Compare WW1 and Today...?

Question

World War 1 - Assassination of Austrian Archduke
Today - 9/11

WW1 - Retaliation
Today - War in Afghanistan/Iraq

WW1 - Further retaliation
Today - Further attacks by terrorists eg the July bombings in London, the Madrid bombings.

Anyone see any similarities? Do you think that this could lead to a WW3???

Answer 1

Well tensions between everybody were already high when the Archduke was assassinated it seemed more out of the blue with 9/11 (or maybe that's because I was a 6th grader when it happened). In regards to the the retaliations to the assassination and the 9/11 bombing, they are both catastrophes and of course they both resulted in an obvious uproar, and eagerness to fight, as well as leading to a strong sense of nationalism. As for the further retaliations I don't know much about so I'll leave that one alone. That's it.

Answer 2

The fact was that from about 1870-1914, Europe was a powder keg. It was absolutely amazing that war didn't occur long before 1914. Many European nations were worried about Germany's quick rise to power, along with the existing clout that Austria-Hungary had. Everyone had new high-tech (for the time) weapons that no-one knew how to use and each European nation began to suspect every other one. The Ottoman Empire did not help by shoring up power i the Middle East. When the assassination of Ferdinand occurred, Austria-Hungary wanted to make an example of the Serbians. Germany, who had previously supported A-H began to back off, but found that it was dragged into the mess when Russia decided to mobilize its army. France joined with Russia and the Ottoman joined with A-H. Britain tried to remain neutral, but eventually went against Germany because it was afraid of Germany's powerful new navy (not really afraid, more like not wanting Germany to become the greatest naval power, over Britain). The other European nations joined with the highest bidder. WWI was so horrible because no European nation had fought a war in over 40 years, and the weapons were more advanced than the tactics. Tell me where any of this sounds like the Iraq War.

Answer 3

Most certainly not. The "Afghans" are not in an arms race with the Americans, nor are they trying to establish a Central Asian power base for expansion to create an Imperialist Empire. The situation in that area does superficially resemble what was happening in the Balkans in the ten years before WW1, however, there are no Imperialist alliances, Central Powers and of course there are no empires on the brink of collapse. We are just recovering from the residual impact of the First World War, which because of allied stupidity led inevitably to WW2, the Balkans question was not settled, remember what happened there in the 1990's, that was down to lack of moral fibre in the west.

Answer 4

In WW1 many people were very eager to go to war. the atmosphere was aggressive. Today the atmosphere is less anti-war than before WW2, but still, people are more cautious. Today it is not a war of countries against countries. The differences are too big I think.
This does not mean we are safe. But I think we can not compare the two periods without concluding they differ very much.

Answer 5

Good god man. WWI was started by a toxic mix of Nationalism, Militarism, Colonialism, Capitalism, Pan-Slavism, and a rigid alliance system that was created at the congress of vienna. There is absolutely no comparison to the Iraq War.