I have a theory that I haven't found expounded before. It came from a combination of travel through 60+ countries, living and working and interacting with local people on a pretty intimate level sometimes, and study of lots of history.
It's going to be controversial and maybe even shocking, so brace yourself for a moment before reacting please.
I think peaceful societies self-destruct.
With a few notable exceptions that require a geography suitable to isolationism, long term peace has historically been achieved through your country or one of your ally's having military supremacy over the rest of your neighbors.
Obviously, diplomacy can keep the peace for long periods of time, even human lifetimes, but eventually incidents happen when there's a hothead in one government, and then that's when the military supremacy determines whether you get attacked or not.
Anyways, I've found the more a country renounces war and gets further away from it, the more birth rates go down. You get an explosion of commerce and art for ~30 to ~70 years, and then the society self-destructs.
No longer forced to confront mortality and with no externally unifying cause, people start living for luxury, pleasure, and consumption. They stop having children. Birth rates fall off.
Eventually, this destroys a country's economy, the military supremacy fades, and one of their neighbors comes in and cleans house, and the cycle begins anew.
This has happened many times through history. It's happening in Japan right now. If I became an advisor to anyone in the Japanese government, I'd advocate two things as chief priorities - (1) exceedingly good relations with China, and (2) re-militarize.
Then join the next war they can on America's or China's side. Combined with some standard messages of nationalism/strength/growth/unity, birth rates would almost certainly increase.
You come up with only a single, high level reason for what could have thousands of reasons, and you seriously come up with one that is a detriment to our entire species. Draw from that conclusions on your capacity and will for logical thinking, sorry this has to be blunt. You are the modern day crusader. You get an idea in your head with next to no logical reasons and then start to proselytize everyone around you.
I'll give you another just as likely reason for past societal collapses (frankly, a lot likelier reason), and you can then fill in more if you are able.
In times of peace, leaders have no dire motivation to mold their citizens into specific paths that are catalyst for military purposes. This leads to societes that are directionless. Historically, only military societies prevailed because they had direction and motivation to improve. However, what's so bad about being directionless? What exactly causes the downfall of "peaceful" (=actually just directionless) societies? We have to dig a little deeper. You jumped the gun and proclaimed it was peace itself that was doing the damage. That sounds ridiculous doesn't it? Peace itself has millions of little and big effects on society. Among these effects is the loss of need for children, therefore inevitably marriage laws get relaxed. Humans want to have sex a lot and with many other people, and marriage gets in the way of that. In peaceful times we have seen a gradual destruction of marital laws. This leads to marriages which can be formed and destroyed at the whim of any person, and in our society today, it's even worse because women are considerably favored in the break-up. This leads to people being very cautious to form deep bonds, and this ultimately leads to a weaker society, a society devoid of the ultimate motivation for every human being: Providing and protecting your family. It's like taking away one of the primary engines of a spaceship. There is still other engines that powers it: Need for food. Need for sex. However the strongest one, the motivation to protect your own children is gone. Because there are no children, because there are no marriages, because marriages are nowadays too fast and detrimental for male parties.
What we need, is actual equality between the genders.
"there are no marriages, because marriages are nowadays too fast and detrimental for male parties. What we need, is actual equality between the genders."
I'm not sure I follow this logic. By all indications in both the East and West, it's women, not men, who are driving the changes in marriage rates, ages, and trends.
1) Women are entering and succeeding in the workforce, and accordingly, they see less reason to give that all up for traditional marriages and gender roles.
2) Men outnumber women in many Asian countries (especially China, for obvious reasons). Ergo, the women in these countries can afford to be choosey. It's a buyer's market, and they are the buyers. With the power dynamic in the meat market shifted in their favor, they can be more selective and take their time. Unfortunately, they can't wait too long, because eventually, they'll lose out to younger women entering the same market -- and, when that happens, many will have forfeited their marriage prospects altogether.
[For what it's worth, I am a proponent of gender equality. Please don't misconstrue me there. I am not passing judgment on any of these trends, but rather, am simply observing them.]
> Unfortunately, they can't wait too long, because eventually, they'll lose out to younger women entering the same market
Consider this scenario: a man seeking marriage is likely to continue seeking it through his old age (e.g. doesn't become an eternal bachelor or celibate).
In this case, a woman of that same old age is likely to marry someone young because they can provide for their young husband materially, and from the young mans' point of view marrying an older woman is a good chance for marriage in a market where older men are using their own value to attract younger women.
Unless I misread something, you didn't actually deny that peace was the ultimate cause of the problems.
"Detriment to our entire species" is also far from proven. This far mankind has done pretty well even with all the wars. While it's certainly unfortunate for the ones actually involved in the war, it might be better for "the greater good". Or maybe it isn't. The point is that you shouldn't dismiss an argument just because it's politically incorrect nowadays.
I've always thought that it was the challenge that caused society to work towards a common goal. Violence is one part of that, but the space race worked effectively (though that was closely related to the cold war).
Never more quickly have I realized that there is no point in discussion. There are too many things I'd need to explain to make this anywhere near worthwhile.
I'll just point out a few things and then I'll be on my way. This is nowhere near enough to explain everything to you, but I feel the need to give you a few more pointers.
First of all, it would be common courtesy in any fruitful discussion that if you require me to provide evidence or some sort of logical construct supporting my theory, that you would do the same for yours first.
Secondly, you make the mistake of thinking life is easy. It's a really healthy attitude, and it is certainly born out of real life experiences, but the unfortunate truth is, that it's not easy. It's terribly complicated, and everything has so many reasons that it makes it pointless to try to enumerate them. I only ask that you don't restrict yourself to a single reason, like you did in your post. I only ask that you recognise that life is not easy, and that discussions are not easy and that you can't possibly ever understand a problem fully.
