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 in certain military areas, they didn't overlap as much as they do today, so open conflict was easier to maintain. In the early 1800's France was the undisputed world leader when it came to land based combat, while the British maintained a serious advantage at sea. Today, the US is undisputed in all 3 categories, land, air, sea, and a 4th if you count space. If another country were able to take a commanding lead in at least 1 of those areas, perhaps we could see a high intensity conflict involving the US, however until that happens, there isn't much of a point.
Minor Edit: This isn't intended as support of the current situation.
Are you really sure that the US is undisputed in those 4 categories? A list of obvious weaknesses:
* The US economy and industrial power is dependent on IT and brittle supply chains. Nobody knows how much the cyber infrastructure holding this up is already compromised.
* Russian S-400s can already deny air superiority to Israeli planes, which are not far behind US planes.
* How does the US have space superiority when there is no ASAT defense besides MAD?
* The US has not been able to suppress a rebellion in Afghanistan with trillions of dollars and 17 years. Maybe in an actual war their hands would be untied, so this isn't the best point.
* The US Navy loses war-games to swarm attacks and is just now a decade later deploying solutions to this. When was the last time US ships actually had to fight? Vietnam?
* The US has increasing ethnic and social conflicts, not to mention the potential fifth column of residents with ties to enemy powers.
* Barely half of US fighter planes are combat ready at any given moment. The trillion dollar F-35 had to be flown with VFR the first time it crossed the IDL. Who knows what else is lurking in that software?
A counterpoint would be examining each country's idea of "acceptable losses". If losing 1 major city to nuclear weapons is considered unacceptable, then the major nuclear power are essentially on equal footing. Nuclear deterrence seems to be so effective because no nation to date has seemed to be willing to trade 1 of their cities for 2+ of their enemies.
The US carrier force could be blown out of the water by modern electric submarines [1]. The chance of Sweden starting a war against the US is not all that great - this mouse does not roar - but the same or similar technology (Stirling engines, fuel cells, a boatload of 18650 cells running a sub, etc) are available to parties which might stand to gain more from such a conflict. Replacing a carrier takes years, blowing one up takes a few minutes. Were I in command of the US carrier fleet I would be very mindful of this threat and make sure I always have the fleet dispersed with at least one battle group somewhere behind 'safe' lines.
Not only nationalism. Current conflicts are rooted in the same prejudices as a hundred years ago. The root cause (this idea that somehow my nation/religion/race/etc is superior) hasn't been resolved, only more or less patched, and thus these conflicts are bound to reappear and escalate sooner or later until we recognize that that despite the valuable diversity humanity is essentially one and align the political and economic structures of this world with this reality.
I feel this is too reductive in some senses. WWI was a war directed by imperialists sacrificing other people's children to profitier and try to grab power and influence for the elites in each country. Yes some elites did demonstrate egoism and inflame predjudice but that's the show for the rubes to get them to sacrifice their children and labor for the imperial project. Egoist leaders can only get their way if theirprogram works for enough of the people implementing their decisions.
Eugene Debs went to jail in America for imploring the working class not to fighta rich mans war and many soldiers walked away completely disgusted. Just a few miles from the trenches filled with death, the war profitiers were making a killing offering hotels and foodstuffs to soldiers on leave.
We still have a command economy based on war and our imperial project is still ongoing. We should take the lessons of world war one to heart and refuse to fight and fuel wars of domination and conquest. I can't recall the last time the western world was called to fight a defensive war after WW2, perhaps the only "good" war in our history.
The thing about war is that at some point, the conditions line up where it becomes seen as a solution (if not the only solution), and its not easy to see the point at which that will occur ahead of time.
Will China's big sea grab start a war? So far, they've been able to smother any of their neighbor's push back, and have just ignored any international rulings against them.
What about when they invade Taiwan, which they've said they will do? What about when they take over some of Japan's islands, which they said they would do?
They seem to be going down this path where they think if they just push a calculated amount each time, it won't cause a big problem. It's exactly that kind of thinking that is the problem, though.
And China's not the only aggressive, belligerent country out there. There's also Russia (Crimea/Ukraine, Syria) and Iran (Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon), for example. At what point do their aggressions spill over into a larger conflict?
> At what point do their aggressions spill over into a larger conflict?
