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Comment by JeffL | Hacker News Reader

It's really hard to see anything big starting up in Europe, since all the countries are now officially democracies, and those that are at the corrupt end of the spectrum are not the most powerful. R. J. Rummels arguments about how democracies don't go to war against each other are pretty compelling. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/MIRACLE.HTM

I guess the biggest potential problem would be China, but do they really have any allies for their side that would cause a "world war"? Seems to me like if they started anything, then it would be them against the entire west, and as long as we don't feel compelled to invade them, they don't have a lot of power eh can project.

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Democratic Peace theorists always run into the issue of "what is a democracy."

Consider WW1, in which most of the major belligerants, except for Tsarist Russia, have a plausible case for being called democratic. You might try to exclude one country or another, to save the Democratic Peace. But then you've got to be very careful about that: you can very easily add enough conditions until virtually no states until the 1970s were democratic, which gives you a small sample that coincides with an era when all states, democratic or not, have been relatively peaceful.

It also doesn't have a strong causal explanation for why it'd be the case. Democracies certainly aren't less violent in general: they don't have any issues fighting with autocracies. There's even evidence that weak or developing democracies, like Meiji Japan in the 1890s or the United States in the 2000s, actually are more violent than comparable states.

Most Democratic Peace theorists don't really offer anything more powerful than "the US/UK axis and its allies don't go to war with each other." Which is true, but uninteresting.

I know that reality is always more complicated than theories attempting to simplify things, but Germany was officially an empire, with an emperor who had the power to declare war and appoint the chancellor. The Reichstag had no power to dismiss the government.

The Austro-Hungarian empire was also ruled by a hereditary monarch who was in charge of war and foreign policy.

I admit it's all a bit hand-wavy, but wasn't there a huge difference in nature between the likes of UK and France vs Germany, Austia-Hungary, and the Ottomans?

Sure. But you can come up with equally plausible standards that cut the other way: for instance, Germany had achieved universal male suffrage while Britain still had property requirements and was much more vigorously fighting women's suffrage with state repression. The German High Command could mobilize troops and declare war without parliamentary approval, but, hell, we effectively allow that in the USA today. And it's not like the German populace were snookered into the war: the Reichstag was not only willing but ecstatic to vote to support and fund the war. It's not the case that every German was happy about the war, but response was akin to the American national rallying that happened after 9/11.

I wouldn't want this to become a tit for tat about who was the real democracy in the war: I'm perfectly happy to say that every participant fell far short of democracy. But the democratic peace folks are making a seemingly predictive, scientific claim using a really fuzzy and emotionally laden term like democracy that's easy to bend to mean whatever you like.

If there's something that's meant beyond my "US/UK and their allies don't fight each other" idea, I'm all for hearing it out. What are some of the countries considered democracies by the democratic peace proponents that aren't in that alliance and seem not to have been in a war with that alliance due to the fact that they're democratic and not autocratic?

I do concede that there it isn't inherently an error to say one country is more democratic than another, and that the Ottomans and Austria Hungary clearly end up on the losing side of that comparison.

I'm not quite up to speed on how bad the UK's and US's electoral systems were at the time, but a lot of the British Empire had universal suffrage, e.g. AU, NZ.

Germany had tiered suffrage until the 1918 revolution.

"This distribution meant that a first-class vote had 17.5 times the value of a third-class vote." and "... one result of which was that the industrialist Alfred Krupp was the only person able to vote for the electors in the first class in Essen."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_three-class_franchise

Germany had a different electoral system (one that included equal, universal suffrage) than Prussia, which was at a different, lower level than Germany.

One argument you might make is that the democracy peace theory is really just the Anglosphere. As Bismarck put it, "never underestimate the fact that Britain and America speak the same language."

You wouldn't imagine a civil war amongst a homogenous culture. I wonder if the Parliamentarians/Royalists or the Unionists/Confederates were more culturally different than the Anglosphere cultures are today.

The concern isn't China bombing Germany. It is China pushing to establish itself as the East China Sea's regional hegemon. This would involve displacing Japan, a conflict likely to pull in the U.S. That risks drawing in, at a minimum, the U.K. and Australia.

A U.S.-China conflict would shoot decades of progress in the head.

Of course I would have to wonder what about Japan would be worth a war with the U.S.

Logistical value perhaps, for example by denying the U.S. the bases they currently have there, but certainly not for resources?

The Chinese in general still feel humiliated by their treatment at the hands of the western powers and then their occupation by Japan in WW2. Furthermore they have an issue of not having enough resouces to feed their growth. Who ever owns the islands (more then one set - China is arguing with Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Philippines) has the rights to exploit the oil/gas fields in the ocean beds around them.

Now to the story. I can see the parallels to the run up to WW1 however there is one large difference. In WW1 there was no real dominate military power (i.e. has complete unmatched and overwhelming force). The fact is that the US military so overmatches everyone else that it would be a very short war. Blood and a mess but still very short.

"it would be a very short war. Blood and a mess but still very short."

