Thread on the #1914 analogy to #Iran crisis: There has been a lot of talk in the past few days about the 1914 analogy because this current crisis, like the one in 1914, superficially involves an assassination.
But there is another 1914 analogy to think about and maybe one more on point. What we have felt over the past few days is what Europeans felt in July-August 1914. One day (or hour) news looks very bad and the next it seems like all is well and we can return to our regular lives
We have had several such scares recently over North Korea, Syria, and now Iran. In 1914, many Europeans believed, as we do (this morning at least), that the system had survived crises in the past and would survive this one as well.
The news media is already moving on to other topics and as I write this everyone seems to think that the immediate threat of war is greatly reduced.
In July 1914 what seemed at first like just another in a long line of intl incidents spiraled out of control due to combination of misperception, poor leadership, alliance relationships, & publics in all of the countries being distracted by what seemed like more important events
Europe and much of the world ended up fighting a war for causes no one could articulate and therefore no one could negotiate a way to end it.
If we want to avoid this fate, we shd understand that a state of perpetual crisis in wh we have been living since 9/11 is not sustainable. Sooner or later similar combo of misperception, bad luck, & poor leadership cd drag us into another costly and avoidable war.
This is an election year. The media and voters should really grill candidates for public office on questions of national security. What should an American grand strategy look like? What do we want our place in the world to be? We need to stop moving from crisis to crisis.
Europe did it from at least 1898 to 1914 making everyone confident that it could keep doing so. I’m not (yet) saying that we are heading down that same road, but it looks a bit too much like 1914 for me to feel any sense of comfort from this morning’s relatively good news.
