Is European global dominance and accident of timing and history? I'd like to think so, but there are plenty of people who would argue quite vehemently in the ne

Is European global dominance and accident of timing and history? I'd like to think so, but there are plenty of people who would argue quite vehemently in the negative on that point. Alright, so let's go down the rabbit hole, and be very clear about why the 19th and 20th centuries played out as they did. I apply this logic singularly to Europe because the colonial history of Europe is singular in its direct influence on states it came into contact with. You cannot talk about modern China's global ambitions without speaking about the humiliating and existentially-dire experiences they had at the hands of the British and Japanese, especially since so much of their contemporary rhetoric specifically mentions these injuries in championing a proud "China of the future." You cannot talk about the perpetuation of caste-based oppression (expanding in particularly European ways) in India, even after the introduction of Enlightenment ideals, without talking about how Western ideas about race and hierarchy (not simply role) helped to justify that perpetuation. And you really, really shouldn't be conjuring the ur-racist canard of Aztec "human sacrifice on an 'unprecedented scale'" without acknowledging the massive (dwarfing) death toll of the Mexican conquest - let alone those associated with witch hunts, inquisitions, and crusades (i.e., similarly religiously-driven mass homicide), or with the other abominations akin to mass human sacrifice cause primarily caused by European hubris (several genocides, including the one in the Congo, as well as both world wars). The reductive nature of your "it's answered aggressions all the way down" approach belies the agency nations and states and rulers and philosophers have in structuring their doctrine and action. However, if you see any truth in it, you must then acknowledge the inevitable influence a de facto vassal state must receive from its oppressor. Combining the two, you're left with either a chronicle of amoral coinflips, or what's more realistic to me: a few thousand years of power dictating as it will, and often to devastating and immoral ends. Maybe the world would suck less if colonial Europe hadn't been such a d••k. Do you disagree with that? >Sorry, "we" didn't have time to get any colonies - go find a Spaniard to blame. We were too busy getting raided by Ottomans, having our children kidnapped, trained as slave soldiers, and then used for more raids against us. Or sold into harems. But I won't hold my breath waiting on any sympathy or condemnation of that. You came out swinging for European innocence, so kindly enjoy your culpability.