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The European Model of War
World War One represents a model of warfare that was uniquely European. This was not because of its world wide nature, its ferocity, or its use of technology, but because each side of the war took up familiar roles.
With the end of dynastic and religious wars in the 17th century Europe entered a phase where national armies and navies ruled military considerations. Part of the goal of these considerations was the idea that nations should expand the realm of control of a nation state. For many countires this means colonialism. Colonial countries tend to have small brushfire wars spread across the globe as various powers compete over the resources controlled in the colonial areas. Such wars are proxy wars at most, which different power interests bleeding the capacity of a colonial power to benefit from its colonial possesions, and in the 20th century resulted in the wide spread decolonization of the globe by the western powers and its recolonization by communist powers.
The European conflict though was a unique battle that started with one nation deciding it had claims not on colonial possesions, but on the actual territory and soveriegnity of its neighbors. In response a coalition of defending nations will arise with a policy of containment hoping to preserve peace until the agressor nation runs out of steam. When the agressor nation tires of the containment there is usually a war, and the agressor is usually dismantled and reborn as a more moderate state. Except for the Franco-Prussian war and the Russo-Turkish war, major wars of the 19th and 20th century in Europe all followed this routine.
Agressor: France War Fought: Napoleanic
Agressor: Russia War Fought: Crimea
Agressor: Germany War Fought: Great War
Agressor: Germany War Fought World War Two
Agressor: USSR War Fought Cold War
The cold war represents the only time that an effort at containment was successful short of all-out war. This model, much to the legitmate worry of many European governments, is repeating itself as the current Russian nation becomes imperalist and expansionist.
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