"when there is no war for a generation." It isn't as if there was no war for a generation. The Russo-Japanese war in 1904-5 was precisely the kind of brutal in

"when there is no war for a generation." It isn't as if there was no war for a generation. The Russo-Japanese war in 1904-5 was precisely the kind of brutal industrial conflict that foreshadowed the horrors of WWI almost to a T. But Western powers were mostly unwilling to learn from such a distant war, and lessons learnt by junior officers who observed the carnage closely weren't taken seriously enough.