
Mega-wars that shaped world history - anarbadalov
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-mega-wars-that-shaped-world-history/
======
JumpCrisscross
*since ~1796, in case anyone else went searching for the Punic Wars.

~~~
nn3
I was looking for the battle of Tollense

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tollense_valley_battlefield](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tollense_valley_battlefield)

Trojan war would have been nice too

~~~
garmaine
The real Trojan war was an uneventful raid on a coastal city, one of hundreds
that happened in that region and era. Just one that happened to inspire a
particularly gifted poet...

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Der_Einzige
Why do folks forget the precursor to WW1 - the franco-prussian war?

That was a huge war! Lead to German unification, over one million casualties
(if you count civilians) and slightly less than that if you don't.

~~~
xref
And Germany defeated France in 6 months, which 43 years later gave the Germans
confidence that France would surrender by Christmas 1914...

------
dntbnmpls
> WWII is the quintessential transformational war, not only because of the
> sweeping changes it brought to the global order but also because of the
> decades-long shadows it cast over the rest of the 20th century.

This is funny because my history professor used ww2 as the quintessential
example of a non-transformational war. Nothing essential changed as a result
of ww2. All those lives lost for essentially nothing. The power structure pre-
ww2 ( US, Britain, Soviet Union ) was precisely the same post-ww2 ( US,
Britain, Soviet Union ). The same people who ruled the world before ww2, ruled
it after ww2 without any systematic change. There was no paradigm shift as a
result of ww2. The international world order remained in place.

WW2 was the bloodiest war. It was the most destructive war. But it wasn't
transformational because the side trying to cause a transformation ( reshape
world ) lost and they lost badly.

~~~
btilly
WW 2 is the war that took the USA from an isolationist power to global
policeman. Conversely it set the UK (and to a lesser extent, France) on the
path of liberating their colonies. It also set the state for the UN to be
created. And the groundwork for a new international norm against wars of
conquest.

Yes, the same countries wound up staying in charge. But it transformed the
world.

~~~
dntbnmpls
> WW 2 is the war that took the USA from an isolationist power to global
> policeman.

The US was never isolationist. It's one of those lies that we tell ourselves
to pretend we aren't an empire. If we were isolationists, we would be a 13
state nation.

Our first vassal nation was japan and we got them in the 1850s. But of course,
we'd never call them that since that's what empires do.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Expedition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Expedition)

Go read up on the spanish american war and the colonies we got from that (
also in the 1800s ).

And of course wars to prevent freedom of the philippines, etc.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_Wa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_War)

Go read about the Great White Fleet.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_White_Fleet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_White_Fleet)

For an isolationist nation, we sure did get around.

> Conversely it set the UK (and to a lesser extent, France) on the path of
> liberating their colonies.

Path of "liberating"? The UK and France didn't liberate anything. The indians,
vietnamese, etc all fought bloody wars to free themselves from their brutal
colonial masters. Tens of millions of indians, vietnamese, algerians, sub-
saharan africans, burmese, etc had to die to liberate themselves. India,
vietnam, algeria, etc weren't given their freedom by the "gracious" brits,
french, etc. The british, french, etc colonizers were never the good guys.

> And the groundwork for a new international norm against wars of conquest.

How convenient since the world had already been conquered by the winners huh?
Not much left to conquer other than land dominated by the "winners". Also it
wasn't anything new. The league of nations already laid the groundwork.
Funnily enough, germany and japan weren't too fond of that since they had just
begun their quest for conquest.

> Yes, the same countries wound up staying in charge. But it transformed the
> world.

The former negates the latter. If you could point out the fundamental (
paradigm shift ) that occurred because of ww2, I'm all ears. Instead of saying
it transformed the world, point out the transformation.

~~~
btilly
In the 1800s the US was indeed expansionist. But their view was that of
Manifest Destiny - it was the USA's manifest destiny to expand and control the
Western hemisphere. To that end the USA launched wars (eg against Mexico),
fought against colonial powers, and so on.

However it was also a defined sphere of influence. The USA was late to both WW
1 and 2 because what happened in Europe was widely felt to not be the USA's
affair. Privately we armed one side, but we didn't fight. It was not until the
Kaiser attempted to form an alliance with Mexico that the USA entered into WW
1. And not until Japan attacked did the USA enter WW 2. After WW 2, the USA
proactively looked for opportunities to engage world wide.

