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100 years since the start of the first world war

Do you think there will ever be another world war?

  • Yes, within the next 100 years

    Votes: 7 29.2%

  • Yes, but not within the next 100 years

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Maybe, and if it happens it will be within the next 100 years

    Votes: 2 8.3%

  • Maybe, but not in the next 100 years

    Votes: 2 8.3%

  • No, there will never be another world war

    Votes: 5 20.8%

  • I simply do not know if there will be one or not

    Votes: 7 29.2%

  • The next big war will be an intergalactic one with an alien species/war on another planet

    Votes: 1 4.2%
  • Total voters
    24
There's a distinction between "total war" and war by proxy. The first entails seeking total and direct destruction of the enemy, until it surrenders control of its government. That is what i think of by the phrase 'world war,' along with involvement of the world's military powers. This would just lead to wiping out both populations, the "mutually assured destruction" that was so feared during the cold war. It would resemble only the end of the 2nd war. There will never be another conflict like that of 100 years ago, the massive stupidity of millions of soldiers futilely battling in trench warfare for years.
 
KevinKohler said:
No. Einstein knew what he was doing when he proposed atomic weapons.
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Something he came to deeply regret: "Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I would have never lifted a finger."
 
Peter King said:
Tomorrow July 28 2014 will be the centenary of the beginning of the first world war.

Since then we have had 2 world wars with millions of killed soldiers and innocent civilian victims.

We have seen the rise and the fall of the league of nations.

We have seen the formulation of Geneva conventions on war crimes.

The start of the world court to prosecute war criminals around the world.

The start of the cold war and the Warshaw pact and the fall of the Soviet Union.

But the question is, do you think there will ever be another world war?
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Unsure.

The prevalence of rapid world-wide communication may prevent such a thing.

Or it may cause it.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
It's not just a measure of deaths, but of major conflicts. Yes, there have been quite a few low-intensity conflicts, but these do not come close to comparing with outright war...and outright wars have been few and far between since the fall of the USSR. The only ones I can think of are the Rwanda genocide, Afghanistan (which really wasn't much of a war in the historical sense), our (illegal and unprovoked) invasion of Afghanistan, and the civil war in Syria...and other than a few relatively minor rebellions like Egypt and Libya and some relatively minor actions like Russia's annexation of Georgia, that's about it. I cannot think of any other 25-year period that was as peaceful, relative to the world's population.
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First Gulf War, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Algerian Civil War, Balkans, Civil War in Afghanistan, Somali, Nepalese Civil War, Burundian Civil War, First Congo War, Republic of the Congo Civil War, Albanian Rebellion of 1997, Eritrean–Ethiopian War, Second Congo War, Chechen Wars (2 of them), First Ivorian Civil War, Darfur, South Sudanese Civil War, and Central African Republic conflict to name a few all since 1989.

Rwanda was bad.. but Congolese wars were pretty bad as well. First Congo War was 6 months and anywhere between 250,000 to 800,000 killed of that 220,000 refugees are missing still. Second Congo War which was just short of 5 years has a death toll between 2.7 million and 5.4 million.

There are a lot of wars that aren't covered in Western Media that people forget about. But death toll in Africa over the last 25 years due to conflict would be pretty close to what we saw in WW1 and WW2 if accurately investigated.


Glen Contrarian said:
I quite agree that large standing armies are becoming less of a necessity, but we will always need a strong army - no matter what, a nation at war cannot occupy a location without boots on the ground (and I credit that particular lesson to a retired Marine back in the mid-80's who helped me install a badly-needed window in my navel so I could see where I was going).
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Of course, but standing policy isn't to occupy but to police. ;)

Glen Contrarian said:
I also quite agree that China will probably always need a large standing army - and I'm pretty sure you said that because they need it not for offensive actions against other nations, but for internal security like the almost-simmering revolt going on in Xinjiang by the minority Uighurs.
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That and China wouldn't mind taking back a few islands. :2razz:

Glen Contrarian said:
And just to tick you off, I'll sign,

Keynesianecon
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LMAO! I would say sarcastically, I can't fix stupid in a jokingly manner but I'd probably get an infraction.
 
austrianecon said:
First Gulf War, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Algerian Civil War, Balkans, Civil War in Afghanistan, Somali, Nepalese Civil War, Burundian Civil War, First Congo War, Republic of the Congo Civil War, Albanian Rebellion of 1997, Eritrean–Ethiopian War, Second Congo War, Chechen Wars (2 of them), First Ivorian Civil War, Darfur, South Sudanese Civil War, and Central African Republic conflict to name a few all since 1989.
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Thing is, other than the Rwanda war, all those are pretty minor. We don't hear about most of those in the history books because they don't affect Western civilization.

