emissions-wise and be signed up to assist poorer nations.

It will then become unacceptable to them that their efforts are in vain and at risk, because other countries are free riding and doing nothing, and continuing to pump emissions into the atmosphere.

Their mindset will move from pride at their own achievements to anger and frustration at others.

Soon after that will come enforcement. After all, it cannot be unreasonable to stop other countries from destroying the environment that we all share - even if those countries have to be destroyed to save the planet.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#38

Post by AnimalMuppet »

learc83 wrote: post #14
smacktoward wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MAD is not necessarily a silver bullet preventative here. If two nuclear-armed states are fighting, for either of them to bring out the nukes would be a huge, difficult decision. It's entirely possible to imagine them settling into an unspoken "gentleman's agreement" to stick to conventional weapons only, as long as the conflict stays within certain parameters (i.e. the war doesn't pose an existential threat to eithe…

The article is specifically talking about another "Great War", not limited conventional conflicts. All out, generation crippling war is a far cry from anything we've seen large industrialized countries engage in since World War II. I can't see how anything like another "Great War" could be possible without going nuclear.

Nobody brought out chemical weapons in World War II, though both sides had them. (Granted, chemical weapon defenses were practical in WWII, whereas nuclear weapon defenses are not today. Still, even in great wars, there have been weapons that were not used.)

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#39

Post by mLuby »

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…

Violence is what a person or government uses when they think it's the only way to get what they want and deem the consequences worth it.

Global warming/water shortages causing a country into forced migration seems like an obvious one, as the alternative is death for that state.

Or a government might view starting a war to prevent itself from being removed from power to be acceptable.

World war may be unlikely, but regional conflicts between desperate governments still seem pretty likely.

Re: Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

#40

Post by dsfyu404ed »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #38
learc83 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is specifically talking about another "Great War", not limited conventional conflicts. All out, generation crippling war is a far cry from anything we've seen large industrialized countries engage in since World War II. I can't see how anything like another "Great War" could be possible without going nuclear.

Nobody brought out chemical weapons in World War II, though both sides had them. (Granted, chemical weapon defenses were practical in WWII, whereas nuclear weapon defenses are not today. Still, even in great wars, there have been weapons that were not used.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare#World_War_II

Not exactly.

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