Do you believe this to be true? Especially right now in the world?

Question

Answer 1

Yes, I think that's true, but going back a step further, I think economic interests often are the womb in which politics develops.

Answer 2

Dear Rooster,

Well I have a lot to say about your question, but still and all I don't really have an answer...one of the definitions of the word POLITICS is: "the activities of governments concerning the political relations between countries," and in that sense war can be seen as bad job of political relations, I guess...

However, it still requires both countries to do a good job of political relations; thinking of Neville Chamberlain and peace in our time, to justify English appeasement of Hitler...and we all know where THAT ended up...after years under the humiliation and deprivation of Versailles, Germany was bound and determined for revanchism.

Also, Carl von Clausewitz lived 1780-1831, before WWI. I have just been reading that WWI changed war forever; nothing before that compared, in that WWI could never be won in any traditional sense of the word. That WWI was more just endurance; the side that could just keep sending millions of soldiers to their death, along with throwing endless matériel at the enemy...you could not win, just outlast the other side in horrible trench warfare and chemical warfare...

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So again, idk. Do you have an opinion on that?

Comments

@Virginia: WW1 was supposed to be the war that ended all wars. It had the opposite effect. The Europeans and Japanese just learned better ways to kill more people quickly. Not that we were far behind but the Germans just went on building a new modern war machine that plunged the world into chaos. They brought about the Blitzkrieg! Changed warfare forever.

On a side note. When the British attacked Taranto with torpedo planes in 1940 and and it had a devastating effect on the Italian fleet, one Admiral took notice that aerial torpedo's could destroy a fleet. He studied it and perfected the idea at Pearl Harbor. Admiral Yamamoto.

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Rooster, I did not know that about Adm. Yamamoto...war just keeps building upon itself...never seems to really resolve anything on a permanent basis...I am appreciating the links you and Tink gave for Clausewitz.

I read that after the fighting of WWI ended, then began the verbal battle to give WWI meaning. The historian I am now reading says that WWI needed to be fought, and the right side DID "win"...but still difficult to find 'meaning' in something that set up so many of our world problems ongoing, including of course WWII.

I always assumed the world was, at its essence, a better place than it is turning out to be... tears and tenderness for the world now...

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Copland understood, Virginia. 

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Tink, this video is just wonderful, delightful...and I do have confidence and trust the promise will be and is being kept. 

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Yes, Virginia, we've come a long way from the caves, in fits and starts to be sure, but things are generally better, and certainly better than 100 years ago.