Rwanda was bad.. but Congolese wars were pretty bad as well. First Congo War was 6 months and anywhere between 250,000 to 800,000 killed of that 220,000 refugees are missing still. Second Congo War which was just short of 5 years has a death toll between 2.7 million and 5.4 million.
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On the one hand, I'm enjoying discussing this matter with someone who has a clue (kudos to you) - but on the other hand, the key to what I said was "relative to the population"...because Africa and (if to a lesser extent) eastern Europe have never been peaceful places to raise a family. Do you really think that in generations gone by, that Africa was a peaceful place to live? Of course not.

There are a lot of wars that aren't covered in Western Media that people forget about. But death toll in Africa over the last 25 years due to conflict would be pretty close to what we saw in WW1 and WW2 if accurately investigated.
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Very true - but remember, what I said was "relative to the population".

Of course, but standing policy isn't to occupy but to police. ;)
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I could argue that...and if I read you correctly, you know the arguments I'd use.

That and China wouldn't mind taking back a few islands. :2razz:
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You're absolutely right about that one...but a strong army doesn't do much when it comes to taking control of an island. The real battle - when it comes to the Spratly Islands - is economic and political, because if we involved ourselves in a naval battle for those islands, the Chinese wouldn't stand a chance. Of course, being retired Navy, I'm biased...but most of their admirals know that they cannot compete with our Navy.

LMAO! I would say sarcastically, I can't fix stupid in a jokingly manner but I'd probably get an infraction.
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Now that I've got your attention, let's raise taxes! :mrgreen:
 
Glen Contrarian said:
Thing is, other than the Rwanda war, all those are pretty minor. We don't hear about most of those in the history books because they don't affect Western civilization.
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Of course. Who cares about Africa. ;)

Glen Contrarian said:
On the one hand, I'm enjoying discussing this matter with someone who has a clue (kudos to you) - but on the other hand, the key to what I said was "relative to the population"...because Africa and (if to a lesser extent) eastern Europe have never been peaceful places to raise a family. Do you really think that in generations gone by, that Africa was a peaceful place to live? Of course not.
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"Relative to population", because relative to population for all of Europe is 750 million.. You have China and India which are bigger then them alone and the whole of Africa is 1.1 billion. So Relative to Europe, Africa is a bigger deal. But alas I won't rest my point on that but rather.. the history of Western Europe vs Africa.. which is basically the same. A warring crap hole. Europe hasn't had one peaceful century going back to the Greeks.


Glen Contrarian said:
Very true - but remember, what I said was "relative to the population".
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Read above..

Glen Contrarian said:
I could argue that...and if I read you correctly, you know the arguments I'd use.
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Yep, so no reason to bore me!

Glen Contrarian said:
You're absolutely right about that one...but a strong army doesn't do much when it comes to taking control of an island. The real battle - when it comes to the Spratly Islands - is economic and political, because if we involved ourselves in a naval battle for those islands, the Chinese wouldn't stand a chance. Of course, being retired Navy, I'm biased...but most of their admirals know that they cannot compete with our Navy.
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It's not about Navy, per se but China's anti-ship missile systems, like the DF-21D.


Glen Contrarian said:
Now that I've got your attention, let's raise taxes! :mrgreen:
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Only if they are yours! :lamo
 
Glen Contrarian said:
Dude...you really need to lay off the grape Kool-Aid....

Lemme see here...the Dow's on track to perhaps even triple what it was two months after Obama took office, the deficit's been cut by more than 50%...and Obama's grown the government more slowly than any president since Eisenhower.

We are now involved in ZERO major wars - Afghanistan's in the last few months of an occupation, and all we have in Iraq are a relatively few troops in an 'advisory' role.

Add to that the fact that Obama's gotten us closer to having universal health care (like ALL the other first-world democracies already have) than any other president...and the percentage of uninsured has already dropped significantly.

"Don't-ask-don't-tell" is gone and most of the nation's come to understand that discrimination against LGBT's is flatly wrong, just as any discrimination is wrong.

And on top of all that, he's been having to deal with the most obstructionist Congress since the Civil War. This Congress can't even pass VA reform because the Republicans refuse to pay for it, thinking that tax cuts will somehow pay for the tens of billions more tax dollars that will be required to pay for reform of the VA.

You can gripe all you want...but history is going to show that Obama was in retrospect a very good president indeed.
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All of that is partisan induced bias, but there is a reference to one bit of solid information that i will bet you don't have the slightest inkling what the facts are.

How much of the 3.8 billion dollars demanded by Obama to answer the immediate "crisis" at the border is slated to be spent before the end of this fiscal year?
 
Glen Contrarian said:
Um, if you'll notice, I'm referring to the last quarter century. I know, I know, all you can see and think about is Obama - you've got a serious case of "Obama Derangement Syndrome" - but this is much bigger than Obama or even America as a whole.

