If both of the world wars hadn’t happened, how different would the world be now? Would America still take over Europe economically? How about the UN, would it have been created or would there have seemed like no good reason to create it? I know all the answers will only be speculative, but do you think the European nations would have continued to colonize the rest of the world? Would the British empire still be around and kicking, ruling a sizable amount of the world?
I’m going to assume that no WWI = no Bolsheviks, and therefore no Cold War.
I have a suspicion that technology might be somewhat less advanced than it is today, without the accelerating effects of the two world wars and the Cold War, and the associated funding.
Geopolitically, I don’t know… I think it’s entirely possible that the British Empire might have dissolved along similar lines as it did- in some cases probably earlier than otherwise, since the Indian independence movement was already well-established before WWII, and I suspect the war delayed the British paying serious attention to it for a while.
Economically, I’m not sure. Clearly the destruction of European industry during WWII did something, but whether it was a net loss or gain remains to be seen. In some sense it allowed Germany to rebuild in a state-of-the-art fashion without the baggage of antiquated manufacturing, and I suspect that while Germany may have been more productive in the 40s and 50s, they may have lagged behind real-life Germany since 1960.
It’s not hard to posit no WWII- just don’t have a WWI with such a draconian “Peace’ treaty. But everyone wanted a WWI. They were preparing for it, and eager for it. Other than perhaps it being limited in scope which might be Colonial only, I can’t see any way of stopping WWI. It would have taken a miracle.
Air travel would be vastly delayed without any war. We’d be flying in prop engined AC, flying boats, etc. More or less early 1950’s. No space travel.
The USA would still be a World power, and AH, Turkey and France would still decline into lesser powers. AH would break apart. France would still *think *it’s a World power, tho.
GB would have dissolved most of the Empire.
I can see a couple scenarios without a full out “World” war:
Russia makes another move on Turkey, thus another Crimea. GB & France takes the opp to steal much of the Ottoman Empire, altho siding with them. Germany? AH attacks Russia, unless Russia is smart enough to offer AH full reign in the Balkans.
or
AH breaks apart, and the powers intervene on one side or another. Fighting is limited to the Balkans, mostly.
Both of these would bring about air combat, so we’d have more developement.
Third:
Fighting is limited to Africa, etc over colonies.
Frankly, I’d be surprised if Europe could get through a century WITHOUT a major war.
Prior to WW1, Ireland was about to be given Home Rule by Act of the British Parliament, although apparently the country was perilously close to a civil war, both in Ireland and in Britain. WW1 put a stop on that, but the issue reignited in the Easter Rising of 1916. Would be interesting to ponder what would have happened without WW1.
Presumably without WW1, the German, Russian, Austrian and Turkish monarchies would have endured. Finland, Poland and the Baltic States would have remained under Russian rule. Perhaps Tsar Alexander IV would have been more constitutional than his father? Same with Wilhelm III of Germany, who apparently thought any war would have been stupid. Franz Ferdinand is a different person to read, however, assuming he would have not been assassinated.
European society may have been considerably different, as the ruling classes of Europe wouldn’t have had their authority dashed to bits by bloody war and the populations wouldn’t quite have been radicalized. There’d be fewer democracies, but likewise fewer outright tyrannical dictatorships.
Japan would probably have held on to what it possessed in the Far East, but so would have Germany. The continued presence and interest of several great powers may have successfully prevented Japan from being too aggressive (at least unilaterally) against China. Would China have been carved up, or would it have rallied under the Nationalists eventually? Possibly Manchuria would have been lost entirely.
Without both wars, Europe wouldn’t have been depopulated by several tens of millions and masses of industrial technology wouldn’t have been destroyed and its produce dedicated to warfare in quite such an intensive degree. On the other hand, both world wars were remarkable catalysts for all sorts of beneficial technologies that otherwise may have taken decades to develop without a war to spur on research. Europe would have been more competitive than it was, but I reckon the US would still have overtaken given its advantage of being a single economic unit, and the fact that Americans were producing quite innovative production systems. Who would have developed the A-bomb first? And when?
