It seems to me that up to and including WW2, many wars were fought for economic/material reasons, e.g., gaining arable land and mineral deposits, but now, due to various changes, invading and occupying another country is almost certainly economically unfavorable (causing a net loss of resources) except in rare circumstances. Wars can still be fought for ideological (“spread democracy”) and strategic (“control sea lanes, maintain buffer states”) reasons (and probably others I’m not thinking of right now), but at least one big reason for war has mostly gone away at least for the foreseeable future?
Curious if you agree with this, and what you see as the major potential causes of war in the future.
Leaders of countries and elites (military leaders, political leaders, …) decide whether to go to war or not. The claimed reasons may or may not have anything to do with the actual reasons: that is just a tool to get to some desired outcome.
Most wars suck for both parties, but groups of people can easily all end up believing the same thing because of excessive deference, resulting in poor decision making and e.g, a war.
Imagine two groups of teenagers quarrelling on the high school playground: if they do decide to fight, was it for strategic / ideological reasons? Usually it’s the result of escalating rhetoric or one of the parties being unusually aggressive. This is I think a good model for war as well.
US and Chinese elites today look like a bunch of teenagers quarrelling. It has little to do with reality (ideology/strategy), and much more to do with the social dynamics of the situation, I think.
It seems to me that up to and including WW2, many wars were fought for economic/material reasons, e.g., gaining arable land and mineral deposits, but now, due to various changes, invading and occupying another country is almost certainly economically unfavorable (causing a net loss of resources) except in rare circumstances. Wars can still be fought for ideological (“spread democracy”) and strategic (“control sea lanes, maintain buffer states”) reasons (and probably others I’m not thinking of right now), but at least one big reason for war has mostly gone away at least for the foreseeable future?
Curious if you agree with this, and what you see as the major potential causes of war in the future.
Leaders of countries and elites (military leaders, political leaders, …) decide whether to go to war or not. The claimed reasons may or may not have anything to do with the actual reasons: that is just a tool to get to some desired outcome.
Most wars suck for both parties, but groups of people can easily all end up believing the same thing because of excessive deference, resulting in poor decision making and e.g, a war.
Imagine two groups of teenagers quarrelling on the high school playground: if they do decide to fight, was it for strategic / ideological reasons? Usually it’s the result of escalating rhetoric or one of the parties being unusually aggressive. This is I think a good model for war as well.
US and Chinese elites today look like a bunch of teenagers quarrelling. It has little to do with reality (ideology/strategy), and much more to do with the social dynamics of the situation, I think.