(February 12, 2018 at 12:08 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: WWI was virtually inevitable.
There had been 99 years of general peace. At the end of a war, the biggest victor establishes a world order that is both advantageous to itself, and if it is enlightened, advantageous to other powers that matters. Gradually, the relative strength of powers change, and with it their interests. Gradually the propnderance of military and economic power of the biggest victor is overtaken by other rising powers. The new power resent the structural advantage the old victor had built into the new system. Without major war there is no real chance that the world order could be reformed and than imposed anew. Hence incentives for war gradually increases, as war seems increasingly less bad as alternative to the existing state of affairs.
The real thing that precipitated WWI was the German perception of 2 things: that it had surpassed Britain as an industrial and economic power, and therefore it had an opportunity to reform the world order in its own favor, and 2: the window of opportunity is fleeting because sheer size of Russia and the rate t which Russia is industrializing means by 1920, Russia will become too strong and the window of opportunity for Germany will close.
I agree MAD was instrumental in preventing acute crisis from turning into general war. But I think there was also a deeper reason that prevented acute crisis from occurring more often, and the rival powers taking mor econfrontational approaches. The reasons
Cold War never turned hot because the Soviet Union never really caught up to the US both in global military power and economic power. Mutually assured destruction helped. But there is deeper reason why both side preferred short term stability. Even without MAD, the side that in theory would gain by destroying the established order does not see itself strong enough to topple the world order. Cold War turning hot was less likely.
I think in the next 50 years, the average chance of a Great War between major powers will rise above the average chance seen during the Cold War. The reason is the US is being eclipsed in global economic power. The sheer size of china and India makes it inevitable they will supplant the US to become the dominant economic powers of the world. Furthermore China has demonstrated much more flexibility than the Soviet Union ever did in eschewing ideology, and in calculating the practical interests of the other countries and leveraging those to weaken alliances against herself and strength shared interests with critical players at strategic points.
With trump savaging the system of alliances that enabled the US to remain the premier great power Long after its economic power had declined to a level below that needed to support such a role, the rise of China and India will coincide with accelerated decline of thE US, and the weakening of the US imposed world order that formed the lynchpin of world stability since 1945.
So China probably see next 50 years as its window of opportunity. Right now China is far ahead of India, Chinese strength will rise nd surpass those of the US in the next 20 years or so. This gives China an ability to reorder the world in its own favor. Cin another 15 years or so, china’s Demographic crisis will come to a head. At the same time China will reach full development while India will catch up. China’s window as the premier power with ability to shape the world order will close.
This is a very good post, and is an answer to my question that makes a lot of sense but I hadn't yet put together.
WRT this:
Quote:Cold War never turned hot because the Soviet Union never really caught up to the US both in global military power and economic power. Mutually assured destruction helped. But there is deeper reason why both side preferred short term stability. Even without MAD, the side that in theory would gain by destroying the established order does not see itself strong enough to topple the world order. Cold War turning hot was less likely.
Why do you then think that America would engage in fighting proxy wars with smaller communist countries, if there was really no need for them to engage in this conflict to, as you put it, 'topple the world order'?