And the period between 1900 and 1910 was NOT so peaceful - we were dealing with the Huk rebellion in the Philippines after we kicked out the Spanish during the Spanish-American War (and where we committed a small-scale genocide), the Russians and the Japanese had a major war, there was the second Boer War in Africa...

...and those are the ones I know of off the top of my head. I'm sure I could find more if necessary.

Try again, guy - we ARE in the middle of what is (relatively speaking) the most peaceful time in recorded human history. And yes, this DOES take into account Rwanda.
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That peaceful time ended when Bush invaded Iraq.

The world is teetering on the brink and all you care about is whether or not Obama can shift the blame of it from his incompetence to any Republican.
 
code1211 said:
That peaceful time ended when Bush invaded Iraq.

The world is teetering on the brink and all you care about is whether or not Obama can shift the blame of it from his incompetence to any Republican.
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The world was in no way peaceful when we invaded Iraq, either time.
 
code1211 said:
It was nothing like it is today.
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I frankly pay not enough attention to things to respond with accuracy.

However I suspect that we are simply more aware of the current conflicts - though some upswing has occurred, I think...
 
Peter King said:
Tomorrow July 28 2014 will be the centenary of the beginning of the first world war.

Since then we have had 2 world wars with millions of killed soldiers and innocent civilian victims.

We have seen the rise and the fall of the league of nations.

We have seen the formulation of Geneva conventions on war crimes.

The start of the world court to prosecute war criminals around the world.

The start of the cold war and the Warshaw pact and the fall of the Soviet Union.

But the question is, do you think there will ever be another world war?
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The Third World War has been happening since the breakup of the Soviet Union. It's just been popping up here and there like pimples on a teenager's face- trouble is, it won't be ended so cleanly as the last two.
 
Grand Mal said:
The Third World War has been happening since the breakup of the Soviet Union. It's just been popping up here and there like pimples on a teenager's face- trouble is, it won't be ended so cleanly as the last two.
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If it is not recognized as a world war it does not count in my poll as a world war.

Most if not all fighting has been with regional conflicts that never spun out of control. Even the Korean war and Vietnam war were local conflicts unlike the first and second world war in which most of the large superpowers of the time fought in and took place over several continents.
 
chromium said:
Something he came to deeply regret: "Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I would have never lifted a finger."
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Powerful, and he was Jewish.
 
Luftwaffe said:
"I know not what weapons world war III will be fought with, but WW IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
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Perhaps it's naive of me, but I just don't think we're insane enough (at least currently) to have a worldwide nuclear war.
 
austrianecon said:
Of course. Who cares about Africa. ;)
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When I said "we don't hear about those because they don't affect Western civilization", that's not saying we should ignore Africa. If you understood the context in which it was written, you would have understood that my statement was more than anything an indictment of those who write our history books. For instance, what was the most terrible war of the 19th century? Was it the Napoleonic wars? No. Was it the American civil war? No. Was it the war between Germany and France? No. Was it the Boer War? No. It was the Taiping Rebellion in China, where 20 million people died. But do we see that in our history books? No.

"Relative to population", because relative to population for all of Europe is 750 million.. You have China and India which are bigger then them alone and the whole of Africa is 1.1 billion. So Relative to Europe, Africa is a bigger deal. But alas I won't rest my point on that but rather.. the history of Western Europe vs Africa.. which is basically the same. A warring crap hole. Europe hasn't had one peaceful century going back to the Greeks.
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I'm not comparing one continent to the other, am I? No. Instead, I'm looking at humanity as a whole. If you don't like it, that's your problem.

It's not about Navy, per se but China's anti-ship missile systems, like the DF-21D.
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This might come as a shock to you, but China's anti-ship missile systems don't present any threat whatsoever to our submarine fleet. Our surface fleet is effective for sea control and air superiority...but sea denial is a whole different matter - it's our submarine fleet that takes out the other navies, and after that threat is eliminated, our surface fleet moves in and gets to work.

And that's why I'm not at all worried about China's anti-ship missile systems. They're only a threat in the radius they can reach when based on Chinese soil. Any Chinese ships are nothing more than targets. Chinese electric subs are getting better...but I'd bet on ours any day of the week.
 
Simple answer.......Yes.

Those who truly believe that the Cold War ended with Glasnost, the "restructuring" of the USSR and the fall of the Berlin Wall are deluded. The tensions in and among many ancillary nations never really ceased and the "fallout" of nuclear proliferation has yet to be fully realized. The places and the faces have changed, the world's "power stores" have become a bit more diluted.......and yet the game remains the same. The end result will be another "line being drawn in the sand" so to speak, and many of the industrialized powers of the world will be forced to take sides. My guess is we may be seeing a "priming action" at this very moment in the sands of the Mideast (recent actions in Gaza). Just my two cents. :shrug:
 
Luftwaffe said:
Powerful, and he was Jewish.
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Hmm, but Germany surrendered before the bomb was finished...

