By impressive examples and incontrovertible argument Angell showed that in the present financial and economic interdependence of nations, the victor would suffer equally with the vanquished; therefore war had become unprofitable; therefore no nation would be so foolish as to start one.
Although you’d be forgiven for guessing it, the quote above has nothing to do with Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 work The End of History. No, the quote is from The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman, which tells the story of the buildup to World War I. It refers to The Great Illusion by Norman Angell, published in 1909.
The sentiment is widely held in the modern world, especially in the SWPL and far left crowd – but honestly, most educated westerners feel something of the sort. I picked up The Guns of August for my Kindle this afternoon because I decided it was time to read some more on this time period. Why? I’m more of a history buff than an honest historian, and the early 20th century isn’t one of my best known time periods… but the news coming out of Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya immediately worried me. One of the very first comments I made to my wife when she asked me what I thought of the protests in Egypt? “I’m worried. This is how World War I got started, more or less.”
By no means is it definite that the world is headed there. But personally, I believe World War III is more likely in the near term future than it has been at any point in my lifetime. More so than during the Cold War, more so than any part of the so called “War On Terror” has made it. Here’s why I think that.
The young men of the world are disgruntled. It’s most obvious in the Middle East. In Iran, the 20-30 something crowd is the largest demographic group. They’ve all grown up under the oppression of the Islamic Republic, and they’re tired of it. Egypt and Libya have similar problems, although the demographics aren’t quite so skewed toward that age group. But it’s happening in the western world, too. The Great Recession is hitting 20-somethings the hardest (and us 30-somethings second hardest). Unemployment among fresh college grads is over 50%, and our age group is the first generation of men in American history to earn less than our fathers (after adjusting for inflation).
More to the point, in both groups young men are basically being shut out of the mating/marriage game. In the Muslim world, legalized polygamy contributes. The women move toward (fewer) higher status men, leaving the vast bulk of lower status men simply shit out of luck. In the west, easy divorce is having a similar effect. I was stunned a few months ago when I saw a graphic chart (that I’m having trouble finding now) breaking down the distribution of single men and women by age group in America’s cities. I had always known that the single men to single women ratio in the city where I grew up and went to college was out of whack. I hadn’t realized how badly until I saw the demographics. In the early 20s, there are something close to 160 single men for every 100 single women in this area – and that ratio is pretty typical across most US cities. Why? Older couples are getting divorced. The women are having trouble finding new partners. But the men are finding that it’s not that bad to find a new partner ten or twenty years younger – thus, again, the high status men are sucking up all the women that would otherwise be available for the vast bulk of society.
And let’s not forget India and China, home of government enforced birth control that’s led to a truly massive gender imbalance. In India alone there are close to 20 million marriageable 20 and 30-something men. China has something roughly the same.
Folks, that’s an awful lot of “surplus” men running around the world. They’re angry, and getting angrier. It’s plain to see on the TV in Egypt. But I can see it here in the US, too. I’ve got a little of it myself, although less than many. This recession has hurt me, but I’m still a lot better off than I could be. Some of my friends aren’t so lucky. One friend in particular… let’s just say that even though he keeps a good face on it, I can hear the anger seeping through every time we talk.
Just like in the prelude to World War I, the world is very restless. It’s also been caught up in a few decades of major social change and upheaval. And, perhaps the biggest comparison of all, we’ve had a few decades of more or less illusionary prosperity – and the illusion has suddenly been ripped away. As the illusion fades, we see an elite ruling class that’s wealthier and more opulent than ever – and doing everything they can to hold onto that wealth.
Folks, we’ve seen this show before. There’s a term for this. It’s called instability. Not in the way that normal people think of it, but in a very technical way that engineers use the word. Normal folks use the word “stable” basically to mean something good. Engineers don’t necessarily mean that. A “stable” system is simple one that isn’t prone to change – or, if changes occur, the system will settle back into something close to the same kind of equilibrium it was in before the change. Even big changes will eventually just be absorbed by the system. In an unstable system, on the other hand, even small changes will push everything into chaos.
The Cold War, as crazy as it was, was a relatively stable system. Even some pretty big changes (the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, and other crises) eventually were swallowed by the system as the status quo reasserted itself. The modern international socio-economic-political system is no longer stable. It’s been becoming more and more unstable for at least the last decade, and the recent financial crises have given it a huge nudge in that direction. The kicker, the real danger, is the massive numbers of angry young men. Rightly or wrongly, that much anger is going to look for an outlet. It’s eventually going to get directed somewhere.
Is a world war scenario inevitable? No. But the alternatives aren’t really a lot better. An upheaval is coming one way or another. The old systems can’t hold anymore. They no longer fit the world. But they won’t go out without a fight. Whether it’s a series of internal revolutions (violent or otherwise), a group of smaller international conflicts, or a massive global destruction, the shakeup is coming.
In the long run, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. The aftermath could lead to a world that is better in many ways than our current world, as the post World War II world was in many ways better than the pre-war world. Or it could lead to a much worse world, just as the world stepped into decline after the fall of the Roman Empire. We Americans have a tendency to view history as a stead march of progress, but a serious study of it quickly shows that history isn’t like that at all. The world gets better sometimes, and sometimes it gets worse.
Either way, the transition is likely to be shocking, jarring and painful.
