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if you don't have hegemony, you have the balance of powers: if you don't have the balance of powers, you have hegemony. if we're getting out from hegemony we'll
by curuinor 5y ago
if you don't have hegemony, you have the balance of powers: if you don't have the balance of powers, you have hegemony. if we're getting out from hegemony we'll go into the balance of powers (you can sort of see this in the everyone-surrounding-the-prc's reaction to the prc: everyone gangs up together to balance out the putative new hegemon)
you need total consensus down to the last man for pacifism to work. works great in groups of 10 people, not so much with groups of 2 billion: you need to credibly threaten the insane yelling person while making sure you're not the insane yelling person yourself
- c048 5y agoBalance of power caused millennia of war in Europe. Forming a hegemony has lead to almost 80 years of peace. Large wars haven't been a thing since the dominance of the US and been pushed further and further to the periphery, especially since the end of the cold war.
- curuinor 5y agobismark and metternich and so on managed to run around and mostly keep a general european peace with the balance of powers for 80 years from the 1820s on. too bad it all went to shit - but current events are not incompatible with the assertion that it's all going to shit this decade...
- rm445 5y agoWhat's really weird is it's a world of about 200 "people" (sovereign states), completely without outside authority. Historically it has all been about power, with international law having a minor role - but it seems conceivable that all the nations could police one another and all international law could become much more effectively binding. It wouldn't be as effective as universal pacifism, just like the police can't prevent all murders - but they can deter them. It could be a future that still has nation states rather than a world government, without any superpowers.