Your simple request for evidence to reject equality of gender as a requirement for peaceful societies is not simple to answer. This question is really a symptom of what I pointed out before. Your question would require extensive research into gender history, statistical analysis of marriage data, sexual encounters, the change of laws over history, how governments evolved under different societies, how governments treated genders, how that affected them, and many more personal assessments like how equality is historically always fought for and therefore it would be a pointless battle to reject it in the long run, ...the list is endless.
I hope you can now see that discussion is pointless. What we are all left with is the belief that we can achieve stable peace, that we can achieve gender equality and at the same time maintain a thriving society. This is what I want, and therefore I try to find theories to support that. Do not take that as naivety. Many will, but only people who have thought this through will agree that all their facts are in essence belief. You are doing the same thing, but labeling it differently. It's like the chicken or egg problem. What came first, your belief or the fact? In order to form any sort of belief, you need facts. In order to find facts, you need some beliefs first.
I deleted my comment before I knew you were writing a reply.
My comment originally said that I think there's two ways of exploring the world.
1. Start with a conclusion you want to be true and looking for evidence that supports your view, or
2. Start by gathering facts and trying to find conclusions in them.
You write:
> This is what I want, and therefore I try to find theories to support that.
Right. I think that view fundamentally leads to disastrously bad places. It leads to assuming you're correct and looking for confirmation instead of truth.
Truth is often unpleasant. Confirmation is easily found, even for the stupidest and craziest arguments - look at some of the clearly insane views that people hold with no backing.
Why do they think that way? Because they start with the idea that they're right and look to prove that. It's easy to prove you're right, especially if your views are the norm in your community.
It's much harder to say, "What if I'm wrong?" and to constantly seek out counter-arguments and test your views.
Everyone has views that are wrong, mistaken, poorly informed, and counter-productive. The challenge of becoming an informed person is challenging your views constantly - even your sacred ones - looking for smarter arguments.
It's difficult and stressful. I can't even recommend it if your goal in life is happiness, because if you succeed then everyone in your social circle starts to think you're nuts. But ideally, you become gradually less wrong over time and can do a lot of good for the world, even when your views look crazy to people who never stopped and asked, "What if the world isn't the way I thought it was...?"
3. Look for multiple often contradictory world views and evaluate them over time.
Most people try and create a world view where they have the 'facts' and there may be a few unimportant things they don't know and a few things they are wrong about but they got the big picture. Unfortunately, it's easy to answer 'What is the best car company?' with Ford and then always buying that. Even if sometimes Honda might be a better option.
>This is what I want, and therefore I try to find theories to support that.
It is easy to find theories to support anything you want, look at all religions and other pre-scientific belief systems. It is facing reality, whether or not it supports your beliefs, that is hard. And that is something only modern, Western-derived civilizations have ever even come close to achieving.
His theory still holds true. Unless you can conclusively argue that 'Peace' isn't the MAIN reason for the downfall of non-warring civilizations and countries - don't see where your argument leads.
In a way you're supporting him.
Finally, he's pointing out something that might be The Truth. If it's the truth then it says a lot of positive things about his capacity for logical thinking and his ability to be HONEST with himself and others.
As this article points out a lot of woman aren't marrying or having kids because "being both employed and married is tough in Asia.".
In other words, these countries have enough equality where women are allowed in the labor force but not enough where the society has set up strong institutions to deal with women in the labor force. Another economist article dealt with the impossibility of finding day care in Japan. Lacking these institutions causes a huge economic cost to exist for having kids.
Indeed, among developed nations, you'll find a positive correlation between gender equality and total fertility rate.
In Europe, the countries with the least gender gap have the highest fertility rates. (> 1.8 for all the top 5). The countries with the most are among the lowest (< 1.5 for lowest 5).
You see this as well with Asia. South Korea has one of the lowest fertility rates on the planet and extremely high gender inequality. Same is true with Japan. The article notes that it hasn't hit China yet; I'd be surprised if the trend does materialize with (urban) China's vastly higher gender equality. (gotta give the Communist Party props there)
My policy recommendation to maintain replacement level TFR is to follow the example of Norway or Iceland: reduce the economic and social cost of having kids (parental leave policies, free day care, etc.) - a lot cheaper than going to war.
Having lived in China, I agree. There is gender inequality there, and there's a lot of gender stereotyping (girls like X, boys like Y), and there's a deep-seated preference for sons (which is gradually changing, as the gener imbalance means men can't find wives unless their parents buy a house as dowry - and people are realizing that propagating the family name is getting a little overpriced); but the roles of women are much different than in Japan and Korea. 70 years ago, that wasn't true - China was even more inequitable (think foot-binding). I think China's improved, while Japan and Korea stayed conservative.
I mean, would you really want to marry if that meant giving up your career and becoming an unpaid cleaner / cook / babysitter, while your SO worked 70 hour weeks to make up for the fact that you weren't contributing? Weird choice.
I'm not sure how your policy recommendation relates to your initial observation (gender equality -> fertility).
How does forcing the childless (note: people of both genders can be childless) to subsidize parents promote gender equality?
(I'm not disagreeing with your suggesting that you can subsidize something to get more of it, I'm just trying to figure out how your last paragraph relates to the rest of your post.)
First note that the childless already massively subsidize parents through taxes that pay for education. Also note that I am considering replacement levels of fertility desirable.
The cost of being a mother, biologically, is vastly higher than being a father. This is further enhanced by cultural expectations for the mother to do most of the child raising.
In other words, female parents take a far greater hit than male ones. (Indeed, child raising explains almost all of the male-female wage gap). Subsidizing parents effectively subsidizes women far more; it's basically an affirmative action program to compensate a disadvantage dealt by biology and society. (How the subsidy flows is tricky. As most people end up having kids, this subsidy is effectively mostly a transfer of wealth from fathers to mothers, across generations).
