
Eve of Disaster - ph0rque
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/01/04/why_2013_looks_a_lot_like_1913?page=full
======
btown
This article seems to suffer from a cognitive dissonance with itself - while
the theme is inherently one of speculation, the author seems to shy away from
speculation wherever possible. Rather, he focuses on enumerating a list of
weakly connected (albeit well-researched) parallels between 2013 and 1913. It
seems he is much too concerned about protecting his words from disagreement;
as a result, the words are not nearly ambitious enough.

Only about 80% of the way through the piece does the author even ask the
question:

> What does any of this say about the world in 2013?

Finally! Now we might be able to see a speculative narrative:

> To take an example of one of the more plausible shocks we now face, a
> miscalculation in the South China Sea could easily set off a chain of events
> not entirely dissimilar to a shot in Sarajevo in 1914, with alliance
> structures, questions of prestige, escalation, credibility, and military
> capability turning what should be marginal to global affairs into a central
> question of war and peace.

And... that's it? The next paragraph is clearly the beginning of the
conclusion of the piece, recapping the earlier paragraphs. As they say,
"that's all she wrote."

I would have loved to see the same depth of research applied to a detailed
analysis of this scenario and others. How are the alliance structures similar
and different? How might world leaders react? What mistakes were made in 1913
that can be avoided today?

This article should be taken for what it is - a thought provoking
introduction, but by no means a successful standalone treatment of the issue.

------
nakedrobot2
Here is the article text, for those who want to avoid that nasty splash
screen.

The leading power of the age is in relative decline, beset by political crisis
at home and by steadily eroding economic prowess. Rising powers are jostling
for position in the four corners of the world, some seeking a new place for
themselves within the current global order, others questioning its very
legitimacy. Democracy and despotism are locked in uneasy competition. A world
economy is interconnected as never before by flows of money, trade, and
people, and by the unprecedented spread of new, distance-destroying
technologies. A global society, perhaps even a global moral consciousness, is
emerging as a result. Small-town America rails at the excessive power of Wall
Street. Asia is rising once again. And, yes, there's trouble in the Middle
East.

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More... Sound familiar?

In many ways, the world of 1913, the last year before the Great War, seems not
so much the world of 100 years ago as the world of today, curiously refracted
through time. It is impossible to look at it without an uncanny feeling of
recognition, telescoping a century into the blink of an eye. But can peering
back into the world of our great-grandparents really help us understand the
world we live in today?

Let's get the caveats out of the way upfront. History does not repeat itself
-- at least not exactly. Analogies from one period to another are never
perfect. However tempting it may be to view China in 2013 as an exact parallel
to Germany in 1913 (the disruptive rising power of its age) or to view the
contemporary United States as going through the exact same experience as
Britain a century ago (a "weary titan staggering under the too vast orb of its
fate," as Joseph Chamberlain put it), things are never quite that
straightforward. Whereas Germany in 1913 explicitly sought a foreign empire,
China in 2013 publicly eschews the idea that it is an expansionist power
(though it is perfectly clear about protecting its interests around the
world). Whereas the German empire in 1913 had barely 40 years of history as a
unified state behind it and was only slightly more populous that Britain or
France, China in 2013 can look back on centuries of continuous history as a
player in world affairs, and it now boasts one-fifth of the world's
population. Whereas Germany's rise was a genuinely new geopolitical phenomenon
in 1913, the rise of China today is more of a return to historical normality.
These differences matter.

Similarly, the strengths and weaknesses of the United States in 2013 are not
quite the same as those of Britain 100 years ago. Then, Britain benefited
politically from being the world's banker and from being the linchpin of the
gold standard. Today the United States, though benefiting politically and
economically from being the issuer of the world's principal reserve currency,
is hardly in the same position: The country is laden with debt. (One can argue
about whether it should really be such a big issue that so much of that debt
is owned by Chinese state entities -- after all, Beijing can't just dump
Treasury bonds if it doesn't get what it wants from Washington. But Chinese
ownership of U.S. debt feeds a perception of American decline, and perceptions
of the relative powers of states matter a lot to how other countries treat
them.) There are other differences between Britain in 1913 and the United
States in 2013. Britain was never a military superpower on the order of the
United States today. There was never a unipolar British moment. Britain in
1913 had slipped behind Germany industrially decades before, living more and
more off the proceeds of the past; the United States in 2013 is still the
world's largest economy and in many respects the most dynamic and most
innovative.

Moreover, the global context in which powers rise and fall in the 21st century
is not quite the same as the one of the early 20th. In 1913, a handful of
empires, mostly European, ruled over most of the world. Only two countries in
Africa -- Ethiopia and Liberia -- could claim to be truly independent. In
2013, the United Nations counts over 190 independent states among its
membership. Fifty-two of these are African. In 1913, one in four of the
world's people lived in Europe; now it's less than one in 10. And the web of
international laws and institutions that bind the world together is much
thicker now than it was 100 years ago, though it shouldn't be forgotten that
the Hague conventions on the laws of war date from before World War I, while
the forerunner of the International Court of Justice opened its doors to the
world in -- you guessed it -- 1913.

