War Clouds on the Horizon
In a previous blog I
noted that we are living in a prewar era analogous to the runup to the start of
World War II. (See: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2023/11/reliving-1930s-part-5.html
) Here Yale historian and global affairs professor Odd Arne Westad argues that
a more appropriate analogy would be that of the prewar period approaching World
War I. In many respects his argument parallels that of Graham Allison’s
Thucydides Trap where the rise of China is inducing fear in the United States
that has the potential to make war inevitable. ( See: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2017/08/my-amazon-review-of-graham-allisons.html
) Instead of the Balkans being the hotspot in the pre-1914 world, today we
China-Taiwan, Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, and Pakistan-India. Anyone of
which that could put the great powers in play.
In the pre-World War
I era it was the rise of Germany that was threatening Britain, but Westad goes
further by stating the bipolar world of the Cold War is over, and, in fact, we
are now living in a multi-polar world with many strong regional actors such as India,
Türkiye, Brazil and Iran. He further analogizes
that Russia is the Austria-Hungary of our day by being China’s junior partner. Similar
to our time, the pre-World War I era was characterized by rising nationalism and
a growing dissatisfaction with globalism. Fear and resentment were the motivating forces of the era. Sound familiar?
My problem with
Westad’s book is that he doesn’t offer real solutions, but who can, to the
U.S.-China antagonism and for the regional hotspots. Because the book was
written prior to the current Iran War, which has the potential for a great
power conflict, Westad doesn’t have much to say. There is also little discussion on the current
revolution in military affairs involving drones and artificial intelligence
which is greatly influencing the diplomatic chessboard. That said, if pre-World
War I is the appropriate analog, we are in for trouble.
