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

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21591853-century-there-are-uncomfortable-parallels-era-led-outbreak

by JumpCrisscross • 13 years ago

162 124 13 years ago

JeffL2• 13 years ago

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 have any allies for their side that would cause a "world war"? Seems to me like if they started anything, then it would be them against the entire west, and as long as we don't feel compelled to invade them, they don't have a lot of power eh can project.

JumpCrisscross4• 13 years ago

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.

sliverstorm• 13 years ago

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?

justinhj• 13 years ago

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.

scarmig3• 13 years ago

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 1970s were democratic, which gives you a small sample that coincides with an era when all states, democratic or not, have been relatively peaceful.

It also doesn't have a strong causal explanation for why it'd be the case. Democracies certainly aren't less violent in general: they don't have any issues fighting with autocracies. There's even evidence that weak or developing democracies, like Meiji Japan in the 1890s or the United States in the 2000s, actually are more violent than comparable states.

Most Democratic Peace theorists don't really offer anything more powerful than "the US/UK axis and its allies don't go to war with each other." Which is true, but uninteresting.

JeffL2• 13 years ago

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 there a huge difference in nature between the likes of UK and France vs Germany, Austia-Hungary, and the Ottomans?

zw123456• 13 years ago

The parallel that was drawn in the article is that the U.S. is playing the part of Britain (a waning super power), China plays the part of Germany (a country with an emerging powerful economy and national pride) and Japan plays the part of France. It is an eerie comparison. At that time, many thought that the close trade ties of those countries would prevent war. The comparisons are not perfect of course. It does seem like there is an approximate 50 year cycle of large conflagration, perhaps because that is the approximate human generation, just enough time for people to forget the futility of war. Hopefully history will not repeat itself, but it often does.

marcosdumay3• 13 years ago

Also, by 1914 the world was recoveing (slowly) from a very deep depression, and changing its energy sources.

But I'd argee that China does not feel the same pressure that Germany felt by the time... And Russia didn't enter the analysis at all. Times are very similar, but they are also quite different, depends on how one looks at it.

Anyway, I'm hating to see what I think at the headlines of the mainstream press. I tought it was bad when they ignored all the problems, but it's worse when they acknoledge them.

VLM8• 13 years ago

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 Americans see is from 5 media companies or whatever, so they can turn on a dime.

2) Germany surrounded by rapidly growing and arming enemies and no allies but Austria, paranoid lash out. But can you blame them? China surrounded by, um, Japan on one side? Is NK threatening to invade? Who exactly is supposed to invade China next decade if they don't invade today? Why would they be paranoid? Yes, maybe NK could try this scheme, but...

3) The root cause of the war being the ottoman empire decaying and almost dead and everyone wanted a lucrative piece of it. (edited to add, and no one wanted a competitor to get a piece of it, and willing to go to war to prevent it) Incredible trade opportunity. Maybe if you put the American Empire in its place and position this in the latter half of the 2000s century and starving people want our rice/corn? Anyway the sick man of Europe lead to crazy allegiance switching in the years prior to WWI.

4) The article skipped several points WRT the German/British alliance thing, Germany was a continental Army power and the UK had a spectacular navy. One nutcase admiral on the German side got them all into navy building leading to disaster WRT the natural alliance. Other than the crazy admiral (Tirpitz?) they were natural allies and their royalty were related, something crazy close like the Kaiser was Queen Victoria's grandson or something. Aside from the obvious trade issue that was brought up.

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. Then the independent Serbians start going nuts so to prevent revolution spreading into their own empire the Austrian's fight the Serbians and the game is on. So, uh, who is the nervous feeling multicultural empire with the neighbor in revolution? Gonna try for USA again? Maybe with a .MX revolution next door? I think this is stretching it.

6) Speaking of revolution, Russia was falling apart internally and didn't do so well externally against the Japanese but holy cow do they have resources and manpower, so what better external distraction than a war? Again, I'm just not seeing it. Another allusion to the USA?

7) Who plays the part of Italy? Decades of "we're your ally" "nope just kidding". Another allusion to the USA maybe WRT having Japan's back?

Note if you have the USA play all the parts of WWI then its not much of a WWI anymore, is it?