But the fact that historical analogies are imperfect -- and the analogy
between 1913 and 2013 is far from being seamless -- does not make them
useless. It simply means that they need to be interpreted with care. As Mark
Twain put it: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." The task is
to listen for those rhymes and to calibrate our hearing to catch them.

In the end, the utility of history to the decision-maker or to the policy
analyst is not as a stock of neatly packaged lessons for the contemporary
world, to be pulled off the shelf and applied formulaically to every
situation. Rather, it is to hone a way of thinking about change and
continuity, contingency and chance. Thinking historically can remind us of the
surprises that can knock states and societies off course and, at the same
time, can check our enthusiasm for believing that this time is different. The
world of 1913, on the threshold of the seminal catastrophe of the 20th century
yet by and large not expecting it, is a case in point. Sure, there is such a
sin as misusing history -- abusing history, even. But there is a much worse
mistake: imagining that we have escaped it.

Technology is a common culprit here. It is often remarked that we live in an
era of superfast, hypertransformative technological innovation, when history,
as Henry Ford put it, is bunk. When innovation comes packaged in the form of a
shiny new iPhone -- the subatomic functioning of which seems pretty close to
magic -- it is easy to succumb to the technofantasy that we live in an
entirely new age, a new era, quite unlike anything that has come before. Yet
radical technological change is hardly new. The world of 1913 had its own
revolutionary technologies. Radio telegraphy was being introduced, with the
promise of improving the safety of shipping at sea and allowing market and
strategic information to be pinged around the globe without the need for
wires. Automobiles were coming off the world's first production line -- Ford's
Highland Park plant in Detroit -- and being shipped around the world,
including, in 1913, to the Buddhist monks of Mongolia. Oil was replacing coal
to fuel the British Royal Navy -- the world's largest -- pushing the Admiralty
to go into the oil business in southern Iran and inaugurating modern petroleum
diplomacy in the Middle East. The first feature-length Hollywood movie began
shooting at the end of the year, and the first Indian film reached cinemas in
Bombay. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson even used a campaign film in the
presidential election of the previous year. (Its theme would be well suited to
2013: Tax the rich.)

In the end, technological advances, remarkable in themselves, change things
much more than we can ever expect -- the speed of adoption of new technologies
is hard to predict, and the second- or third-order impacts of adoption even
less so -- but also much less. However new the technology, it is ultimately
being grafted onto the rather old technology of the individual human, or the
community, or the state. And even the newest of technologies can be
manipulated for the oldest of ends. It took less than 10 years from the Wright
brothers' first flight, a truly revolutionary and liberating event in the
history of humanity, to the first use of aircraft to conduct aerial bombing:
over the cities of Libya in 1911 and over the Balkans in 1912 and 1913.
Similarly, while the Internet was hailed 20 years ago as a force for the
liberation of oppressed people around the world -- and indeed many people
still see it that way -- authoritarian states have begun to wise up too. At
the end of 2012, a rogues' gallery of authoritarian states tried to use a U.N.
conference to advance an agenda of much tighter state control of the Internet
internationally. Domestically, such states are already using aspects of the
Internet to contain or watch their people. The world's second-oldest
profession -- espionage -- has rapidly adapted itself to operations in the
open, online world. Technology may be a driver of historical change, but it is
subject to historical context too.

To the historically minded, the recurrence of particular themes, or particular
rhymes, through history -- human greed, the manipulation of technology, the
importance of geography in determining military outcomes, the power of belief
in shaping politics, a solid conviction that this time is different -- is no
surprise. You thought that the debt-fueled boom of the 2000s was different
from all those other booms throughout history? Wrong. The ancient Greeks, with
their understanding of greed, self-deception, hubris, and nemesis, would have
been quite able to interpret the 2008 financial crisis without the need for an
advanced degree in financial astrophysics from Harvard Business School. You
thought pacifying Afghanistan would be a piece of cake because we have laser-
guided munitions and drones these days? Not so much. You think that
globalization is destined to continue forever, that interstate war is
impossible, and that the onward march of democracy is ineluctable? Hang on a
second; isn't that what people thought in 1913?

The crucial point about the world 100 years ago, then, is not that it is
identical to the world today -- it isn't -- but that there was a time, in the
not-so-distant past, when a globalized world, not entirely dissimilar to our
own, fell apart. And it wasn't because human societies were in the grip of the
uncontrollable forces of destiny or that they were particularly dumb. Most
just didn't expect things to pan out the way they did. People actually living
through the year 1913 did not experience those 12 months as the moody prelude
to catastrophe. In retrospect, there were storm clouds on the horizon. But at
the time, many people found themselves living through the best of times -- or
simply had other things to think about.