When perceived benefits outweigh costs. The US's multiple invasions of, and coup plots against, other countries didn't 'spill over into a larger conflict' because the US's power & ruthlessness have been well-understood by the world. The costs of resisting US militaristic aggression have just been too high. The same has applied to Russia, and perhaps will in China's case if it makes good on its threats (though it would have to fight on multiple fronts for decades to even approach US levels of aggression).
And I'd add that it need only be a solution to the person who can start the war. Authoritarian leaders find fights with external enemies extremely useful to quash dissent. Given the global drift toward authoritarianism and nationalism, and especially given how the world's largest military is in the hands of an authoritarian, I think the risk for war is disturbingly high.
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 might become dramatically more valuable. Seems not terribly likely with oil (more technology, more producers, more alternatives). Maybe water, but the obvious pressure for that would be population, which is somewhat leveling off (though maybe global warming would do it).
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.
I kind of agree, but for different reasons. Part of the reason WWI came out the way that it did is that both technology and social organization had changed so much since the last big war that nobody really knew what would happen or what to do with it all. And we find ourselves in that situation again with nuclear weapons, modern air power, drones, and cyber war.
I'm thinking that nuclear weapons will continue to preclude any large-scale direct war between the great powers. The downside is that cyber-war by both nation-states and small groups and individuals, along with civilian conflict amplified by modern social-media based divisions and filter bubbles have a lot of potential to spiral out of control, especially when further provoked by foreign interference. Particularly because nobody knows for sure how it will all work or what will happen when determined adversaries exploit all of these to the maximum potential.
It's also entirely possible we'll see some new thing as equivalently stupid, bloody, and pointless as tightly massed soldiers in brightly colored uniforms with no protection doing foot-charges against dug-in machine guns behind barbed wire and artillery.
Nuclear weapons likely preclude large-scale direct conflict between great powers, but they raise the stakes a lot for civil wars, civil disorder, and anarchy within great powers. MAD works great up until a splinter group gains control of a launch facility and says "What, you're gonna nuke San Francisco if we nuke Beijing? Be my guest. We hate those hippie libtards anyway."
At this point wars between powerful nations are almost impossible. Proxy wars are the current fashion, and those tend to be controlled in scale by the puppetmasters behind it.
I'm more scared about a great civil war in a powerful nuclear nation. Civil wars are a savage affair where no rules apply.
Premise: the large nations of the world are far to intertwined by commerce and culture. Large scale war would be suicidal and the leadership of these countries would never do something so foolish.
War between developed nations was unthinkable 10 years ago, today it is very much thinkable. In Europe there is now an ongoing low intensity trench war already. Russians are mentally conditioned for total war by five years of nonstop propaganda, and their leader's idea of compromise is doubling down. NATO has switched back from the 00s cumbersome CONINS and relief mission training to combined arms war exercises.
If the political vectors of the last few years remain unchanged, a large war is very likely.
That's literally what this article says to avoid thinking and it gives examples as to how wrong people were when they said that. You're just repeating that without giving anything new.
I'd like to think this is true, but I think it's naive - there was similar sentiment before WWI too.
Nationalism and hysteria can lead people do things that are bad for both individuals and the group. Increasing free trade between countries and globalism is a good way to try and prevent wars, but the current reversion to nationalism makes me nervous.
It's bizarre to think there are rules in wars between countries but no rules in civil wars. In a civil war every party is still liable to the world as they're in a conventional war. If they use chemical or nuclear weapons they know that it's entirely possible third parties may get involved just because of their dirty tactics. If you're in a country where the West doesn't give a shit, and nobody bats an eye when chemical weapons are used (e.g. Syria) it doesn't make much sense to think that the same wouldn't apply if this were a conventional war (say, Syria vs Iraq). Obviously nuclear weapons are a bit bigger deal than chemical weapons, but what I'm trying to say is that similar dynamics are in play both in civil wars and conventional wars. If you're in the belief that a nuclear civil war can happen when a rogue party can shoot nukes, why wouldn't they shoot it to another country if they come to power? If you think "well then US would get involved so they obviously wouldn't do that" then why would US not get involved nukes being used in a civil war.
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.
