... or, perhaps, the 19th Century, revisited.
I've read a lot of blog posts and essays lately, upon the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI about how we might be heading into a global conflict now, too. That's silly.
China is squaring off with Vietnam and Japan, the Middle East has wars all over the place and Russia is flexing its muscles. That's not quite a world war. That's more like the conflicts that filled the 1800s. Small to medium-sized wars all over the world, ignited by local rivalries and ethnic tensions. Contrary to the childish views of Barack Obama and John Kerry, it's the way of the world when there's no global cop.
It's not stability, it's just normal.
You seem to be suggesting that there was a period of worldwide peace when the "US was the global cop". But, judging from Wikipedia's various lists of wars, there have always been plenty of wars to go around, and the current rate of wars starting looks about typical. Did the US ever really have much effect on reducing warfare in the world?
ReplyDeleteEgypt, Libya, Syria, Crimea, China-Vietnam all at once look to me like a spike in violence. I could be wrong.
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