War, War never changes.

Disclaimer: Unlike most of my blog, this blog post has only slight references to Kings of War and model wargaming in general. I took some time to reflect on the real world. (whatever that may be….) and gave my opinion. If you just want Wargaming stuff; feel free to skip to any other post on my blog and ignore this post.

A holistic view on the world stage

The world in 2019 is in a strange state. While the large world wars are slowly fading from memory into history; the last few decades are ripe with conflicts. Large parts of the world have been touched by the madness that is war.

While no one wants a new world war, the chance of one happening is increasing. And that’s a sad thing.

To set things in historic perspective: The time period of 1945-2010 showed increasing globalisation and pan-national cooperation (NATO, EU, African union, etc); this trend seems to have been reversed somewhere in the last decade.

One of the most noticable factors in this, is that nationalism (and religious nationalism) has increased over the past few years.

All throughout Europe, nationalistic parties have surfaced; most of which have considerable following. Other leaders (i.e. Rusia, Korea, Turkey) have surfaced who focus on their countries’ agenda frist and foremost without mucht regard for international cooperation (or things like basic human rights). Most iconic is the current American president who has been elected on an agenda of “America first”.

Within the UK, Brexit is the most noticable example of this trend.

Why is nationalism bad?

The question remains why nationalism is bad? As I don’t think pride in one’s nation is a bad thing, a pure focus on nationalism and natioalistic pride has proved disastrous in the more recent history.

Let’s go back to the start of the 20th century, slightly over a hundred years ago. Europe has had a century of peace since the Napoleonic wars and nations were progressing quickly thanks to the industrial revolution. (Source:) Nations focussed building their national pride and military strength and Europe kept its peace through a set of strained alliances.

Captain Blackadder explains what happened afterwards in the tragi-comic show “blackadder goes forth”:

Private Baldrick: No, the thing is: The way I see it, these days there’s a war on, right? and, ages ago, there wasn’t a war on, right? So, there must have been a moment when there not being a war on went away, right? and there being a war on came along. So, what I want to know is: How did we get from the one case of affairs to the other case of affairs?

Captain Blackadder: Do you mean “How did the war start?” (….) You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other’s deterrent. That way there could never be a war.

Private Baldrick: But, this is a sort of a war, isn’t it, sir?

Captain Blackadder: Yes, that’s right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan.

Private Baldrick: What was that, sir?

Captain Blackadder: It was bollocks.

So, nationalism and military buildup led to an avenue that could only lead to war. What followed was the most devastating war humanity had known in the history of the earth.

Strangely enough, one would think mankind would learn from its errors. That’s unfortunately not the case, since less than 20years later we did it all over again.

Interresting, but what’s that go to do with the 21st century?

Good question. The way I see it (opinion alert) is that the current flow into nationalism and protectivism is not a good thing. As I see it, nationalism (and to a lesser extent protectivism) has brought us only war (not once, but twice) and economic crisis while cooperation, free trade and expecially peace brings prosperity.

The current buildup of nuclear arsenals to act as a deterrent (Yes, captain Blackadder, it didn’t work in 1914, let’s try that again) is not only foolish, but also dangerous to the planet itself. The nuclear horrors of 1945 killed nearly a quarter of a million people and destructive power of atomics since than has skyrocketed.

Concluding: Humanity is easily capable of destroying most (if not all) life on earth with our current atomic arsenal. With the current buildup of international tensions, instable national leaders, and nationalism, the chance of someone actually using them increases, this is a dangerous road we travel.

What would be the solution? Humanity should focus on international cooperation, solidarity, denuclearisation (and deweaponisation in general). And even then, we have plenty of challenges ahead to keep the planet somewhat inhabitable for our chilren.

/end of opinion. Let’s go back to mini wargames. With the emphasis on games. Since war never changes.