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Is it just me or is the 21st century....rather boring?
#53
(06-13-2020, 09:10 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:
(05-16-2020, 09:16 AM)Isoko Wrote: Bob,

I would inherently argue that it is only nuclear weapons and other WMDs that have kept the peace. Had they not existed, I think you would have found another world war by now with millions of millennial and zoomer men be drafted in to fight. I think many would have happily answered the call.

So yes, nukes have kept the peace, for now. However I'd argue that in essence, it is only being kept peaceful because of largely secular governments in power. If ever a radical party with strong religious inclinations ever took power, the nukes would fly. 

Even still, the reason, in my opinions, this 4T keeps on going is because of the lack of war. Naturally the revival comes when one generation goes off to fight, the survivors come home, they have plenty of sex, it creates a baby boom and then you have an economic revival. But this has not been allowed to naturally happen this time around which either leads me to two conclusions:

1) The status quo will continue to remain with Western countries continuing a long ward decline over the decades with few changes.

2) People get revolutionary and civil wars happen all over the place, filling that void for war and leading to a faster revival.

It is cold, hard thinking, but looking back at history, this seems to be the pattern.

Of course maybe just maybe peace can win out and a revival can happen naturally but it'll be a much slower process compared to say 1945 - 1960.

Nukes are a definite factor, but not the only one.  The other is insurgency.  In the old days only the mother country sized control of a colony, and other major powers generally kept hands off.  Of late, somebody who doesn’t care for the mother country will support an insurrection.  In such a case, war becomes not cost effective.  It is very hard to make a profit out of a permanently destabilized area.

Nuke an area as necessary for "clearing" the existing population, and it is not worth conquering. The cropland is ruined for years. The housing and industrial potential is gone. Win the war but conquer nothing? Such is a losing proposition. Conquest is glorious, but a continuing struggle against a subjected people that wants its independence demoralizes soldiers waging that war on behalf of a distant power. Such demoralized the Portuguese military in the mid-1970's as Portugal was involved in a stalemate in civil wars in 'their' shakily-held colonies. Such made the Carnation Revolution that overthrew the military dictatorship possible in 1974.     


Quote:OK if I borrow Smedley Butler’s claim that war is a racket?  If a major power sees war is likely to either end in a nuclear hailstorm or a perpetual insurrection, where is the profit?  Is it wiser to seek a more profitable racket?

It is highly profitable to war profiteers who reap the profits. Others die in the war, but such are 'collateral damage' in a profitable enterprise.  


Quote:The natural result of a crisis war in the Industrial Age was rejection of war.  For as long as people remembered the crisis war, they avoided letting themselves care deeply enough for an issue to fight that hard again.  These days, perhaps the thought of a nuclear hellstorm is the equivalent of a crisis war.  Those in the shadow of nukes have a healthy dislike for conflict and will not support a leader who leads towards a conflict between nuclear powers.  Perhaps Bush 43’s wars were in a part a war for oil.  Perhaps the American people looked at the result and decided the gain from the racket was not worth putting boots on the ground.  The result again is a reluctance to engage in war.

One might have thought the First World War so horrible that people who lived through it would be meek pacifists. There was no shortage of meek pacifists, but such people are unable to fend off the militarists who either see war as opportunity to settle national scores or get further booty. After World War II, people deemed particularly guilty of starting wars of conquest, pillage, mass murder, and enslavement went on trial and were mostly found guilty... and executed. 

Much of the war in the Pacific theater was in colonies of Britain, France, the Netherlands, and the USA... Colonial empires mostly disintegrated rapidly in what had been the Pacific Theater of War and nearby lands. The Dutch could not recover Indonesia. The United States granted independence to the Philippines on the 170th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence. Britain quit India within two years. Japan was stripped of Korea, Taiwan, and a Trust Territory of former German islands that Japan had taken after World War I. The French tried to hold onto Indochina but abandoned that effort altogether in the mid-1950's. Colonies were becoming unworthy of the cost to maintain.

Obviously once the Soviet Union had nukes, "On to Moscow" became impossible as did "On to London and Lisbon".     


Quote:So that is two reasons to not believe in war rackets in the Information Age.  That is quite enough.


Another is expats. In the event of aggression by Superpower A against minor power Q, Q can take expats from A  within their country and do horrible things to them. The expats might be innocent, but they can be used as propaganda tools. 


Quote:The problem is the pattern of history changing.  We just entered the Information Age, but people are still applying the lessons of the Industrial Age as if the pattern of civilization has not changed.  Especially if the problem involves nukes, insurrection, computer networks or renewable energy, I am not impressed by the lessons of history.  They are all tentative.  You have to assume they will not hold until you see them repeating.  You have to depend far more on recent observation and analysis than history of the prior ages.

As much a peril as failing to learn the lessons of history is, drawing the wrong conclusions is potentially even more damaging. Hitler and Mussolini were no less students of history than was Churchill. It is obviously advantageous to have a leader who draws the right conclusions by having appropriate models. This said, Mussolini did not fail because Julius Caesar was a poor model and Hitler did not fail because Frederick the Great was a poor model. Caesar and Frederick the Great were good models. Churchill acted as if he picked the best out of Roman models -- and it helped that he was able to stave off defeat until someone using Lincoln as a model became his formal ally.  

Quote: 
Think of this as the first crisis of the new age.  War triggers are much more rare.  The turnings that we are apt to eventually fall into have not established themselves.  Historians who predict the old age’s pattern will continue to exist in a new age should open their eyes to the possibility that they might not.

I look into my crystal ball (Ha, ha! if you think that I really have one of those and claim any mystical powers) and I am already predicting Time's cover for (Entity) of the Year:

[Image: 220px-SARS-CoV-2_without_background.png]

It is not an honor to be so identified. This virus has made the year 2020 memorable for all the wrong reasons. It is an object of hatred as were some others so named:

[Image: 220px-Osama_bin_Laden_portrait.jpg]

Osama bin Laden

[Image: 1101390102_400.jpg?w=228&quality=85]

Adolf Hitler is the organist in the Hymn of Hate. The wheel is a Saint Catherine's wheel, a medieval device of horrific torture and execution.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


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RE: Is it just me or is the 21st century....rather boring? - by pbrower2a - 06-14-2020, 12:09 PM

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