On the colonies, all of the European powers had put down rebellions
repeatedly. After WW 2 they moved towards transferring power to local
authorities. And their desire to do this was codified in the UN charter. See
[https://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/chapter-
xi/index.h...](https://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/chapter-
xi/index.html) for verification.

~~~
dntbnmpls
> it was the USA's manifest destiny to expand and control the Western
> hemisphere... However it was also a defined sphere of influence.

China is in the western hemisphere?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangtze_Patrol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangtze_Patrol)

Japan is in the western hemisphere?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Expedition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Expedition)

Is the philippines part of the western hemisphere?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_Wa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_War)

> After WW 2, the USA proactively looked for opportunities to engage world
> wide.

Simply not true. We proactively looked for opportunities before ww2. We even
briefly invaded russia.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_Wa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_War)

> On the colonies, all of the European powers had put down rebellions
> repeatedly.

They tried to put down independence movements after ww2 also.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Indochina_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Indochina_War)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_National_Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_National_Revolution)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Mau_Uprising](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Mau_Uprising)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_War)

> And their desire to do this was codified in the UN charter. See
> [https://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/chapter-
> xi/index.h...](https://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/chapter-
> xi/index.h..). for verification.

Wow. Empty virtue signaling words. With such empty words, one wonders why so
many colonized peoples had to die after ww2 to free themselves from their
brutal colonizers?

Seems like there are a lot of people defending the brutal colonizers. I wonder
why?

------
baybal2
The author completely forgot to include the thirty year war, it was
instrumental in completely breaking Habsburg hegemony "almost" overnight on
the historical scale, and opened way for historical shift of power to Western
Europe from Central, and Eastern Europe.

~~~
Merrill
The Thirty Years War also confirmed that the primary legitimate basis for
power would be noble birth instead of ordination by God - a shift begun by the
Reformation.

The French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars began the shift away from noble birth
and WW I&II confirmed that the primary legitimate basis for power would be
ownership and property.

~~~
whatshisface
By ordination by God you mean ordination by the local religious authority,
right?

~~~
kick
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings)

~~~
whatshisface
That's a religious justification for noble birth. The system it backs up _is_
heritable monarchy, it didn't precede it.

~~~
kick
_That 's a religious justification for noble birth._

No. (See: Chinese Mandate of Heaven; the multiple examples of people claiming
to be ordained by gods and similar higher powers historically despite no or
little connection to nobility, so on.)

 _The system it backs up is heritable monarchy, it didn 't precede it._

Assuming this is true (which seems highly dubious), what are you contesting?
Their claim is that God ordained their rulership, not that 'local religious
authorities' did. Regardless of existence of the entity in question, _" the
primary legitimate basis for power would be noble birth instead of ordination
by God"_ is the right thing to say.

~~~
pasabagi
>(which seems highly dubious)

Seems trivially true, to me. The european feudal system developed out of the
late roman imperial system, that would have vicars and dukes, with the dukes
representing secular military authority.

Also, off the top of my head, I think somebody like Charlemagne (as the first
guy I know who merged military rule with the support of the pope) would have
been wholy interested in christian support for secular reasons (and vice
versa). Being the roman emperor, appointed by the pope, would presumably help
with his legitimacy in Italy and Gaul.

------
otabdeveloper2
Apparently, 'world history' started in 1850?

Good to know!

------
mirimir
> And in 1918 the victorious powers, dictating a new European peace at
> Versailles, would not have credited that Adolf Hitler, a destitute, neurotic
> would-be artist and gassed veteran of the trench warfare, would within two
> decades undo their new order and plunge the world into its greatest war.

According to a book review discussed recently here, Hoover did. Said book
review totally transformed my understanding of him. And OK, not Hitler
personally, but conceptually.

~~~
redis_mlc
> dictating a new European peace at Versailles, would not have credited that
> Adolf Hitler, a destitute, neurotic would-be artist and gassed veteran of
> the trench warfare, would within two decades undo their new order and plunge
> the wo

Well, when you're too timid to occupy defeated enemies, you get another war.

That's why Russia insisted on occupying Berlin in WW2.

A little-known fact is that the USA proposed enslaving Germany, which leaked
out and is why there was no chance of peace talks. The USA wanted to decimate
the population, deindustrialize Germany and make them peasant farmers. Russia
subsequently succeeded in doing that.