The world in 1913 was dynamic, modern, interconnected, smart -- just like
ours. 1913 was the year that the modern European art of the Armory Show
conquered New York. It was the year the United States established the Federal
Reserve, the essential precondition for the global financial power that it
would later become, in much the same way that the emergence of the Chinese
renminbi as a globally traded currency today is laying the groundwork for a
Chinese challenge to American financial supremacy tomorrow. 1913 was the year
Gandhi made a name for himself as a political agitator in South Africa, the
year Australians laid the foundation for their new capital city, the year
Russian Ballets Russes took the capitals of Europe by storm -- and then did
the same in Buenos Aires, then one of the richest and fastest-growing cities
on Earth. In 1913, China assembled its first democratically assembled
parliament, weeks after the leader of its largest party, Song Jiaoren, had
been assassinated -- a murder that perhaps changed the course of global
history as much as the far more famous killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of
Austria-Hungary in Sarajevo a year later. In 1913, Lenin was living in exile
in the mountains of Galicia; Russia was in the middle of an industrial boom,
with many believing that the moment of maximum revolutionary danger had passed
and that the Tsarist Empire was on its way to becoming the dominant Eurasian
power. In 1913, Japan -- a country that in 60 years had gone from being a
hermit empire to an expansive, industrializing Asian nation, recognized as a
peer by the other great powers -- was dealing with the uncertainties of a new
emperor on the throne and mourning the death of the last shogun. In the last
year before the Great War, Germany was Britain's second-largest trading
partner, leading many in the City of London -- and across Europe -- to
conclude that, despite the rise of Anglo-German antagonism over naval
armaments, a war between the two was unlikely. If the international solidarity
of the workers did not stop a war, the self-interest of global finance would,
it was argued.

Of course, there were prognosticators of gloom and doom in 1913 -- just as
there are in any era. But there were plenty of seasoned observers of the world
then who saw the processes of internationalization all around them -- of
everything from the measurement of time to the laws of war -- as the natural
unfolding of history's grand plan. "No country, no continent any longer lives
an independent life," wrote G.P. Gooch, a British historian, in 1913. "As the
world contracts the human race grows more conscious of its unity. Ideas,
ideals, and experiments make the tour of the globe. Civilisation has become
international." Many noted that economic globalization made war unprofitable;
some thought it made it impossible. In 1913, as in previous years, an
international exhibition was held to commemorate the advances of the world
toward greater integration -- held in Belgium this time, in a city that would
quake with the sound of artillery shells within a year. In 1913, German Kaiser
Wilhelm II was viewed by some as a peacemaker. A few years earlier, president
of the University of California/Berkeley had nominated him for the Nobel Peace
Prize.

What does any of this say about the world in 2013?

Not that we are on the cusp of a new Great War and that, on reading this, you
should head for the hills and hope for the best. There is nothing inevitable
about future conflict between the great powers and there is nothing foretold
about the collapse of global trade -- though I would argue that both are
substantially more likely now than 10 years ago. But looking at the world of
1913 reminds us that there is nothing immutable about the continuity of
globalization either, and certainly nothing immutable about the Western-
oriented globalization of the last few decades.

There are plenty of distinct and plausible shocks to the system that could
knock our expectations of the future wildly off course -- and plenty of
surprises that we can neither predict nor anticipate, but that we can
indirectly prepare for by attuning ourselves to the possibility of their
occurrence. To take an example of one of the more plausible shocks we now
face, a miscalculation in the South China Sea could easily set off a chain of
events not entirely dissimilar to a shot in Sarajevo in 1914, with alliance
structures, questions of prestige, escalation, credibility, and military
capability turning what should be marginal to global affairs into a central
question of war and peace.

In a general sense, while the United States in 2013 may not be a perfect
analogue for Britain in 1913 (nor China in 2013 a perfect analogue for Germany
in 1913), it is certainly the case that the world we are now entering is more
similar to that of 100 years ago -- a world of competitive multipolarity --
than that of a quarter-century ago. Just as in 1913, technology, trade, and
finance bind the world together now -- and rational self-interest would
suggest that the integration that these forces have brought about is
irreversible. Yet, over the last few years, the world has witnessed a rise in
trade protection, a breakdown in global trade negotiations, totally inadequate
progress on global climate discussions, and moves to fragment the Internet.
There is a corrosive and self-fulfilling sense that the dominance of the West
-- as the world's rule-maker and pace-setter -- is over.

