[AlexB138]

> Is the world getting safer? I think so. Is the risk of large scale war like France is planning for decreasing? I hope s

This is very much the feeling people had before World War I. The thought was that the web of alliances Bismarck had built would prevent war, similar to your comment about the EU.

It seems that this sort of interdependence acts more like a buffer to prevents small-scale conflicts, but results in large-scale conflict once it does actually come due to a cascading effect of allies being pulled over the brink.

We may not see another real major war in our life-times, if we're lucky, but there's a very real chance our children or grandchildren will see the largest war in history.

[frereubu]

If anyone is feeling relaxed about the prospect of war, I recommend reading The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig, which is about exactly this moment. it describes the build-up to WWI in Vienna, where the feeling was very much "nobody is stupid enough to start, or be taken in by the idea of, a large-scale war", which was only true until it wasn't. The most chilling aspect of it for me was the way that people who Zwieg had previously considered calm and sensible became rabidly pro-war in a very short space of time.

[greesil]

Anyone living in the US after September 11th 2001 can tell you how the jingoist button was switched from off to on in the space of a month.

[dopidopHN]

I really worried about the US response to a war. Your population never went through it, they don’t know what that really mean. It’s terrifying honestly.

[genericuser314]

Americans fixate on our civil war, not on our international wars.

"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide."

~ An American president who was shot by an American citizen on 1865-04-14

[ehdjsnwk]

The American Civil War was incredibly deadly and leveled massive portions of the US. The stereotypical backwardness of the southern states is a product of the damage done. The war was almost 200 years ago and they are still playing catchup due to the structural damage that was done. If the US populace is naive about the prospect of war, it`s not because of lack of exposure.

[greesil]

Yeah, but most of those with living memory of ww2 are dead now. I'm sure having huge graveyards around everywhere plus unexploded ordnance may keep it in the national psyche, but idk I'm just an American.

[viklove]

> Your population never went through it

We have the largest quantity of immigrants in our country than anywhere else in the world. 50+ million immigrants that all bring their varied experiences and war is a part of many of their stories.

[chii]

The large scale war of today must include the nuclear scenario, and i do believe that rationally, nobody would want that. Unless there's some aspect for which a nation would sacrifice for - like religious zealotry.

[Guthur]

Really?

Over the last 200 years, at least, how many major conflicts have started for secular politics vs religious politics. I feel there is a heavy skew towards the former.

[bryondowd]

I think the point was that secular wars are generally for resources. Nuclear war practically eliminates the possibility of gaining resources, because you're likely to lose more than you gain as your cities get vaporized. So the drive to start one is significantly lessened. Religious wars on the other hand, all bets are off. You're doing it for salvation, so even if the victor ends up poorer for it materially, it's still worthwhile to start.

[DisjointedHunt]

What do you think "Jihad" means in the context of the September 11 attacks?

[Guthur]

Sorry if you are effected by it, but on the grand scale of conflicts the attack on the trade towers was pretty small.

Also if you want to get really nit picky one could argue 9/11 was more motivated by geopolitics.

[billfruit]

Incidentally Robert Musil's 'Man of no qualities' is set in Vienna of the same time. Does it also portray something similar?

[somedude895]

If globalization has one benefit, it's that it makes any war extremely costly for everyone involved, so with how entangled the world's economies are today, it's much more likely that tensions would be solved by means other than large scale all-out war. Though of course there's always a non-zero chance.

[philwelch]

This is also very much the feeling people had before World War I.

[ikrenji]

ok but this is not just a feeling. the world today is 100x more interconnected than the world before ww1...

[mikem170]

That might not be a good thing. A highly interconnected system is less able to adapt, becomes brittle, and tends to fail more catastrophically.

[DisjointedHunt]

Iran, Turkey, China, North Korea, Pakistan.

You may want to read up on the state of preparation these countries are going through to reestablish their perceived ancient kingdoms.

It is a constant debate in Military forums about the scale of ambitions these countries possess, but the indisputable fact remains that a) The administrations there have incorporated ideologies of grandeur into their legitimacy and b) Their military postures are targeted toward establishing specific, stated, highly provocative goals of expansionism / wiping out old foes.

[fakedang]

Iran is less expansionist, more "Everyone around us hates us and America hates us, so we can only preserve ourselves only by preemptively making them 'friendly'". Even Safavid Persia stopped expanding after its peak, following which the only time it went expansionist was under Nadir Shah. The "us vs the world" mentality grants the theocratic regime legitimacy. The Iran-Iraq war (Saddam's mad campaign in other words) did not help in soothing this mentality either - it still remains in recent memory for many Iranians.

The rest are of course expansionist.

[mikem170]

Actually it might be better if we split the world into smaller countries, like 10 million people each. Small countries don't fight big wars.

Leopold Khor wrote a book about this, best info link I could quickly find is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv9eJ8miMgA

[samus]

Small countries can still fight lots of small wars among themselves. It's just a question of time until they snowball into larger ones.

Also, there is nothing stopping countries conquering or otherwise merging with each other, in which case we'd quickly be back at square one.

[mikem170]

This is a fascinating topic. If you're interested you should read Khor's book on it, "The Breakdown of Nations". Lots of surprises and food-for-thought. The youtube I linked to is a fair introduction.

I guess I threw my above reply out there because I think globalism was meant to extend the power and wealth the elites already have, and that is its one benefit, not preventing wars. A lot of wars have been fought to construct and preserve this global order.

Khor makes a great case that the problems of staying small are less than the problems of bigness. There will still be wars, but small wars are better than big wars. Small countries can still gang up on large threats. He talks a lot how bigness always eventually leads to tyranny and aggression, just look at the history of every large country.

Khor speaks highly of federations, and what works and what doesn't. For example, he says it's great that the U.S. is made up of many states without being dominated by any one state. But I think he would be concerned if he saw a federal government grow so powerful that it can dominate all the states, not to mention the rest of the planet!

I share your scepticism about how to get from here to there. I think Khor does, also.

[thrower123]

The biggest reason that I do not fear any kind of significant European war is that European militaries are so incredibly weak and disorganized. There isn't a single non-US NATO power that has as many men under arms as Belgium did in 1914, and unlike 1914, there are no deep pools of reservists that can be called up and mobilized if those small professional militaries expend themselves.

[soco]

Maybe I'm nitpicking, but I think "getting safer" or "decreased risk" do not mean "being safe" or "no risk". Black swans do appear and something less probable but with catastrophic implications is totally worth preparing for.