Recent Discussions |
Today, some see the US guarantee of Japan’s security against China as the potential trigger for a dangerously titanic conflict. In this scheme, a rising China today is analogous to an ascendant Germany before the First World War. The re-emergence of Russia as a world power, two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, also suggests parallels with developments 100 years ago.
It may however not be accurate to see contemporary conflicts in the East and South China Seas, and nearby, through the lens of 1914. Nor may it be helpful to view Myanmar as a new Serbia. In this discussion, we will explore the parallels and the differences between 1914 in Europe and 2014 in East Asia. He will ask whether a 'pointless' war over the Senkaku Islands might in fact emerge as the extension, by other means, of today's anxious, precautionary politics.
Some background readingsA Seminal Panic about Defence IT: The Marconi Scam, 1913, James Woudhuysen, IDG Connect, 9 August 2013 China Media: US Diplomacy. BBC, 5 December 2013 The Great War: a battle for meaning, by Frank Furedi, spiked 8 January 2014 The infantile diplomacy behind demonising Russia, by Frank Furedi, spiked 24 March 2014 |