We are so close, probably within 50 to 100 years, of having technology far beyond what we can comprehend now. We have the chance to be multi-planetary, automate pretty much all work, and fullfil everyone's basic needs...if we don't destroy everything first.
I'm going to be real pissed off if we screw this up.
We need to take a MUCH harder stance against Russia poisoning the public discourse with conspiracy theories, fake news and alternative medicine/science/history/morality. We have to restore values and trust to the public affairs.
As far as the US goes their own parties have poisoned the the public discourse with conspiracy theories, fake news and alternative medicine/science/history/morality. Those parties should restore values and trust to the public affairs.
To me, there is a better word for those things, and I don't understand why we do not use it. That word is: propaganda. Is there a good argument that fake news etc. Is not propaganda? To me calling it propaganda paints a clearer picture, because new words make it easy to claim that something is unprecedented. The problem is that if our own government falls victim to propaganda, then we have propagandistic narratives being pushed by the government, and that, to me, is as bad as it sounds. But, I think it also gives us a broader perspective to pull from history with
Are we not in the midst of a great war now? While not massive like the previous world wars, the US has been in active military operations since 9/11. Russia has been involved in ground invasions. I'll admit these conflicts aren't huge, but they are constant and sustained.
This article does appear to conclude many points on the premise of nationalism and it’s varied outcomes. Nationalism has only existed for not much more than 200 years which is not very long at all compared to all of human history. In the USA we are given this notion that these ideas are a solid foundation but I tend to think that America is very young and most national concepts are still very experimental. It will take much more time to figure out what is really going on here, what the goal is, and how to cope with it all. That may be the cause of a great war just a worldwide upheaval of imposed thought much like the Napoleonic era where the concept of monarchies was challenged again and again. In the transition from Rome to the Byzantine empire it seems religious and cultural freedoms were challenged during that period. If we all woke up one day and realized something very ingrained in our world is wrong then change would take place hell or high water. Much of the intrinsic message of nationalism is a dissolution of multiculturalism refining it into a set of rules which cannot be argued with by literally drawing lines in the sand. The only thing that used to matter was the town a person was from (e.g. last names with the name of that town or region). Today we create so many large homogeneous groups based on borders the rationality of favoritism and hatred becomes absurd. Maybe we are at the end of this serving much of a purpose after all so it’s time for a much needed review complete with unresolved baggage from an earlier time. I would like to get off at the closest stop before things get too weird personally.
What the article and the commenters here seem to forget is that it's not only the technological level/political situation has changed, but the way people think as well. There are several global trends that allow for optimistic predictions regarding big wars of the future.
The global level of violence is dropping and overall tolerance of casualties is declining. Rising cost of human life shifts the perception of conflicts in the majority of countries. It's getting very hard to explain the necessity of even several dead bodies from local conflicts, let alone to justify a sacrifice of millions of lifes.
Related to this is the shift of global power: throughout the history the ruling class is basically military. Thus the perception of war as of something possible, profitable under right circumstances and even desirable. This mindset was carried into the 20th century when it met technological progress which made possible the horror of World Wars. Likely, it seems that it has changed, at least to some extent.
Current 'ruler of the world' is not the army, it's rather all sorts of special forces and agencies. It's hard to sell the idea of marching and dying for your king/motherland/god to the public today and thus get/take the funding required, but it's much easier to sell it the idea of security. Security is a good thing, right? So the agencies need more and more power to protect you better. Sadly, in a paradoxical way this is partly also a consequence of rising value of human life.
However, 'special forces' elite is different from a military one and it's more bound to civil oversight in regards to casualties and the acceptable scale of violence. So we see that the conflicts of today are much less bloody than they could be given the weapons we have.
Now one can argue that this only holds until the current order is not significantly destabilized, or that it can spiral into some perverted form of 'preemptive security' (like e.g. govt propaganda about the need to eliminate some threat completely and strike first and hard for the sake of 'security'). And yes, everything can happen. But thinking of probability it seems that the balance is shifting towards smaller local conflicts rather than global wars.
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.
I subscribe to (Einstein's?) WW4 will be fought with sticks & stones sentiment.
The world is way beyond what can be survived in terms of flat out war.
It's not really something I worry about. People just want to eat McD and earn a high salary. Nobody in the powerful nations is eager to get shot (well US military complex aside).