In groups men are by nature irrational not rational, there is nothing inconsistent with the old quote about WWI being impossible because its obviously futile, yet they had a war anyway. I'm sure WW3 would be completely futile, we'll still have it anyway, but I don't think it'll be this decade and USA vs China or whatever.

npt42794• 13 years ago

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.

brc• 13 years ago

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.

vidarh4• 13 years ago

It worked well enough then too - Austria-Hungary in its latest incarnation existed as it did as a result of negotiations to reform the empire that created an extremely devolved, decentralised government. They certainly faced problems and challenges, but they managed to work through them relatively peacefully.

The problem was not the core of the empire, but the states it occupied and annexed with force in it's last few decades, which were not in any way assimilated or integrated into the empire itself.

JumpCrisscross4• 13 years ago

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.

Tloewald8• 13 years ago

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...

Theodores3• 13 years ago

Clearly you have not read Siegfried Sassoon's Public Statement Of Defiance. It was published in The London Times on 17 July 1917:

"I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.

I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects witch actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.

I have seen and endured the suffering of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerity's for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.

On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practised on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realise."

We have not moved on from 1917. The US seeks out war for fun and profit. Peace is a disaster for the military industrial complex, war, or at least the preparation for war, has to be perpetuated. Militarism is the cancer at the heart of almost every government, most notably the USA. Even Carter wasn't able to inoculate it. Although most Americans don't want war - it is not cultural - those people in Washington want nothing more for the exact same reasons Sassoon described.

userulluipeste4• 13 years ago

"«I'm not seeing much warmongering as a cultural phenomena.» In the U.S., perhaps not."

I am not sure if there was ever a time when warmongering was looked upon more casually than today, and that is valid especially in U.S. considering the tolerant attitude toward violence in movies, video games, etc. So I would say it is exactly that, a cultural phenomena. (You'd need to look at it from outside your cultural frame if it is not obvious as it is). I'm not saying that it entirely specific to a culture though. There is a shift in how things are handled in an armed conflict that contributes to the perception of war. Before, war meant one's personal physical exposure (as a fighting soldier) whereas now that is becoming increasingly less so. Human soldiers today are needed not so much for tactical combat, but as an interacting human agent in the war zone (e.g. acting police for occupied civilian population).

jessriedel• 13 years ago

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.

yxhuvud• 13 years ago

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 obligation (since Nato is also a defensive pact), and it would be a stupid idea to open a land front against Russia, because most of such a war would be fought on home turf due to Russia having more projective ability compared to Europe.

Sure, Europe would probably eventually win such a war on sheer size of population and economies, but it would be a very very costly war.

thaumasiotes• 13 years ago

Maybe if you put the American Empire in its place and position this in the latter half of the 2000s century and starving people want our rice/corn?

Starving people don't make war; they have more pressing problems.

chr15p• 13 years ago

You're seeing the article as being about the US, but if you see the (modern) US as (1914) Britain, then its other countries warmongering that can draw you in (1914 Britain didn't care at all about a war in the Balkans, but once Belgium and France were invaded they (we) pretty much had to be involved (Britain guaranteed Belgian neutrality and German domination of the french channel ports would have been very dangerous to British security no matter how "natural" the alliance).

History never happens the same way twice, the article is more a warning that the wrong spark in the wrong place could lead to chain of events resulting in a war between US and China whatever their intentions, just as the assassination of an Austrian by a Serb in Bosnia led to Britain (and eventually the US) into a war with Germany 100 years ago.

zobzu• 13 years ago

"History never happens the same way twice" Actually, history is bound to repeat itself.

Details are details. Similar scenarios unfolded thousand years ago if you're willing to ignore enough details.

A nation will always rise, leads through military power, and slowly fall, until another rises. In between, there are periods of fast growth and terrible loss/stagnation as well. Being resources, science or/and human lives.

InclinedPlane• 13 years ago

The more important aspect was the social and government structures pre-WWI. Europe was still dominated by an aristocratic elite and a very class based society. That elite drove public opinion and policy. It served as the officer corps. It served in government and in civil service. It's very difficult today to imagine a world so different from today, especially with regard to class.

