Just because no one wants World War 3 doesn't mean it won't happen says MIKE HARRISON
THE news headlines today have an historically menacing ring to them. Border clashes turning bloody, cyber-attacks, territorial disputes - this could all get so quickly out of hand. Yet most commentators still comfort themselves with the idea that ‘of course...no one wants a real war.'
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As an author with a focus on US-China geopolitics, I re-read some of the news headlines from June 1914 for a sense of precedent given today’s movement of the tectonic plates. Then it was Germany asserting its place an imperial aspirant against incumbents, notably the British Empire. Now, China – with rather less history of neighbourly aggression - is building its zone of influence. As with Germany, naval growth has been a focus of its ambition.
On the surface at least, there was in the Summer of 1914 none of the international ill-will that fills today's press. In fact, relations between the great powers were apparently rather cordial.
On June 23rd the Kiel Canal re-opened and the British Fleet visited their German counterparts with the Kaiser himself enjoying a tour of the dreadnought HMS King George V. The US Presidential Adviser Edward House met British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey and declared that ‘neither England, Germany, Russia nor France desire war.’
Five weeks later, all these nations would begin the most bloody conflict the world had ever seen.
Then as now, supposedly wise men relied on the good sense of their opponents ‘knowing’ that no one really wanted to go to war.
They were blind to two stern lessons from history. It’s not the expected that starts wars, it’s the unexpected. Back in 1914, it was an assassination in the quiet backwater of Sarajevo which triggered the railway timetable from hell, as AJP Taylor neatly put it.
And always we choose to ignore the 'Thucydides Trap’ - where time and again history has shown that when the rising power grates up against the fading power the outcome is settled not by accommodation but in bloody conflict.
So, ‘no one wants a real war’ - what does that actually mean?
In my novel ‘The Pale Tiger’ an American and a Chinese warship colliding in the South China Sea set in motion a chain of events that very quickly takes on a monstrous momentum of its own…Two weeks ago Chinese and Indian troops were slaying each other on a desolate Himalayan glacier…
In one of the scenes in the book there’s this snatch of conversation:
‘You think I’m in this story?’
‘People asked the same question in the Summer of 1914.’ He paused. ‘One misstep, and we’re all in this story.’
…one misstep...
Time to bring the temperature down and take a sober look at where we are in the sweep of history.
Mike Harrison’s new novel ‘Pale Tiger’ has just been published by Matthew James Publishing Ltd.
• Mike Harrison, City veteran and author writes of the stark warning from history in the context of his new novel ‘Pale Tiger’, about China, the West and the opioid ‘plague’.