> 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 dangerous as long as states put their self-interest above our common global destiny, as is the attitude du jour.
People behave as if nothing bad can happen, it's highly frustrating to watch.
We won't have another giant war because: the internet. i don't know about anyone else but I spent some of my childhood travelling distances. Every time I did there was a cultural identity associated with the places I went. Post internet culture has changed nearly every place I've been. Everywhere I go everyone is the same now. They are all connected. People are connected to people in other countries like never before. There is so much connectivity that any "warmongering" king/president can't nearly control the flow of information like they used to. That all being said, how do we explain things like Crimea, issues with North Korea, the middle east? Well, Crimea, I can't fully explain. But North Korea and the middle east definitely practice tight control over their internet.
That all being said, I'm not saying it's impossible, but that we're so connected now that I just don't see a great war because too many of our soldiers will have brothers, sisters, best friends in the war we're going up against.
Wars don't happen because people don't get along; they don't happen because people are different and don't understand each other. Civil wars are both common and nasty.
Wars happen because in a set of animals, one member or subset will want the control of, say, the resources of an area, mating rights within the group, etc. Its members will often think that it's acting this way as a form of public service. "Someone has to divide up the meat of the fallen antelope," for example, ignoring what happens with control which is that the spoils, the resources, etc. will start to divide unevenly.
This continues to the point of extreme imbalance, such as just before the French Revolution where the wealthy paid less in tax than the poor, or the leader becomes too weak to maintain control. In all cases, control isn't maintained for long.
Right now, America is the empire in control. The problem that I see is that its generals are preparing for the last war with battleships and big guns (as sort of an "innovator's dilemma", where what has been successful for a company maintains the limelight despite a growing new reality). You can see the control ebbing, weakening. The petrodollar, for example, once so strong and a big part of the country's economic power, is now being replaced with the Special Drawing Right (SDR) -- a diversified basket of currencies.
And that's' the only solution: to diversify control. The peace that's found when an empire has control is temporary; it's the eye of the storm. Until there's world-wide democracy, we will have war.
Even if you're absolutely right that Internet access changed everything, all it would take for a Great War would be if there was a major world military power that tightly controls its Internet, and that's China.
>We won't have another giant war because: the internet.
I used to think that, but then I realised that the Internet is mostly just a porn-delivery device.
Plus, there's the 4-chan factor, as in: if there is going to be another world war, it'll start because of something someone posted on 4-chan ... I mean look how easily the Internet was usurped to provide the "but Russia!" narrative, eagerly embraced by many a hawk as a means to a violent end ..
[+] [-] AcerbicZero|7 years ago|reply
I'd also suggest the last time countries were so dominant in certain military areas, they didn't overlap as much as they do today, so open conflict was easier to maintain. In the early 1800's France was the undisputed world leader when it came to land based combat, while the British maintained a serious advantage at sea. Today, the US is undisputed in all 3 categories, land, air, sea, and a 4th if you count space. If another country were able to take a commanding lead in at least 1 of those areas, perhaps we could see a high intensity conflict involving the US, however until that happens, there isn't much of a point.
Minor Edit: This isn't intended as support of the current situation.
[+] [-] us-throw1|7 years ago|reply
* The US economy and industrial power is dependent on IT and brittle supply chains. Nobody knows how much the cyber infrastructure holding this up is already compromised.
* Russian S-400s can already deny air superiority to Israeli planes, which are not far behind US planes.
* How does the US have space superiority when there is no ASAT defense besides MAD?
* The US has not been able to suppress a rebellion in Afghanistan with trillions of dollars and 17 years. Maybe in an actual war their hands would be untied, so this isn't the best point.
* The US Navy loses war-games to swarm attacks and is just now a decade later deploying solutions to this. When was the last time US ships actually had to fight? Vietnam?
* The US has increasing ethnic and social conflicts, not to mention the potential fifth column of residents with ties to enemy powers.
* Barely half of US fighter planes are combat ready at any given moment. The trillion dollar F-35 had to be flown with VFR the first time it crossed the IDL. Who knows what else is lurking in that software?
[+] [-] everdev|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aqme28|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Yetanfou|7 years ago|reply
[1] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/swedens-super-ste... (and many other similar articles elsewhere)
[+] [-] thereare5lights|7 years ago|reply
This has been rising up like a plague in recent years and it isn't going away any time soon.