Agree with Einstein's statement in principal, these weapons are the devil, but it's been 70 years...he didn't need to lift a finger (and didn't really). Nukes would exist by now regardless.

I'm sure these weapons will lead to humanity's demise if not one of those natural mass extinctions first, but for now, MAD and global economy has given us a reprieve from total war. I think the concern for the foreseeable future will be that crazed jihadists acquire them. Consider the complete guessing game as to Hussein's regime having WMDs, and i suppose anything's possible.
 
The Mark said:
Perhaps it's naive of me, but I just don't think we're insane enough (at least currently) to have a worldwide nuclear war.
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We have time, years are never-ending, you and I may be, but once we're gone whoever is to take our place, how do we know that they will think like us? Nuclear war is just a thought, but that doesn't mean it may not happen, I just hope it doesn't happen in my lifetime. How selfish of me I guess.
 
Peter King said:
Tomorrow July 28 2014 will be the centenary of the beginning of the first world war.

Since then we have had 2 world wars with millions of killed soldiers and innocent civilian victims.

We have seen the rise and the fall of the league of nations.

We have seen the formulation of Geneva conventions on war crimes.

The start of the world court to prosecute war criminals around the world.

The start of the cold war and the Warshaw pact and the fall of the Soviet Union.

But the question is, do you think there will ever be another world war?
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Probably, but not in my lifetime.
 
Luftwaffe said:
We have time, years are never-ending, you and I may be, but once we're gone whoever is to take our place, how do we know that they will think like us? Nuclear war is just a thought, but that doesn't mean it may not happen, I just hope it doesn't happen in my lifetime. How selfish of me I guess.
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I mean "we" as in "humans".

But I suppose I may be wrong...
 
The Mark said:
I frankly pay not enough attention to things to respond with accuracy.

However I suspect that we are simply more aware of the current conflicts - though some upswing has occurred, I think...
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Russia, the country that Obama said was a relic of the past is acting more like the geo political foe that he said it could never and would never be. Obama dismissed Russia's intentions that are clearly displayed today as ancient history in favor of the fantasy he maintains at the expense of the people he should be trying to serve. Russia is invading and occupying the second country in 6 years.

The Arab Spring is becoming the Winter of Democracy. Dreams of freedom have died in the Middle East. Only a couple years late, Obama has pulled our diplomats out of Libya.

Africa is a killing field from the Mediterranean to South Africa.

The Middle East has insurrection in the countries that are peaceful and genocide and shooting wars in the countries that are at war. Of course, we are fighting in Afghanistan waiting to abandon them to the warlords as Russia did before us. The tension between Pakistan and India is as great as it's ever been.

China is building a blue water navy. North Korea is daily firing at the South.

This is a very dangerous stage to be playing on and Obama is an incompetent boob seemingly unaware of what is happening.
 
Peter King said:
Tomorrow July 28 2014 will be the centenary of the beginning of the first world war.

Since then we have had 2 world wars with millions of killed soldiers and innocent civilian victims.

We have seen the rise and the fall of the league of nations.

We have seen the formulation of Geneva conventions on war crimes.

The start of the world court to prosecute war criminals around the world.

The start of the cold war and the Warshaw pact and the fall of the Soviet Union.

But the question is, do you think there will ever be another world war?
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Except for select units of the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe US forces have not faced an opponent who adhered to the Geneva Conventions since the outbreak of WW2. Those are a dead letter.:peace
 
Peter King said:
Tomorrow July 28 2014 will be the centenary of the beginning of the first world war.

Since then we have had 2 world wars with millions of killed soldiers and innocent civilian victims.

We have seen the rise and the fall of the league of nations.

We have seen the formulation of Geneva conventions on war crimes.

The start of the world court to prosecute war criminals around the world.

The start of the cold war and the Warshaw pact and the fall of the Soviet Union.

But the question is, do you think there will ever be another world war?
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Greetings, Peter King. :2wave:

I read an article recently which stated that since 3600 BC, a new war has broken out every five months! Now these weren't all world wars as we think of them, but considering that their world in those days was much smaller to them, maybe it could be termed worldwide. Egypt conquered much of the area around them, as an example. So, with mankind's past history of fighting with each other, YES I believe we will have another World War. And I think it will be far sooner than 100 years, or even 50 years for that matter, sad to say.

Ironically, a flu virus that emerged from World War 1 trenches crossed the ocean and killed more Americans than World War1, World War 2, and the VietNam war combined! Perhaps we should be more concerned about the arrival of the next pandemic, which the WHO has recently stated is overdue! :shrug:
 
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