You may wish to read up on attitudes immediately prior to WWI. And there were three dominate military powers at the start of WWI, Germany the land empire able to call up 5M men in days, Russia with infinite manpower but so logistically messed up they never get to use them, and the British Navy dominated the waves, which was a pretty big deal as this was toward the end of the colonial era (although Germany didn't get to play colonialism which was arguably part of the problem)

Seriously, the franco prussian war was only a couple months adn the protoGermans won decisively. They really did expect to be done, one way or another, by winter time.

WW3 will probably be something like NK implodes and tries to blow up SK and .jp along with it (australia?), and China and "the west" argue very forcibly about who will dominate the area in a post-NK, perhaps post-SK and post-.jp world. At least if I was writing an Alt Hist type novel thats where I'd generally go.

> NK implodes and tries to blow up SK and .jp along with it (australia?)

I certainly wouldn't want to live in Seoul if (when?) that comes to pass but wouldn't be too worried even in Japan - it's a good 1000km, and I don't think NK has the tech to get much precision at those distances. Certainly they don't have stealth missiles which would be able to evade JP's considerable number of aegis equipped vessels. They could likely do some damage but I doubt it would be catastrophic.

As for Australia, I wouldn't be worried at all - that's well into ICBM territory, a whole different technological level and NK have never demonstrated anything even close. Not to mention Hawaii is actually closer to Pyongyang than Sydney - if they really can lob missiles ~8000km, why not go for the Great Satan himself?

I have. May I suggest a book called "The Sleepwalkers".

http://www.amazon.com/The-Sleepwalkers-Europe-Went-1914/dp/0...

My comments on the effects of military power come from first hand experience.

Outmatching someone militarily doesn't necessarily forecast a short war. This is especially true if you do not have the resources or interest in total annihilation of your opposition. There are many recent examples of this to choose from. Iraq comes to mind.

I think the point is that Iraq was essentially positioned as a police action against the government - not a war against the whole country, so it has been relatively restrained, especially since Iraq couldn't hit back.

An all out war against a powerful nation that could hit back would be far less restrained.

Agreed which is why I mentioned 'total annihilation' of the enemy. But if you want to keep infrastructure or be able to exploit their resources after the war... You can't really do that. Its a decision that has to be made.

Modern (21st century) war in a semi-modern (early 20th century or earlier) vein would be hard to predict for a great many reasons. But thinking that the equation would work out the same seems pretty dicey to me.

I agree. Having experienced it personally I can assure your - the hands of the military were tied. They have been since the Korea "police action". If the gloves came off it would be over quickly, but very messy. If a war developed with China in this case, for whatever reason, I hope that our civilian leadership would have the sense to allow the military to do their jobs quickly. Remember the job of the military is "to kill people and break things".

See my comment above. I agree on many points... But also see the possibility that 'total annihilation' in a pre-21st century sense of war may not be in the cards for numerous reasons.

>Who ever owns the islands ... has the rights to exploit the oil/gas fields in the ocean beds around them.

that is the current post-colonial (post-WWI) framework of "independent sovereign nations". This framework starts to show its limitations in dealing with a host of transnational/transcontinental/global issues. Global warming in particular comes to mind. As usually, either framework will get adapted or it will rupture into a new WW, and the new framework will result after it, like it happened after previous WWs.

With regard of mutually assured destruction - this would assure that the war will be fought outside of populated areas, i.e. nobody is going to nuke each others cities (Walmart will still be importing and selling Chinese manufactured goods as sinking the container ships isn't a necessary part of fighting of the modern war for either side :). WWI was new kind of war - trenches. WWII - motorized. WWIII - precision and automated weapons, drones fighting drones.

The industrial base of the US is geared to manufacturing cold war weapons. Chinese industry is geared towards consumer electronics. Which could produce 1 million drones faster? Remember that a smart phone contains many of the key components for a drone.

>Remember that a smart phone contains many of the key components for a drone.

how about stealth supersonic self-landing on aircraft carrier satellite networked drones? Not that i doubt Chinese military or economical might, especially those of tomorrow, it is just they still have some distance to go.

In a conflict with thousands of drones none of that high tech stuff has really proven itself. What good is a satellite network, when satellite communication can be blocked? Why make something disposable stealthy?

Same reason it made sense for the U.K. to prevent Germany from invading France and consolidating Europe. A China fearless of its near seas is a China more ready to secure the energy and natural resources it so desperately needs in central Asia, the middle East, Africa, and South America. The realpolitik angle is that it's simpler to balance a consolidating power versus a consolidated one.

Japan's utility is not only as a strategic launchpad. It also represented, in 2012, $216 billion in trade [1]. That is a $5.5 trillion asset when discounted at the U.S. 30-year rate.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_par...

Manufacturing plants. 30 seconds after the Chinese can no longer supply Walmart for political reasons, we'll be buying Japanese electronics again.

Aside from the obvious diplomatic ally stuff. Our other diplomatic allies would make sure we don't leave Japan hang.

One minor problem is that stretch of water between Japan and China, of course. At this point in their military development, an invasion of Taiwan would be ridiculous much less the Japanese home islands. In a couple decades Taiwan might be toast, but its still another order or two of magnitude to invade Japan.

It's mentioned in the article that mutually assured destruction due to each side having nuclear capability is a big difference between now and WWI.

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