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That is, indeed, a tough question. I have no good answers to it. I suspect that part of the problem is that these things are only intelligible in hindsight. What can be seen more clearly about WWI now could never be grasped at the time, and in that respect all of us are stuck with having to be a little bit humble about the status of our knowledge and predictions of events in the here-and-now. The other thing is that it might not even take anyone 'putting their foot down' as you say for things to become dangerous - things could also spiral out of control due to the unintended outcomes of more contingent events. However, I tend to think that over the long term more structural causes take their due. In the case of WWI, one needed not just tensions between major imperial powers but also a broader global background to act as a set of sufficient causes for it to be a long drawn out world war. Had, for instance, the whole background to the Eastern Question not developed the way it did throughout the 19th century, then WWI might well have been very different - it could have been a more localised European war, it could have lasted for shorter period (or longer! who knows), and so on. Coming back to contemporary times, my feeling is that the dense institutional structures of capitalist inter-penetration are still mitigating the possibilities for a turn to all-out inter-imperialist rivalry. Again, the judgement here can only be a partial one, and prone to refutation by my own lack of knowledge of certain areas of the world etc. But I follow global finance fairly closely, and my area of research has been on the US (although more on the early Cold War period recently), and at the moment my gut tells me that your idea about contending imperialisms having too much to lose will hold for a while longer. As the decades go by of course, who knows what can happen. As a socialist, I'd love to see the current period of turmoil we're witnessing result in something we can look forward to and feel hope in. As a usually neurotic and frightened individual, I hope to hell I don't live to see a major war between nuclear armed powers. > Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 14:09:23 -0400 > From: acpolla...@gmail.com > Subject: Re: [Marxism] calculus of war > To: mrpettymrsmo...@hotmail.com > > ====================================================================== > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > ====================================================================== > > > Thanks for the various references and comments, all useful! > > On the one hand, they reinforce my assumption that at this point the > contending imperialisms each have too much to lose (and the Western ones > are too unsure of themselves) to resort to all-out war (as opposed to > Russian military takeovers of marginal areas which the US acquiesces to > while it continues its own more subtle economic enfoldment in the region). > > BUT > > The other part of my question is at what point would the contenders decide > they have more to gain than lose by putting their foot down? What, for > instance, pushed the two sides over the edge in August 1914? > ________________________________________________ > Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu > Set your options at: > http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/mrpettymrsmorse%40hotmail.com ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
