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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/S
by 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 agoSomething 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"...