When ego and emotion come into play, the question of what is the point because a matter of pride and the point is just to win regardless of the costs.
[+] [-] kiliancs|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fhfjgjfducucuf|7 years ago|reply
Eugene Debs went to jail in America for imploring the working class not to fighta rich mans war and many soldiers walked away completely disgusted. Just a few miles from the trenches filled with death, the war profitiers were making a killing offering hotels and foodstuffs to soldiers on leave.
We still have a command economy based on war and our imperial project is still ongoing. We should take the lessons of world war one to heart and refuse to fight and fuel wars of domination and conquest. I can't recall the last time the western world was called to fight a defensive war after WW2, perhaps the only "good" war in our history.
https://www.marxist.com/first-world-war-a-marxist-analysis-o...
[+] [-] tomohawk|7 years ago|reply
Will China's big sea grab start a war? So far, they've been able to smother any of their neighbor's push back, and have just ignored any international rulings against them.
What about when they invade Taiwan, which they've said they will do? What about when they take over some of Japan's islands, which they said they would do?
They seem to be going down this path where they think if they just push a calculated amount each time, it won't cause a big problem. It's exactly that kind of thinking that is the problem, though.
And China's not the only aggressive, belligerent country out there. There's also Russia (Crimea/Ukraine, Syria) and Iran (Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon), for example. At what point do their aggressions spill over into a larger conflict?
[+] [-] qsdevacc|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crispinb|7 years ago|reply
When perceived benefits outweigh costs. The US's multiple invasions of, and coup plots against, other countries didn't 'spill over into a larger conflict' because the US's power & ruthlessness have been well-understood by the world. The costs of resisting US militaristic aggression have just been too high. The same has applied to Russia, and perhaps will in China's case if it makes good on its threats (though it would have to fight on multiple fronts for decades to even approach US levels of aggression).
[+] [-] raprp|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wpietri|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NotAmazin|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chokolad|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jeffdavis|7 years ago|reply
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 might become dramatically more valuable. Seems not terribly likely with oil (more technology, more producers, more alternatives). Maybe water, but the obvious pressure for that would be population, which is somewhat leveling off (though maybe global warming would do it).
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.
[+] [-] ufmace|7 years ago|reply
I'm thinking that nuclear weapons will continue to preclude any large-scale direct war between the great powers. The downside is that cyber-war by both nation-states and small groups and individuals, along with civilian conflict amplified by modern social-media based divisions and filter bubbles have a lot of potential to spiral out of control, especially when further provoked by foreign interference. Particularly because nobody knows for sure how it will all work or what will happen when determined adversaries exploit all of these to the maximum potential.
It's also entirely possible we'll see some new thing as equivalently stupid, bloody, and pointless as tightly massed soldiers in brightly colored uniforms with no protection doing foot-charges against dug-in machine guns behind barbed wire and artillery.
[+] [-] nostrademons|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vvillena|7 years ago|reply
I'm more scared about a great civil war in a powerful nuclear nation. Civil wars are a savage affair where no rules apply.
[+] [-] jbattle|7 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion
Premise: the large nations of the world are far to intertwined by commerce and culture. Large scale war would be suicidal and the leadership of these countries would never do something so foolish.
[+] [-] varjag|7 years ago|reply
If the political vectors of the last few years remain unchanged, a large war is very likely.
[+] [-] thereare5lights|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gonehome|7 years ago|reply
Nationalism and hysteria can lead people do things that are bad for both individuals and the group. Increasing free trade between countries and globalism is a good way to try and prevent wars, but the current reversion to nationalism makes me nervous.
[+] [-] acqq|7 years ago|reply
That is exactly what "everybody" assumed before 1914, as pointed by the article.
[+] [-] gnulinux|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imsofuture|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beachy|7 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] AtHeartEngineer|7 years ago|reply
I'm going to be real pissed off if we screw this up.
[+] [-] dandare|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antocv|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxxxxx|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peterlk|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jryan49|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] partycoder|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leesec|7 years ago|reply
America is just as guilty of this as anyone.