Some policies that may be clearer are government promotion of fathers taking care of kids via both advertisement and paternity leave. This breaks down traditional gender roles (promotes equality), while reducing the burden on the mother.
>First note that the childless already massively subsidize parents through taxes that pay for education. Also note that I am considering replacement levels of fertility desirable.
This isn't as simple as that. The tax revenue used for education in Texas comes from property taxes. The majority of that is from homeowners. The overwhelming majority of homeowners have or had children in the home at some point. Aside from those facts, would you like to live in a society where the children were not educated? I think you would find that the reduction in crime and the boost to the cheap labor force would be worth the investment.
The most important point this should make is: all of these things are fabulously complicated and interrelated.
Ok, so by "gender equality", you merely mean "statistically similar representation of women in assorted reference classes" rather than "equal treatment". (The latter is what I originally thought you meant.)
Of course, I'd be rather hard pressed to see what that has to do with fertility. I'd suggest maybe that there is a simpler explanation for the phenomenon you observed - the countries with gender equality also seem to have lots of subsidies for parenthood. Most likely the subsidies are the cause of fertility.
If the subsidies are the actual cause, we could probably get higher fertility by subsidizing parenthood together with higher societal expectations of maternal activities from women. The carrot of free money for the fertile life path, and the stick of lower social status for the less fertile path.
(Not that I advocate this course of action, but I'm not in favor of encouraging fertility in any case.)
This is patent nonsense. Every society has its day in the sun, military or not, and then collapses. The US is doing this as we speak - despite having the most powerful military the world has ever known, and almost spending more on its military than the rest of the world combined. It's been far from peaceful in the timeframe that Europe and Japan have been (several official wars, quite a number of unofficial ones). Far from renouncing war, the US both pursues and idolises it. And yet, despite it's magnificent military geographic isolationism, monster GDP and supreme military, its economy is tumbling - the exact opposite of what you're saying about a country that pursues military excellence.
Then there's all sorts of peaceful native societies that did fine for hundreds to thousands of years before the colonial nations came, with no implosion.
Your statement reads far more like you had a predetermined conclusion and decided to simply shoehorn your observations into it.
On the other hand, I'm wondering if you're just trolling - "studied a lot of history" and then saying "exceedingly good relations with China" combined with "japan remilitarises". I don't think you've read enough history there...
While I don't have an opinion on the theory under discussion, I think the way to read into the OP's definition of 'war' is 'total war', which the US has not been involved in since WW2. The 'total war' part is required for the massive culling that the OP seems to think is needed for a prospering society.
You raise a good point, and I have commented in other forums on the strangeness of the US currently fighting large distant wars with a peacetime economy, which is very expensive.
But if that's the case, isn't the argument then an oxymoron? Total war is a total realignment of society - the society is necessarily broken down and forged afresh. Engaging in total war 'to save a society' necessarily changes that society, often quite profoundly. The total war of WWII made massive social changes when comparing pre- and post-war societies (two big ones were end of colonialism and rising equality of women in developed nations). The society you get at the end of total war is different from the one you may have been trying to preserve.
> I'm wondering if you're just trolling - "studied a lot of history" and then saying "exceedingly good relations with China" combined with "japan remilitarises". I don't think you've read enough history there...
I tried writing up all the credentials I have that make me have a clear understanding here, but I don't know how to do it without looking snarky. But anyways, today I'm in Beijing, yesterday I was in Hong Kong, last week I was in Japan, and tomorrow I'm getting my hair cut with the nephew of one of the top CPC officials who is my friend and occasionally someone I do business with. And yeah, I read a lot of history.
So anyways. I think you might be uninformed about modern Japanese/Chinese relations.
For instance, there's only four countries that get visa free entry into the PRC without any public business.
Huh. Interesting point? Don't the Chinese hate the Japanese?
Answer: nope! The leadership doesn't, anyways. The common people do, it's a common enemy for them, just like illegal immigration from Mexico is a common enemy for much of the American Midwest. But the leadership of China are extremely practical, intelligent, and unsentimental people. If a good relationship with Japan is good for China, they'll do it. If Japan makes friendly overtures simultaneously with re-arming and stays on good terms with the USA, yes that's all very possible.
As for the rest of your comment, man you've seriously got to check your own claims more. For instance -
> Far from renouncing war, the US both pursues and idolises it.
Okay. So, you'd expect a greater number of people among the upper class to be joining the military, a greater number of representatives to be coming from former soldiers, and more presidents to be former servicemen too?
Right? You'd expect those numbers to be increasing if American militarism is increasing? Are they increasing? No...? Is there a hole in your theory...? Hmm...
Yes, they are good business partners (and from your link, it appears that China's favourite nation ever is San Marino - a nation of 30k landlocked by Italy).
If Japan remilitarised they would be a credible threat to China and it would be difficult to maintain 'exceedingly good relations'. If Japan remilitarises, the question of any military is "who are our credible threats?", and the answer is "China, predominantly, then Korea". So Japanese remilitarisation would necessarily focus on countering China. The fact it could also fight in Korea would add tension to China's pawn in North Korea.
and more presidents to be former servicemen too?
I don't have numbers for congress, but do for presidents. In the last two presidential elections, 50% of the candidates have been former active servicemen. In one case, the serviceman was defeated by a former National Guardsman, the incumbent who had initiated two wars while in office. This same former active servicemen suffered a significant PR loss due to a character assassination campaign where his wounds in action were deemed "not heavy enough to earn a medal, the guy's a fake".
I'm not sure how your highly selective example of 'decreasing militarism' is satisfied here.
Remember that before WWII, the US had a small military. Since WWII it's been kept large and expanded - the cold war, for example, was brought to an end by the US out-producing it's opponent - and the world is constantly reminded that the US has an army and actively uses it, anywhere, any time.