Humanity is forever condemned to live with uncertainty about the future. But
thinking historically equips us to better gauge that uncertainty, to temper
biases, question assumptions, and stretch our imagination. By understanding
the history of other countries -- particularly those that are re-emerging to
global eminence now -- we might better understand their mindsets, hopes, and
fears. And when we've done that, we might find we need to think again about
how to build a future of our own making, rather than one decided for us by
events.

The world of 1913 -- brilliant, dynamic, interdependent -- offers a warning.
The operating system of the world in that year was taken by many for granted.
In 2013, at a time of similar global flux, the biggest mistake we could
possibly make is to assume that the operating system of our own world will
continue indefinitely, that all we need to do is stroll into the future, and
that the future will inevitably be what we want it to be. Those comforting
times are over. We need to prepare ourselves for a much rougher ride ahead.

------
smacktoward
I'm amazed that the author of this piece managed to write all those words
analogizing 2013 to 1913 without ever mentioning the huge, obvious difference
between the two eras: the existence of nuclear weapons. Those weapons create
pressures against direct state-on-state confrontation that simply did not
exist in 1913.

~~~
userulluipeste
You ignore something else. The nuclear weapons would (arguable) create real
pressure only against countries that don't have them, and even then - it's a
big risk to anyone raising the stacks and pulling the big gun. This is similar
to the WW2, where chemical weapons although being available, weren't used.

------
iwwr
One thing that's not mentioned a lot, it's frighteningly easy to drag a whole
country into a war, especially if regarded as a defensive one. The media are
obedient and sensationalist, they will drum up the public for it. Once the
train starts moving it's hard to stop.

War is the easiest thing to fund, a true emergency that requires extraordinary
powers for the state.

~~~
arethuza
"... voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the
leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked
and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to
danger. It works the same way in any country."

~~~
gordonguthrie
A quote from Goering if I'm not mistaken.

~~~
arethuza
Yes - I didn't want to auto-Godwin by mentioning who said it when it's a
fairly easy Google away.

------
DigitalSea
It's such a shame that a really well-written and somewhat thought out opinion
piece is dragged down by the low quality comments from people who don't know
what they're talking about. That and the fact FP force you to create a free
account to read an article.

~~~
jessaustin
To avoid setting up a new account, I found you can just hit the stop button
after the main page loads but before the nag box appears.

Which if anything makes this misfeature even more annoying.

~~~
jamesaguilar
Another option is to right click the section in chrome and delete the div. An
even more general option, if you have adblock, is to right click and use
"Block this ad" to block the div forever. You will also need to block the div
in the background that shadows the text.

~~~
xyzzy123
Or from firefox's web console: (Ctrl-Shift-K) and in the little eval bar:

    
    
      $('div#TB_window').remove()
      $('div#TB_overlay').remove()

------
anigbrowl
This makes for an interesting read in conjunction with that National Interest
article re-evaluating Oswald Spengler's legacy (via
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5029200>). Perhaps I'm being parochial,
but I worry a bit less about a Pacific conflict (at least in the short term)
than I do about what would follow a collapse in the Euro and the subsequent
zero-sum bitterness that would surely result.

------
TeMPOraL
Thank God this forced login popup is killable via browser's developer tools.
But why oh why did they put this on their page? Could people stop doing that?

------
xyzzy123
The only point in the article which made sense to me was:

"it is certainly the case that the world we are now entering is more similar
to that of 100 years ago -- a world of competitive multipolarity -- than that
of a quarter-century ago."

I didn't really follow the rest of analogies being made; they were all sort of
weasel-worded to acknowledge what a stretch they were.

~~~
cpleppert
I'm not sure I understand the comparison being made in that sentence. Europe
and the US dominated the world at that point, Japan although a force in asia
had a minuscule economy compared to the west. The world is far more multipolar
now than it was a hundred years ago and it will continue to be so.

~~~
smacktoward
Europe in 1913 was a collection of feuding empires rather than a semi-unified
entity like it is today. Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia all had
commercial and geopolitical interests that conflicted with each other, and a
long history of fighting major wars in pursuit of those interests.

Additionally, the United States at the time was coming out of a long period of
isolation and beginning to flex her muscles in Latin America and the Pacific.
The American victory over Spain in the Spanish-American War
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War>) demonstrated
that the US was willing to fight established European powers, and could win.
Similarly, Japan was relatively small economically, but by 1913 she had
inflicted a major defeat on Russia in the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War>), making her another rising
power.

------
willyt
US from 1870-1910 is much more analogous to China from 1980-2030 than Germany
surely. Rapidly industrialising, large untapped low skilled population,
abundant natural resources, people generating large personal wealth very
quickly. However, like Britian in early 20th C the US has excessive military
spending and burgeoning debt. You could argue that post war austerity in
Britian (to pay for the cost of the wars) is what destroyed
entrepreneurialism, which had been prevalent in Britain right through the
Victorian era, by restricting access to capital for investment in industry.

