[lolinder]

> which is the kind of opportunity that doesn't usually come around twice.

On the contrary, it most definitely did come around twice (hence the 2), and those same geographic advantages are still at play, barring thermonuclear war. It wasn't pure chance that Europe combusted in WW2, Europe had been on fire off and on for hundreds of years. Its geography just lends itself to large scale conflict.

The recent period of peace is an exception, but it's not the first exception and there's good reason to suppose this one won't last forever either.

[vladms]

I could say the same about the period of peace in the USA which is only from 1865 (Edit: 1865 is the civil war, but thought hey let's look, and it seems there were conflicts with Indians up to 1924!) . It is an exception, because before that it was "the wild west", with various conflicts around.

And not sure how this will play out long term, I don't get an impression that USA states are so aligned on everything.

[lolinder]

> I could say the same about the period of peace in the USA which is only from 1865

You can't really compare a period of 160 years to a period of 80, especially given that there's war in Europe once again so the streak is already broken.

80 years is actually shorter than the gap between the Napoleonic wars and WW1 (~100 years), and only represents one generation that lived and died without a local war. On the other hand, 160 years out of 249 is 64% of the existence of the US spent in one continuous period of no widespread local conflict, and represents 5 generations that were born and died without any war on their doorstep. How is that an exception?

[vladms]

> Europe had been on fire off and on for hundreds of years.

The point was that armed conflicts also happened on North American soil (even if consider only USA soil) for long time, so not so different for what happened in Europe. The last period of peace is as much an exception for one as it is for the other given a significant part of the history of the continents.

Also, if we think of countries, there were various European countries that did not participate in or had fights on their territory, during neither WWI or WWII (Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain) and some of those did not have a war on their soil for similar as USA ...

[lolinder]

> The last period of peace is as much an exception for one as it is for the other given a significant part of the history of the continents.

But... it's not. 160 years of straight uninterrupted time without total war out of 250 makes no-total-war the norm, not the exception. >50% of the last 250 years have been spent in one continuous period of people not having to wonder if bombs would be falling on their heads today.

That's totally different than Europe, whose longest gap between total war was the 100-year gap between Napoleon and WW1.

> Also, if we think of countries, ... some of those did not have a war on their soil for similar as USA

Yes, but those are each the size of a US state, so unsurprisingly didn't lead to them taking the place of world superpower.

If you're going to be criticizing my argument it would be helpful to keep in mind that I was replying to this:

> But a large degree of the exception was being excepted from being blown to smithereens during WW2, which is the kind of opportunity that doesn't usually come around twice.

You're taking things in totally different directions that aren't relevant to the question of how often the US will continue to be the largest Western country with no threat of total war on domestic soil.

[vladms]

> But... it's not. 160 years of straight uninterrupted time without total war out of 250 makes no-total-war the norm,

Your choose to mention arbitrarily 250 years. I see no reason for that, as there were things happening on the same soil before those 250 years.

> That's totally different than Europe

Europe is not a country, as mentioned not all Europe had the same conditions.

> that aren't relevant to the question of how often the US will continue to be the largest Western country with no threat of total war on domestic soil.

This started about "excepted from being blown to smithereens during WW2, which is the kind of opportunity that doesn't usually come around twice.". Nowadays, some countries in Europe do have nuclear weapons which reduces somehow the possibility to be the only ones blown up. If a nuclear power is hit by nukes, it will retaliate automatically hitting the complete list of enemies.

I think we both exposed our arguments and as we don't seem to be inclined to take into account each other analysis (the 250 years, Europe as a country, risks of current conflicts, etc.) will not add others comments - we can agree to disagree. I still learned various things I did not know before so it was a useful conversation.

[lolinder]

Since you edited to reply to my comment I'm stuck leaving a second reply: the conflicts with Indians were not at all the same as the kind of total war we're talking about with the wars of religion, Napoleonic Wars, and the World Wars. The subject of this thread is wars that lead to mass destruction of national power and lead to other countries taking the lead.

For future reference, it makes for much easier reading if you just reply to me instead of editing your comment to respond. This isn't a Notion doc, it's a forum, and I'm not leaving feedback on an artifact, I'm engaging you in a discussion.