[+] [-] helios893|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wolfspider|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] demosito666|7 years ago|reply
The global level of violence is dropping and overall tolerance of casualties is declining. Rising cost of human life shifts the perception of conflicts in the majority of countries. It's getting very hard to explain the necessity of even several dead bodies from local conflicts, let alone to justify a sacrifice of millions of lifes.
Related to this is the shift of global power: throughout the history the ruling class is basically military. Thus the perception of war as of something possible, profitable under right circumstances and even desirable. This mindset was carried into the 20th century when it met technological progress which made possible the horror of World Wars. Likely, it seems that it has changed, at least to some extent.
Current 'ruler of the world' is not the army, it's rather all sorts of special forces and agencies. It's hard to sell the idea of marching and dying for your king/motherland/god to the public today and thus get/take the funding required, but it's much easier to sell it the idea of security. Security is a good thing, right? So the agencies need more and more power to protect you better. Sadly, in a paradoxical way this is partly also a consequence of rising value of human life.
However, 'special forces' elite is different from a military one and it's more bound to civil oversight in regards to casualties and the acceptable scale of violence. So we see that the conflicts of today are much less bloody than they could be given the weapons we have.
Now one can argue that this only holds until the current order is not significantly destabilized, or that it can spiral into some perverted form of 'preemptive security' (like e.g. govt propaganda about the need to eliminate some threat completely and strike first and hard for the sake of 'security'). And yes, everything can happen. But thinking of probability it seems that the balance is shifting towards smaller local conflicts rather than global wars.
[+] [-] dsfyu404ed|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tboyd47|7 years ago|reply
1) Mutually assured destruction.
2) No major empires dissolving.
3) Global news keeps everyone on the same page as crises unfold.
4) World powers separated by vast seas, neutral countries, and demilitarized zones.
5) The UN exists (not always effective, but at least it's there).
6) Less chauvinism. Kaiser Wilhelm II makes Trump look diplomatic and cordial in comparison.
[+] [-] Havoc|7 years ago|reply
The world is way beyond what can be survived in terms of flat out war.
It's not really something I worry about. People just want to eat McD and earn a high salary. Nobody in the powerful nations is eager to get shot (well US military complex aside).
[+] [-] stareatgoats|7 years ago|reply
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 dangerous as long as states put their self-interest above our common global destiny, as is the attitude du jour.
People behave as if nothing bad can happen, it's highly frustrating to watch.
[+] [-] rhacker|7 years ago|reply
That all being said, I'm not saying it's impossible, but that we're so connected now that I just don't see a great war because too many of our soldiers will have brothers, sisters, best friends in the war we're going up against.
[+] [-] david927|7 years ago|reply
Wars happen because in a set of animals, one member or subset will want the control of, say, the resources of an area, mating rights within the group, etc. Its members will often think that it's acting this way as a form of public service. "Someone has to divide up the meat of the fallen antelope," for example, ignoring what happens with control which is that the spoils, the resources, etc. will start to divide unevenly.
This continues to the point of extreme imbalance, such as just before the French Revolution where the wealthy paid less in tax than the poor, or the leader becomes too weak to maintain control. In all cases, control isn't maintained for long.
Right now, America is the empire in control. The problem that I see is that its generals are preparing for the last war with battleships and big guns (as sort of an "innovator's dilemma", where what has been successful for a company maintains the limelight despite a growing new reality). You can see the control ebbing, weakening. The petrodollar, for example, once so strong and a big part of the country's economic power, is now being replaced with the Special Drawing Right (SDR) -- a diversified basket of currencies.
And that's' the only solution: to diversify control. The peace that's found when an empire has control is temporary; it's the eye of the storm. Until there's world-wide democracy, we will have war.
[+] [-] CobrastanJorji|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fit2rule|7 years ago|reply
I used to think that, but then I realised that the Internet is mostly just a porn-delivery device.
Plus, there's the 4-chan factor, as in: if there is going to be another world war, it'll start because of something someone posted on 4-chan ... I mean look how easily the Internet was usurped to provide the "but Russia!" narrative, eagerly embraced by many a hawk as a means to a violent end ..
[+] [-] schaefer|7 years ago|reply
Have they resolved the calls to retract or strengthen the evidence supporting their apple/amazon hardware hack story?
Now a story about "the next great war"?
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] fouc|7 years ago|reply
A lot of fear mongering it seems. What is bloomberg's agenda in doing that?