Ultimately what all that meant was that the bad old ways that European aristocracy had always worked continued apace. Empire was an extension of national pride, and primarily extractive and selfish. Foreign policy was also selfish and dominated not by the thought of maintaining order by by the idea of gaining advantage. And only moderated by the fear of a foreign hegemon and the desire to team up to prevent such in order to maintain the conditions that allowed everyone to scuttle about and get up to geopolitical hijinx for the benefit of their own country.

These patterns of behavior had led to a great number of wars in Europe's past, it was a strong pattern. Wars fought for territorial or trade advantage: Wars fought to reign in a hegemon. Etc. That was how things were, even going back to the hundred years war and earlier. In the 19th century you had the Napoleonic wars, the wars of German/Italian unification, various imperial skirmishes, the Franco-Prussian war, etc.

The point being, wars were seen as being an opportunity for advantage and positive change. And the powerful elite at the time very much had a fascination and lust for war due to its glorification as well as the immediate financial gain of being an officer. The concept of an existential war, the concept of wars that took millions of lives, the concept of a war where bullets and bombs were putting troops on the front lines in danger of death every day for years was not a concept Europe at the time could understand.

And in the shock of the war a lot of the old ways of Europe broke apart and were destroyed. Post WWI Europe was much different than it was before the war, and you can see this culturally. Post WWI cultural artifacts tend to seem much more modern and tend to more easily resonate with modern sensibilities than pre-war stuff does.

The point being, it wasn't just the alliances and weapon buildup that brought about WWI. More than anything it was a culture that saw war as a tool for gaining advantage, a culture that tended to fall into a war between great powers at least once a generation. That sort of culture doesn't exist anymore in the great powers. Even in countries that see geopolitics as a realm for gaining selfish benefits generally there just aren't a lot of folks who are eager to go to war. At best there are folks who think that it's wise to go to war in order to take out an enemy that's a threat, but that's a very different proposition than the pre-WWI situation.

userulluipeste4• 13 years ago

Past lessons can be forgotten. New attitudes can be sawed in current minds. The common folk didn't went to war because of the ability to become an officer or for some financial advantage, he went "for king and country". Now they go "for freedom and democracy". On the upper levels things haven't changed much - whether it's lands with wheat and strategic high-ground mountainous possessions back then, or it's land with oil and strategic places for military bases now, in the end it's basically the same.

On the cultural note with its attitude toward the war, it's just all about the strategical reality. When you grow in power, you get options. At first you choose to pick the low-hanging fruit, so you hunt down the smaller countries and/or weaker territories. Then when these are finally split-up among the powerful, the clash of titans it's only a matter of time. Soon after WW2, when the most countries got their independence, a new round of this sadistic game begun. Maybe we're not in the finals again right now, but it's only a matter of time. I would like to think like you do and have hope in humanity to become wiser and outgrow this things, but the reality appears to me a little bit different.

maxtaco2• 13 years ago

This is a great analysis, but I'd hesitate to call anything the "root cause" of WWI. Of course the Ottoman Empire's decay was a factor, but hard to say that it was more important than the many others listed here and elsewhere.

caf• 13 years ago

The difference between Germany and China is quite stark - Germany is a country perpetually at risk, with few geographical barriers to shelter behind. Germany must worry whenever Russia and France are allied, and be terrified when a rival controls Poland.

China, on the other hand, has considerable strategic depth behind defensible borders. A hostile power controlling the Korean peninsula is their greatest worry.

yk2• 13 years ago

More abstractly speaking, WWI was the breakdown of a alliance system that guaranteed peace in an earlier era. On this level, there is certainly a lot more going on since the end of the cold war, than between the crowning of Friedrich-Wilhelm and the outbreak of WWI.

About your specific points:

    1) Cultural attitude of "eh, war is not so bad and
     higher tech means we'll be home by xmas".

Ever visited r/worldnews ? Additionally the fetichization of the military in the US is for European eyes frankly absurd. Starting with "thank you for your service", the dedication of NFL games to the military and not ending with the picture of the military in movies.

    2) Germany surrounded [...] paranoid lash out.

Except the Sea-Air-Battle doctrine of the Dod is carefully designed for conflicts without a staging area. ( And they are actually not that shy about the target of this plan.) [1][2] China is rightfully paranoid, the largest military in history is currently pointed at them.

