This is 1914

[Wilson23]

It is easy to see now, in hindsight, how the statesmen and dipliomats and generals of that year could have made different decisions, and averted a world war that turned out to be the nervous breakdown of Western civilization.

Study and learn.

 

[stxjimmy]

It is easy to see now, in hindsight, how the statesmen and dipliomats and generals of that year could have made different decisions, and averted a world war that turned out to be the nervous breakdown of Western civilization.

Study and learn.

Surely the same applies to any conflict.

 

[Wilson23]

Surely the same applies to any conflict.

Not every conflict has such potential for escalation.

 

[Wilson23]

When future historians consider how WWIII started, it will look even SILLIER than WWI.

I just hope they don't write their histories on bark.

 

[YDB95]

Surely the same applies to any conflict.

Not really. It's easy to say in retrospect if this or that had happened differently, then the resultant war could have been averted; but hindsight's 20/20, and in many cases it's still wrong. Take the American Civil War, for example: the South wanted a fight, period. Maybe it could have been postponed for a few years, but sooner or later it was going to happen. Or World War II: Hitler was going to try to take over as much of Europe as he thought he could get away with, and all the diplomacy in the world wasn't going to change his mind. World War I was not like that: literally dozens if not hundreds of things had to happen in exactly the order in which they did happen to bring things to the point where war broke out. It really was probably avoidable.

 

[Wilson23]

Not really. It's easy to say in retrospect if this or that had happened differently, then the resultant war could have been averted; but hindsight's 20/20, and in many cases it's still wrong. Take the American Civil War, for example: the South wanted a fight, period. Maybe it could have been postponed for a few years, but sooner or later it was going to happen. Or World War II: Hitler was going to try to take over as much of Europe as he thought he could get away with, and all the diplomacy in the world wasn't going to change his mind. World War I was not like that: literally dozens if not hundreds of things had to happen in exactly the order in which they did happen to bring things to the point where war broke out. It really was probably avoidable.

In those terms, an American-Iranian or an American-Cuban war does not quite have the quality of inevitability.

 

[stxjimmy]

Perhaps hitler was emboldened by chamberlain and halifax, it’s their diplomacy that allowed him to believe he could get more. But eventually Britain declared war as a result of an agreement to defend Poland whereas hitler broke Germany’s own non aggression treaty with the Soviet Union. In the end it was personalities that made the difference.
AJP Taylor blames ww1 on railway timetables (the origins of the First World War) as once the momentum of events began the contemporary means of mobilising was rigid and difficult to stop. And wasn’t ww2 as much about the consequences of the aftermath of ww1 which created the conditions for hitler and nazism?
Hindsight does, as well as information and research, let us examine and rethink many facets of any conflict.

 

[Wilson23]

Perhaps hitler was emboldened by chamberlain and halifax, it’s their diplomacy that allowed him to believe he could get more. But eventually Britain declared war as a result of an agreement to defend Poland whereas hitler broke Germany’s own non aggression treaty with the Soviet Union. In the end it was personalities that made the difference.
AJP Taylor blames ww1 on railway timetables (the origins of the First World War) as once the momentum of events began the contemporary means of mobilising was rigid and difficult to stop. And wasn’t ww2 as much about the consequences of the aftermath of ww1 which created the conditions for hitler and nazism?
Hindsight does, as well as information and research, let us examine and rethink many facets of any conflict.

Let's apply that analysis to the present:

The only PERSONALITIES in play here AS personalities are Trump and Putin.

The wider forces are 1) economic and 2) ideological.

 

[stxjimmy]

Let's apply that analysis to the present:

The only PERSONALITIES in play here AS personalities are Trump and Putin.

The wider forces are 1) economic and 2) ideological.

Personalities paramount, without trump in power no way would this war happen.

I don’t see what part economics plays, but yes there is an ideological element too.

 

[Wilson23]

Personalities paramount, without trump in power no way would this war happen.

I don’t see what part economics plays, but yes there is an ideological element too.

Economics are in play because Iran produces oil.

Cuba -- not much apart from sugar, rum and tobacco.

 

[stxjimmy]

Economics are in play because Iran produces oil.

Cuba -- not much apart from sugar, rum and tobacco.

Plenty of other countries produce oil and haven't been attacked, I know you’ll say Venezuela but that can be interpreted as personality too. trump still smarting about election rigging and supposed Venezuelan influence. And there’s also the Nobel prize jealousy too. He’s a madman causing unnecessary conflicts because of his personality defects.

 

[Wilson23]

Plenty of other countries produce oil and haven't been attacked, I know you’ll say Venezuela but that can be interpreted as personality too. trump still smarting about election rigging and supposed Venezuelan influence. And there’s also the Nobel prize jealousy too. He’s a madman causing unnecessary conflicts because of his personality defects.

Indeed -- other presidents were satisfied with a hostile regime Iran so long as the oil kept flowing.