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Well if that’s true the learning curve will be so steep as to resemble a cliff. I’m not usually a nuclear war alarmist, given that all players stand to lose, bu

Well if that’s true the learning curve will be so steep as to resemble a cliff. I’m not usually a nuclear war alarmist, given that all players stand to lose, but which country capable of world war will lose gracefully without nuking someone? China? Russia? The USA? UK? It’s a bit long in the tooth, but I think Einstein was right. I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

dougmwne 8y ago
Something I find interesting about WW1 was that it was preceded by a long period of general peace. During that period, we had been in the steep part of the industrial revolution's S-curve. Modern nation states had been solidifying their centralized power. The world was globalized and war was unthinkable. Once war broke out, the participating governments seemed shocked at their new found power to wage total war, through their industrial economies, their rapidly expanding populations, and their amplified political power. If such an unthinkable war were to break out today, our knowledge of our destructive capability is 70 years out of date. Who knows what atrocities we might accomplish.
- icebraining 8y ago
  War wasn't that unthinkable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War They already feature such typical WW1 elements like machine guns, barbed wire, and frontal assaults on entrenched enemy positions (with the associated carnage).
  - int_19h 8y ago
    Something on the scale of WW1 was considered unthinkable by many even so. And they had good reasons to believe it, because if you looked at the numbers, it simply didn't make sense - even in the best case, the material gains for the victors would be dwarfed by economic losses, mostly because of how involved international trade was between all the potential opponents. There was a book, published 5 yeas before WW1, that argued that exact point. It wasn't obscure, either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion These days, I hear very similar points - "China doesn't need a war with US, because US is its biggest export market", or, say, "Europe doesn't need a war with Russia, because it depends on Russian gas"...
- LyndsySimon 8y ago
  This sort of out-of-date knowledge of war fighting capabilities is what led to millions of men dying in trenches in WW1. Consider, for instance, that over fifty million artillery rounds were fired during the Battle of the Somme alone. That’s a level of warfare unprecedented at the time - it required an industrial economy just to produce that much ordnance, not to mention a railways to move them to the front. No one prior to ww1 would have conceived of warfare on that scale. Now, just imagine what kind of warfare we’re capable of today, that we haven’t even thought of yet?

dougmwne 8y ago

Something I find interesting about WW1 was that it was preceded by a long period of general peace. During that period, we had been in the steep part of the industrial revolution's S-curve. Modern nation states had been solidifying their centralized power. The world was globalized and war was unthinkable. Once war broke out, the participating governments seemed shocked at their new found power to wage total war, through their industrial economies, their rapidly expanding populations, and their amplified political power. If such an unthinkable war were to break out today, our knowledge of our destructive capability is 70 years out of date. Who knows what atrocities we might accomplish.

icebraining 8y ago
War wasn't that unthinkable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War They already feature such typical WW1 elements like machine guns, barbed wire, and frontal assaults on entrenched enemy positions (with the associated carnage).
- int_19h 8y ago
  Something on the scale of WW1 was considered unthinkable by many even so. And they had good reasons to believe it, because if you looked at the numbers, it simply didn't make sense - even in the best case, the material gains for the victors would be dwarfed by economic losses, mostly because of how involved international trade was between all the potential opponents. There was a book, published 5 yeas before WW1, that argued that exact point. It wasn't obscure, either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion These days, I hear very similar points - "China doesn't need a war with US, because US is its biggest export market", or, say, "Europe doesn't need a war with Russia, because it depends on Russian gas"...
LyndsySimon 8y ago
This sort of out-of-date knowledge of war fighting capabilities is what led to millions of men dying in trenches in WW1. Consider, for instance, that over fifty million artillery rounds were fired during the Battle of the Somme alone. That’s a level of warfare unprecedented at the time - it required an industrial economy just to produce that much ordnance, not to mention a railways to move them to the front. No one prior to ww1 would have conceived of warfare on that scale. Now, just imagine what kind of warfare we’re capable of today, that we haven’t even thought of yet?