In a way it's a backhanded compliment to how much the Allies feared them.

~~~
mirimir
> Well, when you're too timid to occupy defeated enemies, you get another war.

The US occupied Germany for decades. At first, very clearly, killing
substantial numbers of resistance fighters. And then more subtly and covertly.
Its occupying force was ostensibly to ward off the Soviet Union, but there was
a domestic role as well. And its policies in Japan were similar.

That's the thing about the US. While there are numerous well-known examples of
ham-handedness, US interventions have generally been so subtle and covert that
their mention is readily discounted as conspiracy theory.

------
excalibur
This article is excerpted from “Global Catastrophes and Trends: The Next Fifty
Years," first published in 2008. If some portions seem outdated, it's not just
you.

------
nwallin
I think the author is underselling WWI.

1\. Undid the Ottoman Empire. If the Ottomans had limped around for 20 more
years, they would have found themselves in a century drunk on oil, while in
charge of the majority of the world's oil reserves. The Ottomans would have
been the global superpower of the latter half of the 20th century.

2\. Rise of Communism. Lenin was an outcast living in Switzerland when the
Tsar was overthrown. He arrived in Russia -- delivered there by Germany and
with significant German funding -- two months after the interim government had
taken over. It was a liberal democracy, not unlike the government of the US or
France, that had the most power when Lenin arrived. Even if the Russian Empire
had still fallen, the century probably wouldn't have fallen under the shadow
of communism.

3\. The center of world banking moved from London to New York City. After the
end of 1916 or so, Britain was pretty much broke, and the war effort was to a
significant extent funded by NYC bankers. London indebted themselves greatly
to the US, and wherever you were in the world, if you wanted something to do
with money, you went to New York City to get it, because England didn't have
any. Of course, for these loans to mean anything, Britain would have to win
the war (and reparations) which leads us to...

4\. USA as world police. The US wanted nothing to do with European, Asian, or
African politics. Even Teddy Roosevelt's "imperialist" attitudes were limited
to North and South America. If Wilson wanted all the NYC banks to not go
bankrupt, he'd have to enter the war- which he did. And thus began America's
role as world police rather than a regional power.

5\. The Belfast declaration and the catastrophic carving of the Arab world on
arbitrary lines. Israel's foundation was laid down in 1917 by England
declarating their intention to create a Jewish state in Palestine. And the
borders drawn up on meaningless lines in the desert rather than along ethnic
boundaries plunged the Arab world into a century of sectarian violence and
chaos.

6\. The Ottoman Empire would have gladly sold oil to Japan during their wars
with China. (which likely still would have happened) Japan never would have
had the quarrel with the United States that lead to the attack on Pearl
Harbor.

While I'm not trying to minimize the human life cost of WWI, I actually don't
think the death toll of the war was really all that significant. China's had a
dozen or so civil wars with higher death tolls. More people died of the flu in
1918 and 1919 than all combat deaths from 1914 to 1918 combined. But WWI had
an outsized effect on world history. I think it's probably the most
transformational event in human history since... I dunno, Columbus introducing
the Americas to Europe.

I don't know what the world would look like if WWI didn't play out the way it
did. But it wouldn't look like this.

------
jackcosgrove
The article mentions the come-from-nowhere stories of people like Hong Xiuquan
and Adolf Hitler, but I see these figures as catalysts of larger forces that
had been in play for decades.

I see two major mega-wars in the past 300 years within the western world,
whose history I am most familiar with. Both were results of a rising power
challenging the existing superpower for supremacy.

The first was the stretch bookended by the Seven Years War and the Napoleonic
Wars, which I think can causally be combined, especially when factoring in how
French finances following the Seven Years War and American Revolution
contributed to the French Revolution. These wars were a Thucydides trap as
Britain was challenging France for European supremacy. Britain succeeded in
displacing France at the top.

The next megawar was the German challenge to Anglo-American supremacy, which
took place in WWI and WWII. Germany failed to displace the Anglo countries.

Both war were Thucydides traps with different outcomes, and the severity of
the conflict and long shadow cast by the wars is due to the stakes involved.

~~~
stefan_
WW2 as some sort of Anglo-challenge must be a uniquely American school system
PoV.

~~~
jackcosgrove
WWI and WWII can be seen as one war, which was the attempt by Germany to
displace the UK and wider Anglo world as the dominant western power. I think
it makes sense to group the wars together.

I don't know how widespread this view is.

~~~
gerdesj
Not very widespread. You may not have a very long view on history. Take a look
at my username (I'm "English" by the way). Just in case I need to spell it
out: Gerdes ~= German.

Those two wars had very different reasons despite Germany being a participant
in both of them. Russia (famous for not being Anglo) was a major player in
those wars as well and we should not overlook Japan etc as well.

------
vkou
The British conquest of India, which spanned the late-18th and early-19th
centuries, killing millions of people, and affecting the fate of hundreds of
millions seems to be strangely absent.

It's not even mentioned as a footnote.

~~~
gerdesj
"Renowned scientist and best-selling author Vaclav Smil meticulously charts
the single largest cause of non-natural mortality in the 20th century."

The article is about C20 mate.

~~~
vkou
The article meanders quite a bit, wandering into the 18th and 19th centuries.

