To be fair, fighting WW1 was predictably stupid. Sometimes countries do dumb things. This gets worse with autocrats, because their whims and delusions can have an outsized effect on national choices.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Taiwanese government hasn’t subtly signaled to China that the fans would be destroyed within 10minutes of an invasion. It would be stupid for them not too. Then again China is liable (but not guaranteed) to invade Taiwan less because of the fabs, and more because they consider Taiwan a rogue province that they want back.
WW1 was the first turn-of-the-century war fought with automatic rifles. There were battles foreshadowing the impact of automatic guns (Russo-Japanese War) but the real impact (trench warfare and the later development of war tanks) were seen developing on the fly.
Just go and search for early pictures of ww1, France was still using 19th century flamboyant uniforms that proved totally ineffective and later gave way to brown, camouflaged cloth.
Everyone thought WW1 would be quick and dissipate in a matter of months. Nobody was prepared for year long conflicts.
We can think that the war was predictably stupid because in hindsight we can see all the stupidity, but that is our historical privilege. Nobody was prepared for that in 1914. Just like we might very well be totally unprepared for the probable next worldwide conflict.
Everyone thought WW1 would be quick and dissipate in a matter of months. Nobody was prepared for year long conflicts.
Everyone, except those who were in the military officer corps and thus knew that modern war was going to be a long, drawn-out, bloody affair. In other words, the experts knew it was going to be long, but the politicians and the media ignored the experts' opinions because what do they know?
I agree that that is a problem with the system back then (and even now considering how much military power is under the POTUS). Regardless, those are the ones that are in charge so I think it is fair to say we, as in the society was not prepared for those conflicts.
And this repeated itself in the second world war. The late battles near japanese homeland were the first to reach the United States population without the heroic and patriotic filtering, all thanks to the work of Tom Lea.
The civil war also had some cannons blasting... but the weapons were VERY different. A well trained soldier was shooting 2-3 bullets per minute in the civil war. WW2 machine guns were 25 rounds per second. There is no comparison of the destruction capabilities...
Sure, but at a limited scale. And the Germans knew that a trench duel was unwinnable going into ww1, hence the Schlieffen-plan. The intention was to take out France in aug 1914 and then swing around before Russia was even fully mobilized.
The major turning points were still more like battles from the Napoleonic Wars than WWI.
It's also much easier with hindsight to view them as precursors to the trench warfare of WWI. But I believe contemporaries viewed it more like classic siege warfare.
WWI occurred in a brief window where defensive technology/strategy was much more effective* than offensive technology/strategy.
*defense almost ways is easier, but it was much more than normal in that period.
In the de-constructive palingenetic perspective some see in its human promoters:
And had not «mere anarchy», as W.B. Yeats put it in 1916, been «loosed upon the world»? To many, the war had seemed the greatest calamity since the fall of Rome. Germany, from fear and ambition, and Austria, from resignation and despair, had willed the war in a way the other belligerents had not. It marked the culmination of the wave of pessimism in German philosophy which was its salient characteristic in the pre-war period. Germanic pessimism, which contrasted sharply with the optimism based upon political change and reform to be found in the United States, Britain, France and even Russia in the decade before 1914, was not the property of the intelligentsia but was to be found at every level of German society, particularly at the top. In the weeks before the outbreak of Armageddon, Bethmann Hollweg's secretary and confident Kurt Riezler made notes of the gloomy relish with which his master steered Germany and Europe into the abyss. July 7 1914: «The Chancellor expects that a war, whatever its outcome, will result in the uprooting of everything that exists. The existing world very antiquated, without ideas». July 27: «Doom greater than human power hanging over Europe and our own people». Bethmann Hollweg had been born in the same year as Freud, and it was as though he personified the "death instinct" the latter coined as the fearful decade ended. Like most educated Germans, he had read Max Nordau's Degeneration, published in 1895, and was familiar with the degenerative theories of the Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso. War or no war, man was in inevitable decline; civilization was heading for destruction. Such ideas were commonplace in central Europe, preparing the way for the gasp of approbation which greeted Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West, fortuitously timed for publication in 1918 when the predicted suicide had been accomplished.
Coming from the guy that built a pan-European system of alliances with the sole purpose of preventing opposing blocks to form, yeah. A pity the big powers, Germany being one of the first ones, tore Bismarck's system of alliances down.
Not sure the tragedy that happened in the Balkans qualifies as foolish. The local Slavic population was sick of the Austro-Hungary's rule and wanted to kick out the empire they never invited.