The US is a much more military-oriented society than it's colleagues. What you're doing is taking the wide outlier (the US) and then saying "it's not highly militarised - see it's not increasing", despite the point that it's already way out there.
How does your theory fit with the enormous counter example you have under the eyes? i mean, China has been peaceful for centuries, underarmed, and did not collapse, or did we learn a different history?
China fought a war with Japan from 1930-1944, concurrent with and followed by its own civil war. Not to mention its involvement in Korea and Vietnam. Not exactly centuries.
History, especially in the case of China, did not start in 1900. During Han, Tang and Ming dynasties at least, the country was not in a military struggle for survival, and while dynasties die eventually, the country survived all them (until now).
Note aside, it is funny to see that when doing some quick blind generalizations on mankind, like "countries at peace die eventually", one can almost always use China as a coutner example. I can trow a fairly lenghty list of them.
This is a appealing theory, marred only by the fact that it is appears to be gibberish.
At the very least, it's an extraordinary claim and makes no reference to the anything not more easily explained by the oft-noted equation between low GBP and high fertility - for example, seen here:
If you can furnish a concrete series of examples of countries at a similar economic stage, where the sole difference is warlike behavior, and connect this to fertility, more power to you.
> This is a appealing theory, marred only by the fact that it is appears to be gibberish.
Man, it's very possible to be skeptical without the asshole tone. It's a common theme in your comments, but it's really unnecessary.
Anyways. It's a good point, regardless of tone. Where'd my analysis come from?
I've noted that:
-You see baby booms frequently after the conclusion of war, increasing fertility.
-As nations age and move towards pacifism, you seem to have a cycle of more luxury goods being produced and less trade/usable goods. EG, more Burberry and less fighter planes, which means more status/positional goods and less things that can be technologically built on.
It's also something I've seen and felt in being in lots of countries. That's entirely subjective, but the urge to "live quickly" seems higher in places that where people face their mortality. Mongolia made a notable impression on me, and their fertility is very high (and they have a high general militant disposition, as well).
> If you can furnish a concrete series of examples of countries at a similar economic stage, where the sole difference is warlike behavior, and connect this to fertility, more power to you. But frankly, I think you're just making stuff up.
1. That's a PhD thesis amount of work, or at least a long many-page discussion on a history forum, not a quick comment on Hacker News. Asking the other person you're talking to provide PhD amounts of evidence is asinine. C'mon dude, seriously.
2. You can be skeptical and intelligently asking questions without the asshole tone. I don't mean just to me - go review your own comment history. You're obviously a smart guy, you can ask questions without the haughty manner and you'll probably be better off for it.
I'm going to leave the ad homs to one side, though I suspect a review of your comment history would reveal a parade of unwarrantedly self-assured geek autodidacticism... hey, it's milder than 'asshole'. Here's a deal; I'll be less snarky if people like you can be less pretentious.
I'm still baffled as to your evidence; apparently the Mongolians are hard bastards and like fucking, or something. What's asinine is that you have no evidence for your wild, extraordinary claim. None. Never mind PhD level. Give a couple examples that you think support this idea that aren't equally well explained by the traditional 'stone broke and ignorant and breeding like mad to make sure at least one survives' model. Explain why Russia is at a fertility rate of 1.34 and Iceland is at 2.05, for example. New Zealanders are breeding like rabbits compared to Belorussians, etc. Not sure who has the Burberry and who has the fighter planes there, but I doubt it bears out your ideas...
I don't want a PhD thesis. I want you to come out with a single convincing case where your 'let's be warlike' stuff explains the way the world is better than the default "broke people breed more" model.
Appeal to authority are all very well (your idea has been 'noted' by 'notable' guys!), but Gibbon is a contentious source for any kind of assertion about the modern world, having not, well, seen it. Like many pretentious high school students, I've read him, but may not be the better for it. At least you could name-check Spengler or something; this would be just as embarrassing as anything else you've written on this thread but at least more topical.
+1, this really nailed it. Not just this thread either, but the all-too-common, arrogantly presented naive analyses that we see from time-to-time on the HN comment threads.
"This has happened many times through history. It's happening in Japan right now. If I became an advisor to anyone in the Japanese government, I'd advocate two things as chief priorities - (1) exceedingly good relations with China, and (2) re-militarize.
Then join the next war they can on America's or China's side. Combined with some standard messages of nationalism/strength/growth/unity, birth rates would almost certainly increase"
This is possibly the worst idea I've ever seen proposed on this site. An actual war between the three richest countries on the planet could possibly make the world unlivable for all of humanity. It's not a good solution for putting the Japanese economy on track.
This isn't the 20th century. Our mastery over the natural world has grown far too powerful for a war between strong countries. If you can make a convincing argument that war is inevitable even in these circumstances, then you've also explained the Fermi Paradox.
I didn't read the suggestion as applying to a war between China and the U.S., but rather, to joining some conflict such as the U.S. in Iraq, or China in Mongolia. (No, I don't think the situations have anything in common besides involving the respective nations in strife.)
I say that as a clarification of the discussion, not because I agree that it's a good idea.
I have a theory that I haven't found expounded before.
ok, let's hear it.
travel through 60+ countries...study of lots of history.
the anticipation builds....
I think peaceful societies self-destruct.
dude.
a) You obviously haven't read enough history, or you would know this is not a new idea.
b) So if peaceful societies do self-destruct, do warlike societies not self-destruct? Or only the ones that don't lose?
Perhaps you ought to turn your attention from demagoguery to speculative fiction. I'm sure there's a great novel in you about militant nations fighting ritualized wars to keep their edge, while deftly avoiding any real conflict. Add some authentic texture from those 60+ countries, and you'd have a bestseller for sure.
