This man did read the book he cites for his lesson, didn't he?
Even though the world is politically at peace, is it possible for our militaries to drag us into war?
That question has deep historical resonance. We used to think that wars were triggered by heated tribal animosities, by the hubris of madmen, by struggles for resources or by powerful economic forces. None of these ideas have been much use in explaining the wars of the past century. All of them were swept away, during my student years, by the new concept formulated by British historian A.J.P. Taylor: the “timetable theory.”
Studying the First World War, Mr. Taylor found that none of Europe’s political leaders had sought a larger war, nor did it serve any of their national interests to enter one. But their huge military bureaucracies had drawn elaborate, clockwork plans to mobilize millions of soldiers on multiple fronts at short notice, and a minor confrontation in Bosnia set all these plans in motion on a continental scale.
So Vietnam and Iraq were and the East China Sea could be a result of this pre-1914 problem? Good grief, that's not even close to understanding Europe in August 1914, Vietnam, Iraq, or the situation in the western Pacific.
European powers were very closely packed together. Germany was the most powerful but its central position left it vulnerable to a two-front war against the great powers of France and Russia.
Germany addressed that problem by taking advantage of their ability to quickly mobilize lots of reservists and throw them into action long before Russia could mobilize their army. By driving west against France, Germany could defeat France (having done so nearly 50 years earlier) and then shift to the eastern front.
Sadly, mobilization plans were so tight that Russia found they had no plan to have a regional mobilization sub-plan to confront Austria-Hungary over the Serbia crisis (when Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia over the Serb assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand) that could be broadened into a general mobilization if Germany got involved. So Russia issued a general mobilization order rather than risk crippling their ability to fight Germany if it came to that.
That in turn set the clock running on Germany's entire war plan. To avoid a war on two fronts, Germany had to strike France first--despite France not being involved in the Balkan regional crisis--before Russia mobilized. And Russia was mobilizing!
So we had a world war over a regional conflict judged by the Germans as not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.
Our military is firmly under civilian control. Civilians ordered the military into action in both Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan, too. With Congressional approval, most explicitly for Iraq and Afghanistan. They did not spiral out of control based on military orders dragging the civilians along.
China's military is a different animal altogether these days, as officers think of themselves more as Chinese nationalists rather than Chinese Communist Party servants.
And there is no version of the 1914 mobilization timetable and geographic proximity in the East China Sea. Not that it isn't a dangerous situation. I've noted my personal pucker factor is high since an accidental clash could take place (or a deliberate one on China's part). But to say that competing mobilization timetables or some version of it could lead to a war today in either Iran or over the Senkakus is just ridiculous.
Seriously, the man acts as if simply having contingency plans in case of war means that a war could begin on the whim of the militaries that must fight wars.
And a final point. I have no doubt that the deal with Iran reduces the chance of a war to stop Iran's nuclear program. Iran will go nuclear and we will not stop them. But there could be a worse war to follow this war that won't happen.
Good grief. I just get exhausted reading this stuff.
