World War 3 MegaThread.

[Agema]

You really think trumpeting out into the world that war crimes and mass murder are your intended method of operating in a potential future war ? Not even Israel is that bold.

Yes. The art is to make your war crimes and mass murder sufficiently mild that you don't make your own country look too bad.

This was a stated rationale of the British over Irish independence: the degree of repression required to subdue Ireland would be utterly ruinous to the UK's international reputation. Implicitly therefore not because that much repression was objectionable per se.

 

[Gergar12]

?

You really think trumpeting out into the world that war crimes and mass murder are your intended method of operating in a potential future war ? Not even Israel is that bold.

It would also cost you nearly all of your allies.

Then mind your own business and don't invade small island nations that aren't your own. That's how deterrence works you scare the other side and show higher resolve than them.

 

[Eacaraxe]

Other than casus belli, everything here also differs between different theatres in individual wars. And the casus belli in WW1 and 2 had enormous overlap.

That's really the point here. The circumstantial diversity and variability in each theater of the "world wars" is so great, they're poorly understood as one unified global conflict -- and far better as simultaneous major regional conflicts. What prevents that level of understanding, is the romanticism surrounding both conflicts and the gravitas lent by calling them "world wars" in contrast to every other global conflict that occurred prior.

Feel free to compare and contrast the relationship between World War I and WWII, to the relationship between the Seven Years' War and the Napoleonic Wars, any time. Spoiler alert: same shit, different century.

Thirty years war is massively stretching it. Seven years, perhaps in terms of geographic scope alone, but 'world war' implies something of scale as well-- and the scale is utterly incomparable between it and WW1.

As a war which occurred prior to the Industrial Revolution would appear to be in contrast to one that happened after, yes. Relative to the time in which they were waged, not so much. That one occurred before the Industrial Revolution, and the other after and was waged with Industrial-era arms and materiel, in no way denudes the former of its importance, scale, or relevance.

 

[Silvanus]

That's really the point here. The circumstantial diversity and variability in each theater of the "world wars" is so great, they're poorly understood as one unified global conflict -- and far better as simultaneous major regional conflicts.

Broader context is generally of great value in understanding wider conflicts, which is why it'd be foolish to talk about the Bay of Pigs without reference to the global jostling between USA and USSR. And when that context involves explicit military pacts for specific and coordinated purposes, it's unavoidable.

What prevents that level of understanding, is the romanticism surrounding both conflicts and the gravitas lent by calling them "world wars" in contrast to every other global conflict that occurred prior.

"Gravitas" is lent by the death toll as well as the geographic scope, which utterly dwarfed the conflicts you named.

Feel free to compare and contrast the relationship between World War I and WWII, to the relationship between the Seven Years' War and the Napoleonic Wars, any time. Spoiler alert: same shit, different century

...and different order of magnitude.

As a war which occurred prior to the Industrial Revolution would appear to be in contrast to one that happened after, yes. Relative to the time in which they were waged, not so much. That one occurred before the Industrial Revolution, and the other after and was waged with Industrial-era arms and materiel, in no way denudes the former of its importance, scale, or relevance.

Scale, it very much does matter whether it was waged with post-IR materiel. That was enormously impactful there; Advances in technology drastically increased the potential scope and deadliness of conflict, and it'd be arbitrary to pretend smaller or less deadly conflicts should be counted as equivalent just because they were incapable of matching them. This isn't a round of golf where we have to accommodate a handicap.

"Importance" and "relevance" are ultimately subjective qualities of course, and the Spanish conquests were of greater direct importance to a South American than WW1.