Would be interesting about the rights of women and minorities. Women were campaigning for the right to vote, and in Britain WW1 had some impact in the eventual victory of the suffragettes. Before WW2, Anti-semitism wasn’t particularly unusual - in certain corners it was a positive trait.
So the world may be a better one in certain ways, but also less savoury in others. But ultimately, not having two bitter industrial wars and some of the most savage ethnic cleansing in history must be a good thing.
So, that answers the perennial question: War, huh, yeah, what is it good for?
A view held by many is that wars would continue anyway. Maybe not really big ones, but constant small ones.
Eventually, someone would invent a nuclear weapon…and use it.
Would a world where small wars are just “business as usual” be as repelled by the horror of nuclear war as we were? We were already horrified by Nazism, death camps, fire bombings, submarine warfare, etc. We were ready to try to put a world-wide limit on warfare. And did. The “Cold War” didn’t resemble WWII. (We wouldn’t be here if it had.)
There is at least a possibility of little wars continuing, now using little nuclear weapons. Maybe only one every three years or so, but without a major pause such as we have enjoyed.
(Also a chance that this situation will still evolve in our own world. Could India and Pakistan use nuclear weapons without escalating to a full nation-destroying spasm?)
Or they won’t use it…
I’m reminded of a scenario I saw postulated some time ago here by someone arguing that we were really lucky with the timing of the invention of nuclear weapons. In his/her scenario nuclear weapons are invented but not used because there’s no major war. Instead they are made and stockpiled in large numbers, but the real-world taboo against using them doesn’t develop because there was no Hiroshima & Nagasaki. They don’t have the same deterrent effect as they had in the real world; and when a major war finally does come around they are both very powerful and used in large numbers, not just the two first-generation nukes at the end of WWII.
A little nuclear war is an oxymoron. If anything, without the world wars we would be even more horrified by the possibility of destroying a city. Outside of WW2 I can’t think of any wars that resulted in a near total destruction on the level of Hiroshima and Dresden. No sane country is going to start a war with an opponent willing to use nuclear weapons.
One possible scenario I could imagine sans WW1 would be for the powers to fear how horrendous a war with such weapons as high explosives would be, in much the same way that we fear nuclear weapons today, so that a cold war develops with England/France vs Germany/Austria being the powers rather than US vs Russia. In this case I imagine the US staying relatively neutral and thriving due to their not participating in the arms race that the other powers are engaged in.
ETA: Der Trihs’ scenario is possible as well.
The fall of Carthage to Rome in 146 BC and the sacking of Delhi by Tamerlane in 1398 both immediately pop into mind.
It’s difficult to say, since Japan was mostly an outsider. The structural causes of Japanese militarism (lack of civilian control over the military, etc.) would still exist, and the Japanese preoccupation with Manchuria had been in place since the late 19th century. If anything, the lack of a communist revolution would mean that Russo-Japanese rivalry over northeast Asia would remain fierce. Would the Great Depression still occur? Because that was a real killing blow to the liberal politicians in Japan.
no kidding, humans love war.show me a time when there wasnt some type of war in the world.
A person born on the day the Wrights first flew would have cashed only six Social Security checks by the day Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon. Aviation and much other technology had a lot of push from the wars.
It’s worth remembering that there has only been one year since the end of the 2nd World War in 1945 that there hasn’t been some sort of war going on somewhere around the world.
The UN would probably not have come into being without the World Wars. It’s precessor, The League of Nations, was established after WW! but I understand that it had been proposed before the war.
Huh?
First flight, December 17th 1903. First Moon landing, July 20th 1969. I’m not sure when Social Security checks are paid in the States but I assume from context they start arriving shortly after someone’s 65th birthday, and someone born on the day Orville first flew would be only 65 years seven months and three days old on the day Neil Armstrong took one small step.
Benecandra 