[robonerd]

I thought this "end of history" narrative would be dead by now. It's incredibly naive to think that major wars are a thing of the past. The trade/commerce argument against the political viability of war has been made and debunked in the past. WWI should have been the nail in that coffin but I guess the idea is too appealing to give up.

> In The Great Illusion, Angell's primary thesis was, in the words of historian James Joll, that "the economic cost of war was so great that no one could possibly hope to gain by starting a war the consequences of which would be so disastrous."[4] For that reason, a general European war was very unlikely to start, and if it did, it would not last long.

Published in 1909. Yeah..

[Retric]

Countries have largely stopped declaring war even when they send troops to overthrow a county. It's the kind of distiction the only matters in international politics.

To underscore how silly this is the last time the US “declared” war was 1942. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_Unit...

[robonerd]

Well if that was throwntoday's point, it's a distinction without a difference. The Korean War particularly, despite not being officially declared as a war, came disturbingly close to going nuclear.