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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

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