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HUH! What is it good for?
Bad joke out of the way, I'm going to start this Liquid Blue-inspired intellectual thread and hope it goes somewhere.
Major wars (world wars) should always be a concern of everyone. A lot of people take for granted that we haven't had another one for 60 years or so now. Do you think it is by accident that this hasn't happened?
There are numerous theories out there trying to feel out why it hasn't. A few include: globalization theory, that war would be economically unwise in the 21st century because almost all economies are inexorably tied in the world market; democratic peace theory, that authoritarianism and communism have been stamped out and the only successful type of governments anymore are liberal democracies and, as seen in the past, democracies tend not to fight wars with one another; realist power theories, where there are multiple variations but the jist is that power relations post-WWII have been unfavourable to major war-outbreaks due to power relations where only one country is a hegemonic power in her own region (ie US for the West and USSR for the East); and arms theories, somewhat a subsidiary of the last one, that nuclear weapons make major war unlikely because of the immediate destructive toll it would mean for both sides.
Personally, I think it's some combination of power relations, fostered largely by nuclear weapons, and the fact major democracies are less likely to catalyze (a word?) (like a deranged dictator or an assassination attempt) because of the turnover rate and of how long/how many people it takes to make a major decision like war.
Bad joke out of the way, I'm going to start this Liquid Blue-inspired intellectual thread and hope it goes somewhere.
Major wars (world wars) should always be a concern of everyone. A lot of people take for granted that we haven't had another one for 60 years or so now. Do you think it is by accident that this hasn't happened?
There are numerous theories out there trying to feel out why it hasn't. A few include: globalization theory, that war would be economically unwise in the 21st century because almost all economies are inexorably tied in the world market; democratic peace theory, that authoritarianism and communism have been stamped out and the only successful type of governments anymore are liberal democracies and, as seen in the past, democracies tend not to fight wars with one another; realist power theories, where there are multiple variations but the jist is that power relations post-WWII have been unfavourable to major war-outbreaks due to power relations where only one country is a hegemonic power in her own region (ie US for the West and USSR for the East); and arms theories, somewhat a subsidiary of the last one, that nuclear weapons make major war unlikely because of the immediate destructive toll it would mean for both sides.
Personally, I think it's some combination of power relations, fostered largely by nuclear weapons, and the fact major democracies are less likely to catalyze (a word?) (like a deranged dictator or an assassination attempt) because of the turnover rate and of how long/how many people it takes to make a major decision like war.
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