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That's just it Phid, how do you get such estimates? Without actual body counts, how in the bloody blue blazes could you actually derive a hard data figure?Most of the people alive in many of these ancient conflicts were not registered with a census like we have today. Even if they were, most of those records no longer exist so we cannot verify anything. All we have are guesses at this point. These numbers could be close, but there is no empirical scientific way to verify them beyond any reasonable doubts.
I agree with your sentiments in part. I disagree, however, that one needs an actual body count to come up with a figure. I do not think that even Civil War death totals are based merely upon body counts. Would you say those, then, are guesses? Probably not; you would, however, say they were estimates.Also, on what do you base your claim that “most of the people alive in many of these ancient conflicts were not registered with a census”? How could you prove that? Unless you have documentation stating that, aren't you guessing? Incidentally, I'm not disagreeing with your claim, but if you push the bar up too high it becomes one that nobody can surpass. Alright, tell me this – if you had documents from an ancient city stating that its population was 50,000, and that 10,000 men went off to battle; and other documents stating that the army was cut in half; and a year later, the population records show 45,000 population…..do you think you could reasonably conclude that the death total for that city was 5000 men? Obviously this cannot be verified, but there's a certain calculated estimation which historians partake in. These are admitted estimations, based on our best efforts, but they give us a plausible understanding of what happened at that point in time.
In what way are they similar? I would argue that the “Democratic Peace Theory” is separate from what I was referring to for the reason I gave – trading partners have something financial to lose by going to war. I don't think the same applies to democracies going to war (at least, not in the same way).As for the wars – again, were the British and Dutch major trading partners leading up to the Boer Wars? The Anglo-Dutch wars? The bottom line is that of course, wars happen, and wars have happened. I'm not saying they do not. All I'm saying is that the more nations trade with one another, the less likely they will be to go to war. We could go back in time even to the ancient world and find nations that have traded with one another that have still gone to war with the other. As globalization increases, however, we find an increasing level of interconnectedness – particularly in economics – which makes going to war more difficult, ergo less likely. Of course, there will always be exceptions to this, or situations where you have some less-than-rational leader of a nation. That's just the nature of the world.
I have just completed the first full season of this show and it's gotten pretty good, actually. The main character (Noah Wylie) still does not get into much military history, aside from occasionally providing some high-school-level insights about how the colonists outfought a superior force, or things like that. I bought a student subscription to Amazon Prime ($39 for a year) which gives me access to these shows, so I don't have network TV anymore and my choices are somewhat limited now…
I still don't believe these numbers. There is no way to accurately know the death tolls of ancient wars. And casualty figures spanning over twenty and fifty year periods of time frankly would be unknowable. Anyone who puts out hard figures is guessing, and their estimates would be based on unscientific source material tainted by embellishments and propaganda. Furthermore, there were only approximately 60,000,000 living in the Roman Empire at its height. The infrastructure was just not there for such massive campaigns even as late as the 13th century with the Mongolian conquests.
So would you distrust all death tolls given by anyone writing before the early modern period? How would we estimate?
You do realize that prior to the outbreak of WWI Germany and England were each others largest trade partners don't you? High levels of trade do not equal interdependence.
Stats I just found stated that Russia was Germany's largest trading partner, but your point remains. As I mentioned before, it does not mean war is impossible; rather, it makes it less likely. I think that by definition, high levels of trade do equal interdependence; that is what it's all about; one side depends on the other for supply/demand. Germany did have more to lose by going to war, and went anyway. I don't think trade is a magical means of pacification, but it does change the equation. I don't think it's a surprise that the nations who are currently most hostile to the U.S. are also those nations who are some of the most isolated from the U.S. This is why I go back to the issue of China – China's economic interdependence with the U.S. seems to be on a crash course with Chinese political opposition to the U.S.
I'm talking about all the wars and skirmishes between GB, the Dutch, France, Spain, and Germany over their colonies and ports. Smith's theory is as flawed as Kant's theory that democracies do not go to war with each other.
I don't know the specific examples of the skirmishes you mention, and I'm not sure they apply; did these develop into large-scale wars, or remain skirmishes? Were these major trading partners at the time of these outbreaks? Did these outbreaks affect trade between the nations? I don't know, so I'm unclear about those examples. As for the idea of democracies and war, that seems like a false equivalency. A democracy in one nation does not imply an interdependence upon another nation. What would a democracy have to lose by going to war with another nation? I'm not sure. What would a nation have to lose by going to war with a trading partner? Financially, it would lose plenty.