WW1 made perverse sense when viewed in the mindset that existed in Europe from the early gunpowder age to the end of the Napoleonic wars. They just didn't account for the rise of nationalism, total war, and industrialization.
China understands that wars of expansion rarely have worked since WWII. They know a single US submarine could cripple world semiconductor manufacturing for months.
But I agree, they might try it for non-economic reasons like reunification. Or maybe cause they think--rightly or wrongly--that the USA would cower and wouldn't support Taiwan at all. Wars can be caused by miscalculation too.
>that the USA would cower and wouldn't support Taiwan at all.
At most that would only last 1 election cycle, so they would have to unify and hold it fast, very fast. Any Administration that would allow China to take over Taiwan would surrender (rightfully) all their political power and be ousted by a landslid the next election
I think you'd be surprised how quickly we'd get over that. Regardless, if we abandoned Taiwan and it fell, there is pretty much no chance we'd invade several years later.
China understands that wars of expansion rarely have worked since WWII.
coughs in Crimea, Hongkong and arguably Israel, Syria and Turkey
Wars of expansion can and do still work, all it needs is for the rest of the world to stand aside just as they did in 1933-45 - and the signs don't look good, given that the reaction for Russian and Chinese annexation projects was nothing more than a couple ineffective sanctions.
Crimea is the best success, but its because it really more of an annexation of a population that is ethnically same as the annexing nation.
I don't want to give what Russia did legitimacy, but its closer to self-determination than most liberal internationalist (the IR theory, I don't mean US liberals) will give it credit for. Crimea was only part of Ukraine due to the dictates of the Soviet Union and had only been part of it since 1954. Then again, maybe I'm overestimating how strong Taiwanese nationalism is.
In places like Syria, you see what happens when different ethnicities fight over territory. It's a bloody mess and everyone is worse for it.
Israel is in a different position since they really just want the land and not really the economy and people on the land. They are ethnically cleansing and then populating the area with settlers.
I was going to say that is unique in this age, but its really not all that different from what China did in Tibet or is doing in Xinjiang.
What really diminished since WWII is real ethnical cleansing. And I mean by the definition of "forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area". What China did was move in their people, and what Israel did is curve out the areas with low existing population and called them their own.
This, together with the democratic nature of the western world has led to a place where annexation of an area becomes infeasible for a place with a large opposing population (which is why Israel is not officially annexing the west bank).
Comments
To be fair, fighting WW1 was predictably stupid. Sometimes countries do dumb things. This gets worse with autocrats, because their whims and delusions can have an outsized effect on national choices.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Taiwanese government hasn’t subtly signaled to China that the fans would be destroyed within 10minutes of an invasion. It would be stupid for them not too. Then again China is liable (but not guaranteed) to invade Taiwan less because of the fabs, and more because they consider Taiwan a rogue province that they want back.
WW1 was the first turn-of-the-century war fought with automatic rifles. There were battles foreshadowing the impact of automatic guns (Russo-Japanese War) but the real impact (trench warfare and the later development of war tanks) were seen developing on the fly.
Just go and search for early pictures of ww1, France was still using 19th century flamboyant uniforms that proved totally ineffective and later gave way to brown, camouflaged cloth.
Everyone thought WW1 would be quick and dissipate in a matter of months. Nobody was prepared for year long conflicts.
We can think that the war was predictably stupid because in hindsight we can see all the stupidity, but that is our historical privilege. Nobody was prepared for that in 1914. Just like we might very well be totally unprepared for the probable next worldwide conflict.
Everyone, except those who were in the military officer corps and thus knew that modern war was going to be a long, drawn-out, bloody affair. In other words, the experts knew it was going to be long, but the politicians and the media ignored the experts' opinions because what do they know?
I agree that that is a problem with the system back then (and even now considering how much military power is under the POTUS). Regardless, those are the ones that are in charge so I think it is fair to say we, as in the society was not prepared for those conflicts.
And this repeated itself in the second world war. The late battles near japanese homeland were the first to reach the United States population without the heroic and patriotic filtering, all thanks to the work of Tom Lea.
Trench warfare, and really much of the technology used in WWI, was seen first in the American civil war
The civil war also had some cannons blasting... but the weapons were VERY different. A well trained soldier was shooting 2-3 bullets per minute in the civil war. WW2 machine guns were 25 rounds per second. There is no comparison of the destruction capabilities...
They absolutely invented machine guns in the Civil War, as well as metal ships.
"In 1862, Richard Jordan Gatling invented a multi-barreled, rotating gun operated by a hand crank that could fire up to 200 rounds a minute."
https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/gatling-gu...
