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This is so wrong. The real reason why wars of conquest mostly ended after WW2 is that the United States has positioned troops and weapons in all the hot spots.

This is so wrong. The real reason why wars of conquest mostly ended after WW2 is that the United States has positioned troops and weapons in all the hot spots. That, and all the major powers now have nukes. This is actually a great example of the bullshit quantitative analysis that is sweeping through academia. That something was signed in 1928, and then that the world experienced extraordinary peace after WW2 (the Pax Americana), is NOT evidence that the former led to the latter.

holydude 9y ago
I totally agree with this. Not many people realize this and will continue to blabber about big bad usa but nukes are not the only thing keeping everyone in check. It is fat uncle Sam doing the job. I fear the day of more assertive China or EU acting retarded.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  > I fear the day of more assertive China or EU acting retarded. It will take a while before they will overtake the US in this respect though. Vietnam and Korea were not exactly examples of 'keeping everyone in check' or 'fat uncle Sam doing the job'.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
thomasahle 9y ago
Lots of other reasons, such as the European Coal and Steel Community, which had the purpose "to make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible".
tensor 9y ago
Your counter to "bullshit quantitative analysis" is a pub-level speculative opinion? Frankly, I'll take quantitative analysis, or any analysis, over the flippant opinion approach to understanding.
- marcoperaza 9y ago
  This isn't some musing of mine. It's the predominant view among people who study this kind of thing.
  - cperciva 9y ago
    The predominant view among people who studied US politics was that there was no way for Obama to win the Democratic presidential nomination. The data disagreed.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
wahern 9y ago
There was never extraordinary peace. Quite the opposite. Tens of millions died in conflict post-WWII. The only thing that changed was conflicts no longer resulted in territorial acquisition as a general matter, and that split can be traced back to 1928, not to post-WWII. The notion of the U.S. as a global policeman has some credibility, but only going back to the 1990s. Before then the U.S.'s reach ended where the Soviet Union's began, and there were plenty of proxy conflicts.
- acover 9y ago
  Source? This analysis seems to suggest we are in a period of relative peace. [0] [0] - https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace/ https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace/
  - wahern 9y ago
    Arguably we are, but conflict has hardly ended. Even according to that chart, only in the past few decades do we even seem to fall appreciably below the average, especially if you exclude outliers like WWI and WWII. My point is merely that there's little reason to chalk up the very recent changes to the U.S. being a global policeman. The more complex truth is all of these things: atomic weapons making World War too risky, increase in global economic ties, increasingly democratic governance, the role of hegemonic powers (including but not exclusively the U.S.), and of course the U.S. as the pre-eminent hegemonic power. This re-analysis of the effect of the Kellogg–Briand Pact is quite persuasive, but only in the context of the above. Also, see my post else thread regarding the complex cause+effect relationship. A treaty is a culmination of historic events; a culmination with consequences, but not magical in itself.
  - pmiller2 9y ago
    The US has been in a state of armed conflict for all but 21 years of its existence: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/02/america-war-93-time-222-239-years-since-1776.html http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/02/america-war-93-time-2...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Clubber 9y ago
Yes, this seems kinda silly considering just a few years later Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy started a major conquest war in Europe, Asia and Africa. After WW2, we had Korea within 5 years, then Vietnam and Gulf War I, all wars of conquest. What ISIS is doing is a war of conquest. Israel was involved in quite a few. It doesn't really matter if the treaty allows them to keep the land legally, the only thing that can stop an invading army is another army. Treaties and laws don't trump armies. When the rubber meets the road, might makes right, always has, always will.
- marcoperaza 9y ago
  Exactly. "Law" is meaningless without a policeman to enforce it.
  - isostatic 9y ago
    Tell that to Utah's nurses
    - SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
      That incident in no way discredits his point. Unenforced laws are useless, and selectively enforced laws can be worse than useless. The police failing to enforce laws when violated by other police demonstrates the need for universal enforcement of the law. The law against kidnapping would have been much more effective if the other police there had enforced it.

holydude 9y ago

I totally agree with this. Not many people realize this and will continue to blabber about big bad usa but nukes are not the only thing keeping everyone in check. It is fat uncle Sam doing the job. I fear the day of more assertive China or EU acting retarded.

jacquesm 9y ago
> I fear the day of more assertive China or EU acting retarded. It will take a while before they will overtake the US in this respect though. Vietnam and Korea were not exactly examples of 'keeping everyone in check' or 'fat uncle Sam doing the job'.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

thomasahle 9y ago

Lots of other reasons, such as the European Coal and Steel Community, which had the purpose "to make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible".

tensor 9y ago

Your counter to "bullshit quantitative analysis" is a pub-level speculative opinion? Frankly, I'll take quantitative analysis, or any analysis, over the flippant opinion approach to understanding.

marcoperaza 9y ago
This isn't some musing of mine. It's the predominant view among people who study this kind of thing.
- cperciva 9y ago
  The predominant view among people who studied US politics was that there was no way for Obama to win the Democratic presidential nomination. The data disagreed.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

wahern 9y ago

There was never extraordinary peace. Quite the opposite. Tens of millions died in conflict post-WWII. The only thing that changed was conflicts no longer resulted in territorial acquisition as a general matter, and that split can be traced back to 1928, not to post-WWII. The notion of the U.S. as a global policeman has some credibility, but only going back to the 1990s. Before then the U.S.'s reach ended where the Soviet Union's began, and there were plenty of proxy conflicts.

acover 9y ago
Source? This analysis seems to suggest we are in a period of relative peace. [0] [0] - https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace/ https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace/
- wahern 9y ago
  Arguably we are, but conflict has hardly ended. Even according to that chart, only in the past few decades do we even seem to fall appreciably below the average, especially if you exclude outliers like WWI and WWII. My point is merely that there's little reason to chalk up the very recent changes to the U.S. being a global policeman. The more complex truth is all of these things: atomic weapons making World War too risky, increase in global economic ties, increasingly democratic governance, the role of hegemonic powers (including but not exclusively the U.S.), and of course the U.S. as the pre-eminent hegemonic power. This re-analysis of the effect of the Kellogg–Briand Pact is quite persuasive, but only in the context of the above. Also, see my post else thread regarding the complex cause+effect relationship. A treaty is a culmination of historic events; a culmination with consequences, but not magical in itself.
- pmiller2 9y ago
  The US has been in a state of armed conflict for all but 21 years of its existence: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/02/america-war-93-time-222-239-years-since-1776.html http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/02/america-war-93-time-2...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

Clubber 9y ago

Yes, this seems kinda silly considering just a few years later Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy started a major conquest war in Europe, Asia and Africa. After WW2, we had Korea within 5 years, then Vietnam and Gulf War I, all wars of conquest. What ISIS is doing is a war of conquest. Israel was involved in quite a few. It doesn't really matter if the treaty allows them to keep the land legally, the only thing that can stop an invading army is another army. Treaties and laws don't trump armies. When the rubber meets the road, might makes right, always has, always will.

marcoperaza 9y ago
Exactly. "Law" is meaningless without a policeman to enforce it.
- isostatic 9y ago
  Tell that to Utah's nurses
  - SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
    That incident in no way discredits his point. Unenforced laws are useless, and selectively enforced laws can be worse than useless. The police failing to enforce laws when violated by other police demonstrates the need for universal enforcement of the law. The law against kidnapping would have been much more effective if the other police there had enforced it.