Yes, we all dream up these world-formulas in the bathtub.
Without going deeper into your "analysis" I assure you that there is no single, unifying causality to the effects you describe.
I also assure you that my country (germany) has a really bad track-record of listening to guys with "easy answers" whose arguments started out strikingly similar to yours.
> I also assure you that my country (germany) has a really bad track-record of listening to guys with "easy answers" whose arguments started out strikingly similar to yours.
Right. That's the whole point - there will be beligerent nations, and pacifist nations will get rolled by them unless they've got a strong ally to bail them out.
It was the militant nations (USA, Britain, Russia) that bailed out the appeasement/pacifist nations from Nazi conquest and rule.
there will be beligerent nations, and pacifist nations will get rolled by them unless they've got a strong ally to bail them out.
Over here in europe we have that ally, it's called NATO.
And despite all its flaws it seems like a more reasonable approach, rather than encouraging individual nations to build nationalistic regimes (all the way down to the "standard messages") in order to protect against potentially "beligerent" neighbours.
You claim to have 'studied lots of history' and then claim that the UK 'bailed out the appeasement nations'!? That Russia 'bailed out' the pacifist nations (whatever they were in Europe at the time)
The UK is known as the appeasement nation. 'I hold in my hand a piece of paper' are the immortal words. When someone says 'appeasement', Chamberlain is the guy who comes to mind.
Russia didn't get a choice to bail anyone out - they were invaded, and through dint of favourable geography and stubborn nationalism, they prevailed.
Russia and the UK were both hastily militarising at the end of the '30s in response to rising German militarisation. And in counter to your earlier idea that in order to be more 'military' a society, you have to have more upper-class people in the military: you claim that Russia was a militant nation at that time, despite the Great Purge removing a solid chunk of the officer corps, including most of the top brass.
Keep in mind that even Russia's allies at the start of WWII considered them a backwater military, unsuited for playing with the 'big boys'.
Honestly, your comments read more as if you're just finding ways to support your predetermined conclusions than incorporating things you should have learned from studying lots of history.
Out of curiousity, who do you frame as an 'appeasement/pacifist' nation in the WWII timeframe? Is it just a jab at the early French surrender, you know, the French who weren't pacifist, but were heavily investing in military defense, just the wrong way? Or is it a jab at (I'll give you these for free) Denmark and Norway, neither of which could stand up to the German military machine, even if they were highly militarised? Surely you're not thinking of Poland, which had a strong-but-outdated military? Certainly not Czechoslovakia - that country had been left to the wolves by the countries you claim 'bailed them out'? Sweden and Switzerland were both pacificst... but didn't need bailing out. Perhaps you mean Benelux... but again, you're talking about small countries being steamrollered by a powerful military using never-before-seen tactics (paratroopers and armored spearheads) which was subsequently able to bring a world power to its knees in only a couple of months?
And despite all this, the US was not highly militarised in the period before WWII, when isolationist politics had led to a reduction in the size of the military. All three nations you report had small or underdeveloped armies (two did have very large navies, but it wasn't the navy that defeated Nazi Germany) in the lead-up to WWII.
When you say you've 'studied lots of history', are you actually delving into the actual events and reading about them, or are you just pulling from 'an interest in the populist zeitgeist mythology'?
Yes, there are no easy answers, but that doesn't mean you should skip the reading requirements...
Your point of view is not particulary controversial or shocking, or unique to you. But I find little evidence for it and much to the contrary. For example, take a look at WW2 in USA:
or simply look at birth rates in Israel, a very militarized country.
True purpose of war lies elsewhere. As Orwell said:
The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.
And obviously, lots of subjects will internalize values of ruling group and believe that war is good for economy or birth rates ;)
Have you read "The Fates of Nations" by Paul Colinvaux? It's a fascinating - and disturbing - book, covering the exact topic you are talking about.
But where Colinvaux and myself would disagree with you, is the direction of the cause and effect.
My interpretation is that a society starts off warlike. At some point it either conquers, or is conquered by its neighbors. Once the empire is at its natural borders, war no longer provides a good economic rate of return. People avoid the army and instead go into trade or farming. The imperial peace provides a stable base for commerce and industry. People become rich. As they grow rich, and as the need for martial valor declines, people become more decadent. They spend more on luxuries, they have less need for children. Thus both a decline in fertility and a decline in aggressiveness are symptoms of the underlying cause (war no longer being necessary for survival, and war no longer providing a good rate of return). Eventually though, on the borders of the empire some new, highly fertile, highly aggressive population arises. Meanwhile the old growth civilization has long lost its martial prowess, and each individual resident faces a game theory optimum of continuing the decadence, rather than face the rigors of a martial life. Thus the bordering tribe eventually is strong enough to invade, the old civilization falls, and the cycles of history continue.
According to Robert Wright in his book Non-Zero, future generations of both the conquering bordering tribe and the conquered old civilization (at least, those who survive) will derive benefits from the resulting cross-fertilization of cultures. That, he says, drives the combined civilization further up evolution's escalator. An example that comes to mind is England after the Norman Conquest.
I would dare to hypothesize that America history of immigration and cultural cross pollination could be a framework for a somewhat peaceful means of reaching the same ends.
I'm confused by your comment. Are you proposing Switzerland as a "peaceful" country as a counter example? Due to mountainous terrain, they are fairly "isolated"/protected from invasion (one of the points above re what works to provide long term peace) and they also have about 2/3's of the adult (male?) population as part of a standing militia (which is in line somewhat with another point: "military supremacy").
Unknown (at least by me): "A man of peace must be strong".
I don't necessarily agree with all the conclusions drawn by the OP but I don't see how Switzerland is some kind of "counter example". Please clarify as I am honestly baffled.