I will skip the 3rd point. ( I am not sure why the Ottoman empire should be the root cause, so its hard to comment on a analogy.)

    4) The article skipped several points WRT the German/British alliance thing, [...]

Great point, but if a US foreign policy like [3] takes hold, basically the idea that the US should preemptively prepare for a China-Russia alliance, then the US will create a China Russia alliance. Much in the same way Friedrich-Willhelm did create the Russian-French-British alliance.

Skipping 5,6,7, since I do not really view these as essential; I think that there are a lot of similarities between the eve of WWI and the current situation. This does not mean, that we are in exactly the same geostrategic situation but that there are enough similarities to start worrying. Or to quote Mark Twain: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

[1] http://complex.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/08/20/surrounded...

[2] http://warm-oolong-tea.blogspot.de/2013/10/the-truths-and-my...

[3] http://www.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/12/02/2013-the...

VLM8• 13 years ago

Ugh with respect to the cultural attitude you're looking at it like a 2013 guy with plenty of hindsight and not looking at the 1913 perspective. Forget everything that happened post 1913 and my description and explanation of 1913 thinking makes a heck of a lot of sense.

The 1913 perspective is the last total "world" war was Napoleon's escapades a century ago and it was a disaster but everyone involved is dead and mass media wasn't around and it's all crude and obsolete anyway compared to modern war. So the academics know total european world war will be awful, but random dude on the street isn't nearly as informed and concerned as a 2013 dude. The colonial battles on the other side of the planet or whatever didn't have much direct impact on Europeans.

The last "major" local war was franco prussian and the Germans absolutely crushed them in months. The main difference is Germany is now unified and proportionally massively larger and more powerful than France. So WWI "should" only last weeks, this time around. Its a re-run of the franco prussian except Germany outmatches France by a factor of ten more than the first one, oh other than that whole "world" war aspect instead of just two belligerents. Oh and that little problem of having to fight on two fronts but they had an elaborate plan (plans, as usual, don't survive contact with the enemy).

Financially a long war is not a very good idea on either side therefore I'm sure it will HAVE to be over soon. Of course never overlook the ability of governments to make bad financial decisions...

So put this together, and in 1913, "total war? Eh, we'll be done and home by christmas" sounds totally reasonable.

The dying Ottoman empire was a huge trading area. Istanbul or whatever controls all of Russia's southern ports. The trade was very important. However the Ottoman's were collapsing so "someone" is going to step into the vacuum and take over, and whoever does will gain massive power. Its something to fight about. Who allies with who in this era was controlled mostly (well, at least in major part) by who will take over and run Istanbul and all the trade that runs thru it.

Theres a blindness toward the importance of the Balkan states region. Its not just they like to fight for fun, its economically a critical area, enough power to tip the balance in favor of whoever gets them, and the balance was unstable enough before this area lit up.

One specific and major blindness is people not being able to tell the difference between colonial police actions and total war on home turf. Yes dudes with uniforms and rifles fight both, but its really two different concepts.

vidarh4• 13 years ago

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.

npt42794• 13 years ago

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 built both the Belgium fortifications... and the German artillery that eventually breached them!

Nowadays, the entire world is trading... but Europe in 1914 was a good example of this principle applying continent-wide.

Convince society the other side is evil and a threat; dismiss and degenerate the peace-mongers as unpatriotic... and economic interest be damned.

VLM8• 13 years ago

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.

Tloewald8• 13 years ago

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...

GFK_of_xmaspast• 13 years ago

Didn't you ever see 'The African Queen'?

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

randomafrican• 13 years ago

On the other hand, while there was a lot of trade between European powers, part of the point of colonization was to have the colonies "trade" manly with the colonizer.

panabee• 13 years ago

Interesting perspective. Agree that national interests ultimately trump economic interests. At the same time, what would advance the discussion even more is data on how critical international trade was/is to each country. For instance, what % of GDP for pre-WWI Germany came from beyond its borders vs. present-day China. Globalization may not prevent war, but perhaps it's possible that more intertwined relationships -- whether through deeper financial gain or cultural understanding -- could decrease the likelihood of world war.

npt42794• 13 years ago

I'd love to have this data! Anyone have it handy? Google doesn't seem to be helping me.

