Even without new technological development, why couldn’t there be a great power war over a classical Flashpoint, like what caused past wars? Seems like a war over disputed territories in the seas near China, or disputed territories between India and Pakistan could plausibly cause a great power war.
It’s certainly possible, and I think such analysis is valuable. It’s just not my comparative advantage and not so neglected (I think). Also, I think we don’t lose much analytically by separating foreseeable causes of great power conflict into two distinct categories:
Conflict due to specific factors that we recognize as important today (e.g., US-China tension and India-Pakistan tension and their underlying causes)
Conflict due to more general forces and phenomena (and due to my empirical beliefs, I think emerging-technology-related forces are relatively likely to cause conflict)
This post aims to start a conversation on 2 — or get people to direct me to previous work on 2.
Also to explain my focus, I would be surprised by major conflict for normal reasons by 2040 but not surprised by major conflict because the world is going crazy by 2040. But I didn’t justify this. I should have mentioned my exclusion of major conflict for normal reasons in my post; thanks for your comment.
Even without new technological development, why couldn’t there be a great power war over a classical Flashpoint, like what caused past wars? Seems like a war over disputed territories in the seas near China, or disputed territories between India and Pakistan could plausibly cause a great power war.
It’s certainly possible, and I think such analysis is valuable. It’s just not my comparative advantage and not so neglected (I think). Also, I think we don’t lose much analytically by separating foreseeable causes of great power conflict into two distinct categories:
Conflict due to specific factors that we recognize as important today (e.g., US-China tension and India-Pakistan tension and their underlying causes)
Conflict due to more general forces and phenomena (and due to my empirical beliefs, I think emerging-technology-related forces are relatively likely to cause conflict)
This post aims to start a conversation on 2 — or get people to direct me to previous work on 2.
Also to explain my focus, I would be surprised by major conflict for normal reasons by 2040 but not surprised by major conflict because the world is going crazy by 2040. But I didn’t justify this. I should have mentioned my exclusion of major conflict for normal reasons in my post; thanks for your comment.