I do not see anything truly unique about the nuclear weapon (or any other component of the CBRNE hazards) that would have erased war or forced limited war. You are referring to Mutually Assured Destruction, and the deterrence associated with it. A nation that is fully prepared to utilize the ultimate weapon in massive quantities is much less likely to have to use it, because no sane nation will challenge them and risk annihilation. That was the reason WWIII did not occur.

Why should that eliminate war? It eliminates total war, but limited war is often just as brutal for less results. I’ll be blunt – you go on about cold hard numbers and graphs that compel the end of war, yet I have not seen anything of the sort. I’m not seeing any physics or cold equations demanding your conclusion.

You talk about inevitability. All Empires fall, but such an unpleasant and final inevitability is the kind of thing people want to avoid. Witness the fact that people live despite the knowledge that they will die. Generally, the fall of an Empire is followed by another empire or simple chaos. Who should take over in our place? Russia? China?

What of the barbarian? What of the man who rejects the rules of society and wants to remake the society in his image? How do you deal with someone who rejects your way of life and intends on forcing you from it under the threat of death? What response can you offer besides warfare – limited or total? Are you simply advocating pacifism?

I do not see anything truly unique about the nuclear weapon (or any other component of the CBRNE hazards) that would have erased war or forced limited war. You are referring to Mutually Assured Destruction, and the deterrence associated with it. A nation that is fully prepared to utilize the ultimate weapon in massive quantities is much less likely to have to use it, because no sane nation will challenge them and risk annihilation. That was the reason WWIII did not occur.

Why should that eliminate war? It eliminates total war, but limited war is often just as brutal for less results. I’ll be blunt – you go on about cold hard numbers and graphs that compel the end of war, yet I have not seen anything of the sort. I’m not seeing any physics or cold equations demanding your conclusion.

You talk about inevitability. All Empires fall, but such an unpleasant and final inevitability is the kind of thing people want to avoid. Witness the fact that people live despite the knowledge that they will die. Generally, the fall of an Empire is followed by another empire or simple chaos. Who should take over in our place? Russia? China?

What of the barbarian? What of the man who rejects the rules of society and wants to remake the society in his image? How do you deal with someone who rejects your way of life and intends on forcing you from it under the threat of death? What response can you offer besides warfare – limited or total? Are you simply advocating pacifism?

Thanks neoneo for the post and for generating such a rich commentary.

Here are your words, directed specifically to me:

“And Scottie – ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ is Alfred Tennyson. Not Kipling.”

By adding the “Not Kipling.” to the end of your statement you exhibited an assumption that I was referring to “The Charge of the Light Brigade”.

It’s disingenous to now claim you “already knew the Last of the Light Brigade.” You didn’t just note “that Tennyson wrote “the charge”.” as you claimed.

Yep – I feel better.

Every empire ever created has fallen. On a rough average, most empires last about three centuries and change. I think it makes sense to classify the fall of empire as a repeatable result. Multiple theories exist about why it happens: everything from discontent on the part of subject peoples to the rise of rival powers to the decay of ruling classes under the law of regression to the mean. Whatever the cause, and in the case of most empires, multiple causes exist, the imperial state always falls, and Kipling merely showed reasonable observation in pointing this out.

Sergey: I don’t think weakness, qua weakness has ever provoked anyone. Allowing a perception of military weakness may at worst make you a target of opportunity, and that happens far less frequently than the opposite: as Gwynne Dyer pointed out, countries that devote substantial resources to their military end up in wars far more often that countries which do not. In any case, this has no relevance to the larger question: as the power of available weapons increases, and the vulnerability of advanced technological societies to disruptions also increases, the utility of military force diminishes.

The rise and fall of any institution that has fallen can best be explained not by some claim of destiny (e.g., all nations fall), but rather by the particular circumstances of its time and place. We can look at the past and try to find circumstances similar to the one we’re in and then try to extrapolate lessons from history, but to look back and say, “Rome fell, we are doomed to fall as well” isn’t rational.