Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’
What's the point of war in the modern world?<p>Gain land/people? If there's a thriving economy there, war will probably change that quickly. If there's no thriving economy, what's the point?<p>You could try to exploit the people/resources there, but the profits in that seem (at least compared to a world power) pretty thin. Unskilled labor and unimproved land are just not worth what they used to be.<p>Specific resources might become dramatically more valuable. Seems not terribly likely with oil (more technology, more producers, more alternatives). Maybe water, but the obvious pressure for that would be population, which is somewhat leveling off (though maybe global warming would do it).<p>I would think any modern war would be very different and less bloody than we're used to. Some kind of weird power play that results in a takeover but is not disruptive enough to damage what was taken. Something more like Russia taking Crimea and less like Germany invading Poland.