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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

#81

Post by atoningunifex »

1457389 wrote: post #69
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…

What would you say to the argument that economic interests and power blocs wield much more influence over nations today? The political, cultural and economic establishments of most nations are now heavily infiltrated/controlled by a relatively miniscule number of financial institutions. The void left by the declining aristocracy is now arguably filled by central bankers and hedge fund managers.

I'd say you're spot on. Much as I hate it, the Rothschild family et al have sewn it up fairly well.

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

#82

Post by myrandomcomment »

ItendToDisagree wrote: post #18
myrandomcomment wrote: post #8

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…

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 "to kill people and break things".

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

#83

Post by midas007 »

yxhuvud wrote: post #60
jessriedel wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you expect there to be such close analogies for so many countries and elements in WWI? Discounting this editorial because there is no one to "play the role of Italy" is weird. The point of the piece is not to say everything is going to be similar, it's (in part) to say that comforting arguments about the war-preventing aspects of economic integration and modernity are insufficient.

Except that the non-american parts of Nato could easily end up not joining such a war. That could easily be considered something similar. All it takes is USA joining a war due to defensive alliances with either japan or south korea. Then assume Russia joins the war on the other side, or already has joined it. Exactly what incentive do the European countries have to join such a war? They certainly wouldn't have any ob…

A shooting war is unlikely because of economic interdependence, but trade and political moves are pretty much assured.

Russia is a variable because of its economic and political issues. It would be a wise strategy by the West to insure investors and promote massive business investments in Russia to deepen economic and trade ties.

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

#84

Post by atoningunifex »

1457389 wrote: post #69
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…

What would you say to the argument that economic interests and power blocs wield much more influence over nations today? The political, cultural and economic establishments of most nations are now heavily infiltrated/controlled by a relatively miniscule number of financial institutions. The void left by the declining aristocracy is now arguably filled by central bankers and hedge fund managers.

If we posit that as factually correct (and I do), what would you say is a solution or plan moving forward to change things?

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

#85

Post by brc »

npt4279 wrote: post #14
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.

We all take nationalism for granted these days, but it really was a growing new thing in the late 19th, early 20th c. Germany and Italy didn't even exist as nations back then.

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

#86

Post by 1457389 »

atoningunifex wrote: post #84
1457389 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you say to the argument that economic interests and power blocs wield much more influence over nations today? The political, cultural and economic establishments of most nations are now heavily infiltrated/controlled by a relatively miniscule number of financial institutions. The void left by the declining aristocracy is now arguably filled by central bankers and hedge fund managers.

If we posit that as factually correct (and I do), what would you say is a solution or plan moving forward to change things?

I don't have a real answer yet, searching desperately though. Have to admit that I prefer what is going on now to the aristocratic and theocratic systems we had before in much of the world. The worst tyrants are the ideologues, and it seems that now the crooks have taken over instead. Anyway, nothing is going to change unless popular anger becomes a force to be reckoned with. The NSA is or will be a major obstacle to civilians organizing on a large scale and for that reason alone it must be opposed. People talk about getting better voter participation but really I think we need people in the streets, not the booths.

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

#87

Post by atoningunifex »

1457389 wrote: post #86
atoningunifex wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we posit that as factually correct (and I do), what would you say is a solution or plan moving forward to change things?

I don't have a real answer yet, searching desperately though. Have to admit that I prefer what is going on now to the aristocratic and theocratic systems we had before in much of the world. The worst tyrants are the ideologues, and it seems that now the crooks have taken over instead. Anyway, nothing is going to change unless popular anger becomes a force to be reckoned with. The NSA is or will be a major obstacle to…

I can't see an answer either, that doesn't include some form of 'global awareness' (Julian May's Unity perhaps). That is what is depressing to me; the hegemony is complete, and the means left at our disposal to stop it, are gone.

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

#88

Post by atoningunifex »

1457389 wrote: post #86
atoningunifex wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we posit that as factually correct (and I do), what would you say is a solution or plan moving forward to change things?

I don't have a real answer yet, searching desperately though. Have to admit that I prefer what is going on now to the aristocratic and theocratic systems we had before in much of the world. The worst tyrants are the ideologues, and it seems that now the crooks have taken over instead. Anyway, nothing is going to change unless popular anger becomes a force to be reckoned with. The NSA is or will be a major obstacle to…

People in the streets... would be met with brutality and force I would think. The Occupy Wall Street folks didn't fare so well. That is my issue; there's a large body of people getting fed information, that preclude what you suggest.

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

#89

Post by scarmig »

JeffL wrote: post #79
scarmig wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democratic Peace theorists always run into the issue of "what is a democracy." Consider WW1, in which most of the major belligerants, except for Tsarist Russia, have a plausible case for being called democratic. You might try to exclude one country or another, to save the Democratic Peace. But then you've got to be very careful about that: you can very easily add enough conditions until virtually no states until the…

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 it's not like the German populace were snookered into the war: the Reichstag was not only willing but ecstatic to vote to support and fund the war. It's not the case that every German was happy about the war, but response was akin to the American national rallying that happened after 9/11.

I wouldn't want this to become a tit for tat about who was the real democracy in the war: I'm perfectly happy to say that every participant fell far short of democracy. But the democratic peace folks are making a seemingly predictive, scientific claim using a really fuzzy and emotionally laden term like democracy that's easy to bend to mean whatever you like.

If there's something that's meant beyond my "US/UK and their allies don't fight each other" idea, I'm all for hearing it out. What are some of the countries considered democracies by the democratic peace proponents that aren't in that alliance and seem not to have been in a war with that alliance due to the fact that they're democratic and not autocratic?

I do concede that there it isn't inherently an error to say one country is more democratic than another, and that the Ottomans and Austria Hungary clearly end up on the losing side of that comparison.

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

#90

Post by dmfdmf »

If we want to talk historical parallels a better one is the invention of the printing press and the invention of the internet. The printing press destroyed the Catholic Church's social and political power at its peak.

The internet has destroyed the traditional news media's ability to set the political and social discourse and thus agenda. The NYT and ABC, NBC, CBS are no longer able to set the political and social agenda, like everyone else they are following the internet. Recall that the recent 60 Minutes puff job on the NSA (and secondarily a hit piece on Snowden) fell flat and was generally panned by independent voices on the internet. This gambit was telling in that the powers that be are still playing by the old playbook. 25 years ago this 60 Minutes "news" report would have ended the discussion.

To echo the point of the Economist article, this is a dangerous time and nuclear war is one very real possibility. We are living in the middle of the greatest social revolution in the history of mankind, since the invention of the printing press 500 years ago, and nobody can really say how it will play out.

Read this article by Clay Shirky from 2009 for a better explanation;

http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking...

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