Go check out sub-Saharan Africa, and see if that aphorism holds.
If you can think of more than just guns, Switzerland is a counter-example because of its politics - instead of the OP's suggested "Japan should just join in the next war, it's necessary to save it's society", Switzerland has pursued a long policy of neutral politics. It doesn't "simply join in on wars on whatever side looks stronger". It specifically avoids doing so.
What I'm pointing out is that it's not the guns that make the society polite. Sub-saharan africa is a vast conglomeration of countries and tribal societies, bigger than the US and Europe combined, and there you are calling it an 'exception'.
And nice job dodging someone trying to help you be less 'baffled'.
> Oh, and just to have a counter example: Switzerland
The Swiss are a strange bunch of people. As recent (or as long ago) as 500 years Machiavelli was praising their military spirit compared to the mercantile and money-oriented one of his Florentine fellows. He was predicting that the city of Florence's reliance on mercenaries instead of building a military spirit from the bottom up would finally lead to its submission. He was of course proven right, because while the Swiss have managed to preserve their independence through the centuries Tuscany was soon to fall under external dominance, but it begs the question if we would have been better off with a more militarized Florence but presumably less inclined to works of art (so no Michelangelo or Galleria degli Uffizi), or if it's ok that things happened just the way they did. Also, see Sparta vs. Athens.
So in the midst of a global recession you are advocating military expansion to increase birthrates even as resources are dwindling. There has been no greater self destruction in recorded history than the second world war, and that's what results from what you advocate. Conveniently, you fail to mention any of the self destructed nations. God awful.
World War II was indeed the greatest tragedy and mistake in all of human history. The start of the war, the conduct of the war, and the conclusion of the war were all disasters, killing millions, destroying millions of people's lives, and finally delivering millions into the clutches of totalitarianism.
No, no one sane would advocate for another WWII.
However, a nation that implodes is also incredibly unpleasant. The most well-known is going from Rome to the Dark Ages. This path should also be avoided.
Re: resource scarcity, it's counter-mainstream but I'm not sure that's correct... net actionable resources might even be increasing - see, ex, all the energy that can now be gotten out of thorium. If you're a believer in cold fusion being possible (hot fusion already is possible, but isn't economical) then fossil fuels are basically a non-issue. But that's a long conversation. Suffice to say, I think the Earth can prosperously contain many more people than today, and that if it did so, it would be more prosperous. Much moreso, actually, since all gain comes from talented people and groups doing interesting things. But that's a long conversation.
Anyways. My argument is "completely pacifist societies seem to self-destruct" - there are a few rare exceptions that are extremely mountainous or islands or mountainous islands. Even they have some defense forces. But yes, I think a small amount of militarization goes a long ways towards having a more healthy nation that isn't self-destructing, which is important.
It was also one of the main factors Edward Gibbon blamed in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. However he had a somewhat different mechanism in mind than lionhearted's comment: he argued that Romans, as they got wealthy, no longer wished to personally serve in the military, so they hired mercenaries instead, which had the three effects of reducing the military readiness of normal Romans, filling the army with less loyal foreigners, and increasing the tax burden on agriculture. (It's worth noting that there's a lot of debate among later historians over whether that's the correct analysis.)
Not really, his main argument was that the western society has lost control of its technology. We (the west) are like a horse carriage where the driver has been thrown of and the horses (technology) are driving the carriage (us) in a wild ride towards the cliff. [An updated version of this philosophical thinking is Bill Joy's Grey Goo article "Why the future doesn't need us." http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy_pr.html]
You have become lost in high level reasoning. This theory is akin to saying that wakefullness is caused by sleep, therefore if you are sleepy and want to stay awake, the way to fix that is to go to sleep, so that you can wake up. True, but not profound, because the problem was how you could avoid sleep in the first place.
"Humanity grows exponentially, food production grows linearly" has not been debunked. People have starved in the last few decades, and we barely managed to avoid a widespread catastrophe through a big one-time upgrade to the best farming techniques known. How many other improvements are left before we reach biology's productivity limits? How long until we run low on natural gas to make fertilizer, having long since mined the pre-existing fertility from the soil?
Almost every case famine during last few decades had to do with some kind of local conflict (e.g. local gangs interfering with delivery of food aid) as opposed to resource shortage. Developed countries produce much more food than they need and then consume it in a very inefficient way. Growing grain and using it to feed livestock as opposed to consuming grain directly is one such example. Earth could comfortably support much large population than we have now.
Being both a carnivore and a big consumer electronics junkie I can relate to your argument. I was mostly answering to parent poster's comment about people starving. However I'm a big believer in technology being able to overcome that kinds of limits. Here's an excellent essay illustrating how 15 billion people could be supported at the level of American living standards:
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/index.html
(As a nice bonus, this is written by John McCarthy, the inventor of LISP).
But on the other hand, people want more and more wealth. For example, I cannot imagine myself living today without a washing machine. Yet 50 years ago it would have been considered a luxury.
You may very likely have been right about it in the past, but at least in Europe, two world wars essentially killed any military spirit left -- for everybody. There are no barbarians at the gates, they have all been (mostly) civilized.
With regard to the rest of the western world, I think the kind of large scale war you talk about is permanently over -- both because it would be far too expensive for everybody and because there is no winning a nuclear war.
I'm not so sure about your view of Europe. I agree that a large scale war in Western Europe, especially involving Germany like the ones in the 19th and first half of the 20th century seem extremely unlikely. But Europe is larger than that.
The war in Yugoslavia was not so long ago, for one thing.
For another, Hungary got itself a nice extreme right regime that seems rather keen to transform the country into an authoritarian state. What if they decide, at some point, that the land occupied by some of the Magyars in neighboring countries should really belong to Hungary again?
Keeping the peace in Europe is far from a finished project.