I also agree that deeper cultural understanding can only help, not hurt. I particularly wish all 7 billion of us had the opportunity to spend a year traveling the globe and live with different peoples.

userulluipeste4• 13 years ago

"More intertwined relationships" may also become inconvenient shackles, especially when are used as political leverage (look at Russia with its exports of natural gas in Europe, or at the economic sanctions against Iran). Heck, look at history - given the right condition, an economical relationship by itself can start a war if it cease, becomes abusive, or is altered in some inconvenient way! And as power balance is in continuous change, so are the economical relations shadowed by it.

nawitus• 13 years ago

Nationalism trumps economic interest at the end of the day. History shows this to be true.

I interpret history as "nationalism used to trump economic interests". A lot of has changed since. Most countries are representative democracies, and it's more difficult for leaders to go into a war.

As for the tribal argument, I think the "nation state" is dying. Tribes are subcultures these days[1]. The internet connects me to my subcultures (like Hacker News), and it matters less every year what country I happen to physically live in. There's also the argument that the world is more united these days (particularly thanks to the European Union and somewhat because of United Nations).

1. http://www.gwern.net/The%20Melancholy%20of%20Subculture%20So...

npt42794• 13 years ago

Most countries are representative democracies, and it's more difficult for leaders to go into a war.

I agree representative democracies are far less likely to go to war. I also don't think war is likely anytime in the present era. On the other hand, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are not representative democracies. They represent a fair portion of earth's landmass, population, and potential destructive power. I'd say the trend towards democracy has already peaked, and authoritarian governments are on the rise.

As for the tribal argument, I think the "nation state" is dying.

I think we have very different worldviews on this subject, so a debate isn't going to be productive. But from where I'm coming from, it's easy to be idealistic when we're living in a golden age of peace and prosperity (despite the great recession). I'm more pessimistic about humanity in times of scarcity, disasters, and conflict.

There's also the argument that the world is more united these days (particularly thanks to the European Union and somewhat because of United Nations).

I truly hope post-WWII institutions like these continue to have force for as long as possible. I think the world is safe from major war as long as this continues. But eventually, be it 50 years or 500 hundred years, they will fall.

userulluipeste4• 13 years ago

"Most countries are representative democracies, and it's more difficult for leaders to go into a war."

That maybe was true before, when the "democracy" craftsmanship wasn't mastered well enough. Now, I'll never bet against a government's ability to sway, at least for a while, the public perception in whatever direction, no matter how misplaced it might be. And to start a war, "for a while" is all it takes! ...Saddam's WMD?

"I think the "nation state" is dying."

Reality check - ask the Palestinians why do they want so bad a "palestinian" state when there already is an Israeli one in place? Or for that matter ask a Jew the the same question - is it that important to have an Israeli state?

dragonwriter2• 13 years ago

Most countries are representative democracies, and it's more difficult for leaders to go into a war.

There's not really a lot of evidence that representative democracies are any less likely to go to war than otherwise similarly-situated nations with different government forms.

eli_gottlieb• 13 years ago

We're tribal creatures -Nationalism trumps economic interest at the end of the day. History shows this to be true.

Drop the Naturalistic Fallacy, please, and the.... damn.

Is there some actual name for the particular fallacy of predictive sociology being invoked when someone says, "People will do X because it's human nature to do X!"?

tanzam75• 13 years ago

Heck, a Belgium company built both the Belgium fortifications... and the German artillery that eventually breached them!

Which fortifications are you talking about?

The Germans used Krupp and Skoda siege guns to reduce the fortifications at Liège. Krupp was a German company, and Skoda was an Austro-Hungarian company based in Bohemia (today's Czech Republic).

encoderer• 13 years ago

And IIRC their development was DARPA-esque? Didn't the Germans put out a standing order to arms makers for a better siege gun?

Most of what I know of WWI I learned from Guns of August :)

14573894• 13 years ago

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.

atoningunifex6• 13 years ago

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

atoningunifex6• 13 years ago

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

filbertkm• 13 years ago

paywall!

