In the decade before World War I, the near-hundred-year European peace that had followed the fall of Napoleon was taken for granted.
Lots and lots of people were well aware of the dangers of the international situation during this decade. They just weren't able to figure out what to do about it. Probably because the conflicts between the "old" powers of Russia, England and France were simply inherently in conflict with those of the "new" power of Germany, and to a lesser extent Italy.
For Germany to get what she viewed as her simple due, she'd have to take stuff away from the others, which was simply unacceptable to them.
I shudder to think what WWIII would look like. I don’t think the US will go unscathed like we did, relatively speaking, in the previous world wars.
Everyone should rent/buy a copy of the movie “The Sand Pebbles.” Aside from being a brilliant movie and probably the best movie of the 1960s, it is wonderful in its depiction of how the US can be drawn into a war not of its own making.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060934/
What is this guy smoking? Under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Russia paid six billion marks and renounced claims to Finland, Estonia, Livonia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Ardahan, Kars, and Batumi -- the vast majority of the populations of which were not ethnically Russian and did not welcome Russian occupation.
Under the Treaty of Versailles Germany, was required to 20 billion gold marks and lost Moresnet, Eupen-Malmedy, Alsace-Lorraine, Czechoslovakia, Upper Silesia, eastern Prussia, Danzig and its surrounding area, and renounce claims to Poland. Bear in mind, unlike the territory lost by Russia, the majority of the populations of a large portion of the territory lost by Germany were ethnic Germans. Germany also lost all foreign colonies, was put under occupation for 15 years and was to "gift" huge portions of its coal production to France for 15 years. Not to mention the crippling military restrictions and being forced to accept responsibility for the war in its entirety, and losing protector status of the nations lost by Russia under Brest-Litovsk.
Anybody who claims that the Treaty of Versailles did not directly lead to ww2 is peddling a serious agenda or else is deluded. The US did not ratify it and the British said the French were being vindictive and harsh. The French didn't like the treaty either -- Clemenceau was voted out of office because the French felt the treaty was too lenient!
Unfortunately, what goes around quite often comes around. What else should France have expected in 1939?
Democrats.
World War III began on September 11, 2001.
It escalated on January 20, 2009.
Ayn Rand once said that America was fast approaching the point where government was free to do whatever it wants, while the average citizen could only act with permission.
When we finally cross that line all the way (think a totalitarian dictatorship), that will be a declaration of war on real Americans.
Is Victor talking about civil war at home?
Excellent essay. Well worth reading in its entirety.
But one correction:
The ancient ingredients of war are all on the horizon. An old postwar order crumbles amid American indifference.
^^^
Should say “perceived American indifference”, as the progressives are definitely not indifferent but wholly committed to a destruction of the postwar order.
Any journeyman biblical scholar has known this for six years.
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach
I am still waiting to see who the actual bad guys will be in this conflict. So far, we have seen no one wanting to fire the first shot. So, who will be the bad guy?
Frankly, I was expecting war to break out over ObamaCare alone. Yet, nothing. Apathy.