>There are no barbarians at the gates, they have all been (mostly) civilized.
Given the resurgence of nationalism and right movements holding anti-immigration feelings in Europe right now, that's far from an universal opinion. According to these guys, our gates are wide open and the barbarians are breeding in our backyards. Barbarians being, of course, undesirable immigrants from poor third-world countries, not cool white guys from across the pond.
Your tone makes it sound like you're dismissing some of the concerns that have given rise to these movements. Make no mistake: importing a large class of people with differing values to society at large will carry frictional costs. How you deal with those costs is much more serious than just calling people racists can solve.
> There are no barbarians at the gates, they have all been (mostly) civilized.
We still have the same "barbarians" as we always had. For the last two decades we just happened to be in a little better relations with them.
There is currently a war in progress in Libya in which one side is supported by the European forces. In 2008 Russian army entered parts of Georgia, mere 15 years after the Red Army was pulled from Eastern Europe.
Nothing changed. It never does.
> I think the kind of large scale war you talk about is permanently over
I agree that large-scale warfare is currently not very likely but I don't think it was ever that common as the twentieth century had led us to believe.
A great point, but not very controversial. Mainstream historians often propose that the USA's late 20th century economic, technical, and military prowess was a direct result of WWII.
As far as Japan goes - IMO their population is too old to solve the problem on their own. No matter how much propaganda you feed them, 50 year old women cannot have 4 kids.
Japan isn't completely devoid of fertile women. If you convinced them all to want six kids the population would rebound pretty impressively. Hell, my great grandmother had twelve children, and it wasn't that uncommon at the time.
Personally I think the Japanese population will rebound without any meddling. Every large population has sub-populations of people who have lots of kids. Think Mormons in the US. Eventually one or more of these sub-populations will have enough critical mass to affect the overall fertility rate.
In terms of militarization, well, the Japanese navy is still the most powerful navy in Asia. It would make pretty short work of the Chinese navy in any conflict out of range of Chinese land-based aircraft. Just calling a navy a "naval self defense force" doesn't mean it can't hold its own in a fight. This will still be true even when the Shi Lang is fully operational, though I agree the trends are in China's favor.
I think that today, it's hard to learn from history about such things because of some disruptive changes that happen to war and politics.
1. Democracy
According to the democratic peace theory[1], two stable , long term democracies, rarely or never go to war between them.
2. Nuclear weapons
The threat of nuclear weapons does change the rules of war substantially. I can't see a peaceful nation, that has nuclear weapons , totally conquered by an enemy.
I can't see a peaceful nation, that has nuclear weapons , totally conquered by an enemy
Then we are doomed to conquer ourselves. Or at least, be totally conquered in the economic sector. I don't think we can use nuclear warheads to settle China's stake in the US, lest we receive a serious credit downgrade from S&P.
Well, what's China going to do as we print our way out of our debt to them? If they get bellicose, then our nukes will come in handy. If they sit there and take what will essentially be a default on our debt via printing, then will be be conquered by them economically?
What will happen is no other country will invest in us again, and considering our addiction to debt, we will run into some... problems.
Heck, if we inflate our currency aggressively enough, other countries could wind up simply not accepting our money. It's hard to imagine today, but it's a real possibility- the value and purchasing power of your money is entirely rooted in everyone else's confidence in it's stability.
There is no way other countries would stop accepting the US$, as long as the US has things that those other countries want to buy. The US has a lot of those things ranging from food to high-tech, so there's absolutely no risk that other countries would totally reject the US currency.
Yes, the exchange rates may well decline further, and this will force you to reduce your net imports - but that's only fair. You can only profit from other countries' work for so long without sending something tangible in return.
And as far as the "addiction to debt" is concerned, it gets a bit old to repeat the same things over and over again, but have you heard of the sectoral balances? Analyze the flows of money between the three macroeconomic sectors (the federal government, the domestic private sector, and the foreign sector), and it should become clear to you that the massive increase in debt over the last two years is simply a reflection of the fact that the US private sector has managed to amass insane amounts of wealth. [1]
The distribution of that wealth may be very lopsided, but then it's the distribution of that wealth that needs to be challenged, not the buildup of debt.
[1] Part of the debt build-up obviously also reflects foreign holdings, but the one thing that really stands out in the last few years in the US is how the private sector has gone from a deficit to a surplus as people attempt to fix their balance sheets.
> What will happen is no other country will invest in us again
Again? Over what time period?
I think an investment ban, even one widely hailed as a good thing would fall apart within 30 years of its inception.
Governments change, companies rise and fall, and people die. After a while, others would be looking at America and asking "hmmm why don't we invest in those guys, they're a whole different generation different from their parents".
"its consequences will be exacerbated by the sex-selective abortion practised for a generation there."
Or, more likely, it's part of the cause. Maybe women in Asia are delaying marriage in part because they have more leverage, similarly to the black men in the U.S. who aren't in prison.
Japan cannot re-militarize. It's constitutionally impossible. Even if they could I think there's more going on here. There's a lot of underlying conflict in Japanese culture that isn't immediately visible. This kind of conflict spans thousands of years of cultural history; the cultural thing to do is to hide your true feelings in the name of harmonious relationships[1]. But the outcome doesn't seem to be that conflict is truly stopped just deferred.
In the case of Japan birthrates have been a subject of concern for at least the last two decades. There are many potential contributing factors, not the least of which is the enormous amount of stress on the average family and the exorbitant cost of living in a megalopolis such as Tokyo; the stress of working long hours and having high expenses is enough to prevent people from having kids and even having a relationship.
Although geopolitically Japan is generally a peaceful society de facto I would argue that that is not necessarily true culturally. And even in the context of geopolitics there is a fair amount of drama in Asia that involves Japan, e.g. between the South Koreans, China, Taiwan, and Japan.