"Once you've registered, you can read up to three articles each week."

pretty sure I've not been to economist.com in a while. :/

Stal3r• 13 years ago

Very odd indeed to see a paywalled article hit the top

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New private browser window, or delete economist.com cookies. In firefox with the pentadactyl plugin for vim-like keybindings: "<Esc>:cookies economist.com clear" .

Theodores3• 13 years ago

Incognito window!

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NoScript is your friend.

downer87• 13 years ago

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JumpCrisscross4• 13 years ago

“We show that the intuition that trade promotes peace is only partially true even in a model where trade is beneficial to all, war reduces trade and leaders take into account the costs of war. When war can occur because of the presence of asymmetric information, the probability of escalation is indeed lower for countries that trade more bilaterally because of the opportunity cost associated with the loss of trade gains.

However, countries more open to global trade have a higher probability of war because multilateral trade openness decreases bilateral dependence to any given country.

Using a theoretically-based econometric model, we test our predictions on a large dataset of military conflicts in the period 1948-2001. We find strong evidence for the contrasting effects of bilateral and multilateral trade. Our empirical results also confirm our theoretical prediction that multilateral trade openness increases more the probability of war between proximate countries. This may explain why military conflicts have become more localized and less global over time.”

http://econ.sciences-po.fr/sites/default/files/martinp/CEPR-...

abalone• 13 years ago

Is anyone else seeing a Breitling ad featuring WWII fighter planes and "sexy" girls winking at the pilots?

Really unfortunate pairing.

(Really the sexing up of war is pretty distasteful under any circumstances but this just takes the cake.)

lispm• 13 years ago

Another weak article from the british Economist.

Theodores3• 13 years ago

Another weak article from the Daily Mail featuring the BBC's John Simpson:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2530571/100-years-Wo...

I think that these right-wing organ-of-the-secret-state propagandists are all fairly clueless.

fatca• 13 years ago

There is one major difference: Since the Snowden affair, the United States no longer have allies.

threeseed• 13 years ago

The Snowden affair made ZERO difference to US alliances. Seriously zero. The US will still be able to depend on UK, JP, AU, NZ, CA, SK etc.

Alliances don't get torn up because of a bit of spying.

atoningunifex6• 13 years ago

Much as I wish that were true, its very not the case. Money talks.

jusben13695• 13 years ago

It's an interesting time to be writing articles like this. Afghanistan, Iraq then the 2008 financial crisis. America lost prestige and the economy shrank considerably. These factors, real and perceived, coincided with the ongoing rise of China who for the most part avoided a real let down. I suspect that when we look back in 5 years from now we will really see 2013 as the last year of this low point. The US economy is finally rebounding - Q4 GDP looks very impressive. With lowered deficits and an improving job market citizen interest in politics will lessen. This will increase the ability of the US to play a more proactive role internationally again. Secondly, there are very troubling signs coming from China in terms of their own banking system. We know there's a shadow banking system and many failed enterprises are propped up. And, they're still a 1 party authoritarian state. I'm not sure how long the Chinese people will be ok with that; especially as their population ages and their middle class expands.

I wonder about the next 10 years or so and whether the US will rebound and China will finally face challenges they can't simply overcome via spending.

austinz4• 13 years ago

These same tired arguments were being made back in 2005, and given the utter lack of any sort of critical analysis backing them I predict they'll be just as wrong now as they were back then.

jusben13695• 13 years ago

I wasn't making the argument in 2005 so that comment isn't very helpful. I'll assume you're just focused on the Chinese piece in your acerbic reply.

http://qz.com/160091/china-puts-out-yet-another-credit-marke... "China’s highly-leveraged and opaque financial system ranks high on the list of threats to global growth"

Or this that shows the recent problems: http://qz.com/72487/shadow-banking-brought-america-to-its-kn...

Finally this two days ago in the NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/business/international/chi...

"Official bank lending has more than doubled since the global financial crisis, growing nearly twice as fast as the overall economy. The even bigger problem, however, appears to come from the rise of a shadow banking system that has allowed a number of companies and individuals, often with political connections, to borrow from state-controlled banks at low interest rates and relend the money at much higher rates to private businesses desperate for credit at almost any price."

marcosdumay3• 13 years ago

"I suspect that when we look back in 5 years from now we will really see 2013 as the last year of this low point. The US economy is finally rebounding - Q4 GDP looks very impressive."

