Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watdcsu.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!watdcsu!haapanen From: haapanen@watdcsu.UUCP (Tom Haapanen [DCS]) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: We need the arms race (well, not quite...) Message-ID: <845@watdcsu.UUCP> Date: Sat, 19-Jan-85 10:20:21 EST Article-I.D.: watdcsu.845 Posted: Sat Jan 19 10:20:21 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 19-Jan-85 10:47:52 EST References: <734@loral.UUCP> <43000005@rna.UUCP> <825@watdcsu.UUCP> <984@hou3c.UUCP> Reply-To: haapanen@watdcsu.UUCP (Tom Haapanen [DCS]) Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 50 In article <984@hou3c.UUCP> ka@hou3c.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist) writes: >>No, but our record is pretty damn good. Think back and figure out >>when was the last time the world had fourty years without a major war >>(ie a confrontation of the world powers). >The last time was the 100 year period from the Conference of Vienna to >WWI. That peace was ended when people of unexceptional abilities came >to power simultaneously. OK, let's see what major wars we had since 1800: 1804-1815 Napoleon vs. Europe 1809 Sweden vs. Russia 1810-1824 Latin America vs. Spain 1839-1842 England vs. China 1846-1847 U.S. vs. Mexico 1853-1856 Turkey vs. Britain and France 1862-1867 Prussia vs. Rest of Germany, Denmark, Austria 1882-1884 Russia vs. Turkey 1894-1895 China vs. Japan 1898 U.S. vs. Spain 1899-1902 England vs. South Africa 1904-1905 Russia vs. Japan 1914-1918 Everybody vs. Everybody Else :-) A real nice, stable peace, isn't it? >WWI was unwinable in the sense that their is no way either side could >expect to gain as much from the war as the war cost it, but that didn't >keep people from fighting it. I'd like to know what you base your assumption of low expectations on. From my readings, it certainly doesn't look that way. >... It may be that the exis- >tence of nuclear weapons makes it more obvious to people that it is not >rational to fight a global war. I hope so, because I don't like the >suggestion that we may have passed through the first 40 years of a >100 year peace which will be followed a nuclear holocaust. I agree with you here. I don't want a nuclear holocaust, either. \tom haapanen university of waterloo (519) 885-1211 x2324 allegra \ clyde \ \ decvax ---- watmath --- watdcsu --- haapanen ihnp4 / / linus / The opinions herein are not those of my employers, of the University of Waterloo, and probably not of anybody else either.