I'm not sure what war you're thinking of.
How many were in the civil war vs ww2? What was your odds of going against one? Huge huge huge difference
Sure, but at a limited scale. And the Germans knew that a trench duel was unwinnable going into ww1, hence the Schlieffen-plan. The intention was to take out France in aug 1914 and then swing around before Russia was even fully mobilized.
The major turning points were still more like battles from the Napoleonic Wars than WWI.
It's also much easier with hindsight to view them as precursors to the trench warfare of WWI. But I believe contemporaries viewed it more like classic siege warfare.
WWI occurred in a brief window where defensive technology/strategy was much more effective* than offensive technology/strategy.
*defense almost ways is easier, but it was much more than normal in that period.
In what universe was WW1 predictably stupid. WW1 happened due to a complex series of treaties, nationalism, and many other things.
Nobody thought it would get as bad as it did
In the de-constructive palingenetic perspective some see in its human promoters:
Paul Johnson, Modern Times.
“One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.”– Otto von Bismarck (1888)
Coming from the guy that built a pan-European system of alliances with the sole purpose of preventing opposing blocks to form, yeah. A pity the big powers, Germany being one of the first ones, tore Bismarck's system of alliances down.
Not sure the tragedy that happened in the Balkans qualifies as foolish. The local Slavic population was sick of the Austro-Hungary's rule and wanted to kick out the empire they never invited.
Yep, everybody thought the war would be a quick affaire. And an unavoidable at that, so most major powers wanted the war for various reasons.
You just described how the US civil war started too. Expected to be less than 3 months initially.
Everyone ever was supposed to be home before Christmas, right?
I imagine nobody starts a war if they think it will be long.
We've spent the last 70 years ignoring complex treaties. There were treaties that suggested we fight for Ukraine's sovereignty, for example.
The entire moral of the story is "maybe don't back Poland." (WW2)
WW1 was stupid but inevitable, in that if it didn't happen then it would have happened soon after. A lesson all had to learn.
WW1 made perverse sense when viewed in the mindset that existed in Europe from the early gunpowder age to the end of the Napoleonic wars. They just didn't account for the rise of nationalism, total war, and industrialization.
China understands that wars of expansion rarely have worked since WWII. They know a single US submarine could cripple world semiconductor manufacturing for months.
But I agree, they might try it for non-economic reasons like reunification. Or maybe cause they think--rightly or wrongly--that the USA would cower and wouldn't support Taiwan at all. Wars can be caused by miscalculation too.
At most that would only last 1 election cycle, so they would have to unify and hold it fast, very fast. Any Administration that would allow China to take over Taiwan would surrender (rightfully) all their political power and be ousted by a landslid the next election
I think you'd be surprised how quickly we'd get over that. Regardless, if we abandoned Taiwan and it fell, there is pretty much no chance we'd invade several years later.
coughs in Crimea, Hongkong and arguably Israel, Syria and Turkey
Wars of expansion can and do still work, all it needs is for the rest of the world to stand aside just as they did in 1933-45 - and the signs don't look good, given that the reaction for Russian and Chinese annexation projects was nothing more than a couple ineffective sanctions.
Crimea is the best success, but its because it really more of an annexation of a population that is ethnically same as the annexing nation.
I don't want to give what Russia did legitimacy, but its closer to self-determination than most liberal internationalist (the IR theory, I don't mean US liberals) will give it credit for. Crimea was only part of Ukraine due to the dictates of the Soviet Union and had only been part of it since 1954. Then again, maybe I'm overestimating how strong Taiwanese nationalism is.
In places like Syria, you see what happens when different ethnicities fight over territory. It's a bloody mess and everyone is worse for it.
Israel is in a different position since they really just want the land and not really the economy and people on the land. They are ethnically cleansing and then populating the area with settlers.
I was going to say that is unique in this age, but its really not all that different from what China did in Tibet or is doing in Xinjiang.
What really diminished since WWII is real ethnical cleansing. And I mean by the definition of "forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area". What China did was move in their people, and what Israel did is curve out the areas with low existing population and called them their own.
This, together with the democratic nature of the western world has led to a place where annexation of an area becomes infeasible for a place with a large opposing population (which is why Israel is not officially annexing the west bank).
The US is pretty much as reliant on Taiwan's fabs as China is. Intel has been having a lot of problems too lately.
By destroying the fabs, China would drastically level the playing field, putting those Taiwanese semiconductors out of reach of the US too.