I'm pretty sure one can find a similar quotation from 1913.

jusben13695• 13 years ago

That is a fair point.

DominikR• 13 years ago

Chinas economic collapse being imminent has now been predicted for decades.

I guess that those predictions are based more on wishful thinking than anything else.

bayesianhorse• 13 years ago

On some level I am quite glad that china, its neighbors and the US are arguing over some rocks and some identification zone.

It looks more like an ritualistic show fight you sometimes see in the animal kingdom than an eve of war.

For that matter I am quite glad that they are not rattling their sabers about Taiwan...

Nothing about the disputed island would be worth even a very small scale war, much less the risk of a bigger one. There's just no profit in it. On the other hand, battles about islands (like the Falklands War) tend to cost a lot less lives, especially civilian, than any land-based war.

No, this is more about China trying to harness nationalistic emotions on the one hand and their "opponents" not wanting to present China with an opportunity for actually profitable wars or threats.

If for example the US and Japan would back down, China might "negotiate" the annexation of Taiwan in the near future, which would be profitable. There have been rumors of such attempts already, and China's military buildup makes this ever more realistic.

maxtaco2• 13 years ago

I recently read a fabulous history of WWI (G.J. Meyer's _The World Undone_). What struck me is that if you modeled Europe in 1914 as a distributed system, you'd see incredible latencies between decisions being made and decisions being carried out. Kaiser Wilhelm and King George (first cousins!) were negotiating to stave off the war long after Germany's decision to mobilize, and might very well have succeeded were it possible to reverse the mobilization decision. The German generals insisted it wasn't. And even before then, Germany's decision to mobilize was based on reports of Russia's decision to mobilize, which also took weeks to carry out. If communication and military latencies were shorter, maybe the war could have been avoided. It was like the world's worst race condition.

Houshalter• 13 years ago

No nuclear armed country has ever been invaded and war between two nuclear armed countries seems ridiculous.

On the other hand, as the article says, people in 1914 were making similar claims about the interdependence of their economies and their new technologies.

Still, it's quite a different situation.

jotm• 13 years ago

yeah, I think if someone breached the borders of the US, Russia, China, India, or any other nuclear-armed country they'd get a (small) nuke dropped on one of their cities for sure.

Also, China makes most of the world's everyday stuff, I don't see how they would drop all those customers for a war that would bring in less profits and will leave them starving afterwards (cause no one would trust them with their factories anymore). The pre-WW1 trade ties were peanuts compared to today...

x0x0• 13 years ago

Only morons like the economist would look at the US not being interesting in getting involved in a war in Syria -- where we would have to choose sides between an evil regime and al-qaeda -- and conclude "This betrays both a lack of ambition and an ignorance of history." In fact, it betrays rather a good grasp of recent history -- see both Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe America has finally learned to beware Republican assholes volunteering your (but not their!) children for war. One can dream, anyhow...

dmfdmf• 13 years ago

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...

forgottenpaswrd• 13 years ago

The article is full of oversimplifications like WWI was "because of Germany". Oh , yeah. Why thinking when you can blame someone else?.

An article about WWs in the Economist should talk about economic data, about banks burning and destroying the savings of decades of the work of the people. They need to talk about Oligopolies, about Roosevelt(Teddy) trying to do something about that , but at the end the biggest of all(the Fed) being created in 1913.

They need to talk about Africa and middle East, and India colonies and commerce at the time.

But this has a problem: It is not as easy as "blame the Germans!"

"The second precaution that would make the world safer is a more active American foreign policy. "

Oh yeah, again.

"Barack Obama has pulled back in the Middle East—witness his unwillingness to use force in Syria. "

Wow, this is the better line of all. If something Syria has shown us is the willingness of US to use force in Syria, only being stopped by China and Russia.

"But unless America behaves as a leader and the guarantor of the world order, it will be inviting regional powers to test their strength by bullying neighbouring countries."

Today the US is the biggest bully of all. If any parallelism is to be extracted from WWs to today is countries like China behaving like the US of the past, as creditors of the world, while the rest of the world overspends and get in as many wars as possible to protect their turf.

kor4life• 13 years ago

awesome!

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

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