Comment by ozmodiar
16 days ago
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.
16 days ago
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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?
3 replies →
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.
> doesn't usually come around twice.
There is a _2_ in WW2 :)
Sadly looking at history these "opportunities" come around quite regularly.
Big beautiful oceans