Just like in Bamiyan
That's more like a situation in sci-fi movies when aliens invade. They always destroy the major architectural monuments of civilizations first (White House, St. Peter's Basilica, maybe the Eiffel Tower, etc.). I guess they're not fans of architecture. 🙂
What does trade and it's volume have to do with the impulse to war? The decision for war, especially war initiation, is inherently irrational. Therefor rational calculation only plays a peripheral role, if any. People and nations go to war when the think they can achieve their aims through violence more easily than any other method granted, there are qualifications to that statement but it generally holds true. Hitler went to war because he thought the only way to achieve European hegemony was through war, ditto Napoleon, the French Revolutionaries, Genghis Khan, Mohammed, Sulieman the magnificent, Urban II, Frederick Barbarossa, Frederick the Great, JFK & LBJ, George W. Bush, Henry V, Charlemagne, Caesar, ad infinitum. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. You have to grant that people often make irrational decisions for supposedly irrational reasons, why would statesmen be any different?
It's because when nations trade together – that is, become major trading partners – they tend to rely upon each other for their own well-being. Two sides that have something to lose by going to war will be less likely to fight than two sides that have little to nothing to lose. Country A trades with Country B, and so if Country A decides to attack B, it will lose a major source of supply or demand for A's product. War becomes a reverser of economic fortunes.Of course, this scenario probably presupposes some level of democratic involvement. How many of those leaders were acting under the guise of dictatorship/aristocratic government which did not have to answer to the people, and how many of those nations were waging war against major trading partners?
I strongly disagree with Smith here. The more a nation is invested in the international market, the more likely they will take whatever means necessary to protect their investments. Current and past examples of European nations doing this: Africa, India.
I'm not sure what you're referring to specifically. Are these sovereign nations trading with one another that we're talking about? Or is this about British colonists trying to edge out African countries or India from sovereign claims to its own land?
I did not even realize there was a myth about that. However, it seems rather intuitive that the way to kill people has become far more efficient and effective over the centuries, and the means of defending oneself has not gotten better at the same rate.
International trade did not reach the same level as 1914 until the 1970's. (I have a cite fot his if you want it) Globalization is nothing new. International trade stimulates competition. The distinction and impetus for war has not changed it was and is, the haves against the have-nots. At root, every war is a resource war of one type or another.
I knew that globalization was increasing prior to WWI, but I didn't realize it was that high. Still, I wonder which measurements they were using to compare those two periods. Probably purely monetary indicators, and probably of a limited number of countries. The globalization post-WWII would have to be of a different sort. Global communications is just one thing that supports this; people in the 1970s would have been able to make transatlantic calls, and I doubt this was made possible until after WWI. I imagine that more nations participated in international trade in the 1970s than pre-WWI as well. Globalization of the last few decades seems to be a different beast than previous eras.I would have to agree with Smith on this. The more invested a nation is in the international market, the harder it is to go to war (i.e. instigate a war). This does not make war impossible; just less likely.
What amazes me is that there seems to be an awful lot of wars in that list that pre-date the use of reliable firearms.
That's a good question. It is, after all, Wikipedia that listed these. For the Mongol conquests (#2), here were the sources:Ping-ti Ho, “An Estimate of the Total Population of Sung-Chin China”, in Études Song, Series 1, No 1, (1970) pp. 33–53.“Mongol Conquests”. Users.erols.com. Retrieved 2011-01-24.”The world's worst massacres Whole Earth Review”. Findarticles.com. 1987. Retrieved 2011-01-24.Battuta's Travels: Part Three – Persia and Iraq[dead link]In that list, I see one source which could (potentially) be reliable (in bold), though I have no idea what “Etudes Song” is about. I presume some type of Chinese journal of….history? The second source leads to a page which gives death tolls by different sources on Gengis Khan, from 3 million killed to 60 million killed.http://necrometrics.com/pre1700a.htm#Mongol
How invested were the Central Powers in international commerce at the outbreak of WWI? How much did Germany rely on the free market going into WWII? I know that the process of globalization was beginning to gain some popularity in the very early twentieth century but WWI hindered this development. Still, I am not sure that the Central Powers were the ones invested in this.As for colonization, were the aggressors the colonizers or the ones receiving the colonists? I should add that international trade and the free market do not eliminate war; rather, they decrease the likelihood of it. Trading partners have more to lose if they enter into war. The fact that globalization has occurred at a much more rapid rate in the world post-1950, and the fact that another world war outbreak has not occurred, may support this idea. Notice how the nations which are the biggest threats today are the ones not participating in the free market system to a full degree (China) and those that are isolated from the international market (North Korea, Cuba, Iran).
