Quote: (05-16-2014 05:33 AM)Feisbook Control Wrote:
Quote: (05-16-2014 01:23 AM)Suits Wrote:
No.
It's just posturing. All of these countries have too much to lose if they go to war.
Yet brinkmanship sometimes gets way out of hand and everyone involved loses the plot completely. Exhibit A: World War 1.
The two sides involved:
The Triple Entente: Britain, France, Russia
The Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire
The outcome? Four of the six lost their empires and massive amounts of territory. Russia ended up with a bloody revolution and regime change. Even for Britain and France, the loss of life and money were enormous. More than that, though, it knocked the very stuffing out of Western civilisation and set up WW2 (shortly after which, both Britain and France lost their empires). Europe has never regained its position of preeminence in the world since 1918.
Who did WW1 benefit? The U.S., Italy and Japan (maybe some others, including the newly created countries out of the former empires in some cases). The latter two squandered their gains later anyway.
In hindsight, WW1 seems utterly mad. People also have all sorts of explanations for why it was obvious that there was going to be a major war. Here's the kicker though. I remember watching a presentation by Niall Ferguson once (who thinks WW1 was utterly insane also, and lays the blame for it primarily at the feet of Britain) and he mentioned that one of his graduate students had done work examining the bond market in the lead up to WW1. The bond market did not see the war coming at all. Read that last sentence again. Despite all the analysis after the fact by historians and so on, the whole thing was totally unexpected at the time.
These things are always fine until they're not. Does this mean that I think there will be war? No. I certainly hope that there won't be. Yet to categorically believe that there won't be war seems a little naive regarding history and a little too trusting in the rationality and coolness of heads in a war cabinet meeting.
This could, or maybe even should, be Asia's century. Yet they could piss it all away. One hundred years ago, who would have believed that Europe would be in the situation it is now? One quarter of the world's land surface alone was owned or controlled by Britain, with many other places being influenced by them. Only Ethiopia (or Libya too?) in Africa was not controlled by a European power.
True and I appreciate the in depth contribution, but everyone already knows who will win an Asian war.
Since China isn't currently in the empire building business, with it's focus on economy, I think it is safe to say that major war will only occur if some entity is dumb enough to think that they can take on "you know who."
Regardless, I definitely plan to remain in denial for as long as possible, since I have a lot to lose (my life) if things go south.
I'm the King of Beijing!