Actually the reason why Japan cannot re-militarize is that it already has done so decades ago. Its military may be called "self defence forces" rather than "armed forces", but it really is a well-funded army of moderate size (6th highest military expenditures in the world).
The constitution MacArthur oversaw specifically forbids a military[1] and despite recent attempts to amend the constitution this has not happened. However, the limit on a military force was later interpreted as provisioning a self-defense force, ergo SDF. It was intentionally limited so as to prevent Japan from immediately rising as a military power but to not require longterm occupation of Japan by U.S. forces[2][3].
In practical terms there are only two restrictions on the Japanese military: No nuclear weapons and no aircraft carriers. Even the prohibition on aircraft carriers is a bit leaky.
Have a look at the Hyuga class "helicopter carrying destroyer": http://www.jeffhead.com/worldwideaircraftcarriers/16ddh.htm. On thing you notice is that unlike almost every other amphibious assault ship in the world the Hyuga class has an offset island, meaning you can land fixed-wing aircraft. Officially it carries 18 helicopters, but it has everything you need to carry an air wing (range, fuel, ammo, maintenance, and communications). So all they really need to to is fly off the helicopters and fly on some sort of STOL aircraft (like the F-35C) and presto! An aircraft carrier about on par with the British Invincible class.
Recently the Maritime SDF (you know, Navy) got the go-ahead for a "helicopter carrying cruiser", which would be the same thing only bigger, although still officially not an aircraft carrier.
The two you've listed and of course limits on national spending that involve the military which as a result significantly limit the growth of the SDF. Japan wants to avoid directly and blatantly invalidating their constitution; after all, it is supposed to be the fundamental set of laws that validate the state. That's why there's been such a push to amend the constitution.
Interesting idea. I'd love to hear more about the birth rate numbers historically. I wasn't aware that any large societies experienced sub-replacement fertility levels until the late 20th century, which are typically attributed to the empowerment of women (education, entering workforce, legal equality, etc.), huge reduction in infant mortality, and strong economies/social safety nets.
I don't have source handy, but I remember reading that the middle and upper classes had sub-replacement fertility in the late Roman Empire. You need to investigate differences within societies too. In pre-modern times there was a much more significant break, both culturally and militarily, between the upper (and middle where they existed) and the lower classes (which were often effectively slaves, even if not called that).
History always repeats itself. If you know about the history of ancient China, your theory makes sense to some extent. Smart rulers could have the country in his (and his offspring's) control for more than 300 years. Bad ones could merely last for 100 years.
As another poster remarked, strong nations adopting a warlike attitude to preserve their vigor is probably not going to work out well in a world full of nukes and bioweapons. If that becomes a popular approach, we're all dead.
It's an interesting claim. I don't think I buy it--the U.S. is entering our period of decline right now, and our belligerence is, if anything, accelerating that--but maybe you'll make a longer argument with examples on your blog.
Perhaps US entered its period of decline a long time ago and it's only now that all the good work of past generations has been undone.
The last few wars were attempts to strengthen the US - quite frankly Oil really is more valuable for the US than winning the title of prom king.
Regardless of your or my personal opinion on what the war is doing there can be little doubt that Iraqi and Afghanistani Oil is going to play a huge part in the US keeping its position in the world.
The thing that actually unsettled things is that the Wall Street people got out of control and made too many inroads into the Government and started stealing from the Average American.
Also see Athen's bellicose behavior wrt its "empire" (the Delian league) which lead directly to its decline and eventual defeat in the Peloponnesian War. Or Rome is the fourth century. Or many other ancient examples...
Great theory. Having lived on 3 continents and observed how countries and people behave and reading lots of history -> There might be a lot of truth to what you say.
The standard quote about all the peace in Switzerland leading to nothing other than the Cuckoo Clock and all the strife in Italy leading to the Renaissance comes to mind.
*
As human beings we want to give 'meaning' to our lives and underplay the role genetics and survival of the fittest play.
We also want to pretend that we don't have a baser nature and that we can 100% 'civilize' ourselves.
So we often make the wrong assumption that the perfect natural state is perfect harmony where everyone taps into some global 'peace wave frequency'.
Is it possible? Who knows.
It's just interesting that it's never happened. Ever. There has never been a point of time when the entire world was at peace. There are always wars because human nature never changes - no amount of 'civilizing' can change that, nor can everyone pretending that we are flawless perfect peace-loving creatures.
Orson Wells came up with that line in the motion picture _The Third Man_. The screenwriters didn't come up with it. The author of the original novel didn't come up with it either (though he liked it). There was a space of time in the film that needed to be filled, so Orson Wells filled it.
The full quote is:
Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love — they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.
The problem is, we've reached the unique point in our history where one major war can be the end of all wars. With so many nuclear armed countries it is a really bad idea of thinking about another major war. One major war could start a chain reaction that could easily send us back to the stone age, if we even make it. So much for progress.
The thing is that all countries eventually collapse just like all things eventually collapse. Remember, stars die too. I could easily make the claim that a lot of countries destroy themselves in a time of war. The loser of a war doesn't always rises from the ashes.
A nation probably has a timespan that it can be alive. Eventually it will just die and a new one will be formed.
Finally, correlation is not causation. Just because the two seem to show up together doesn't mean that one causes the other. It is an interesting idea though.
Tunisia is self-destructing, has one of the world highest divorce rate, slow birth rate that will make it disappear if not solved early, more than 10% of the population working/living abroad, and enough social/life mess that I/my friends want to somehow leave the country and live in another place.
Yet, we did no wars, made no commercial/art explosion (even food we don't produce).
It's not about wars, allies or anything else. I summarize it to the following:
- Justice: Yes, justice is point number one. You must have justice.
- Values: That's why religion works, it keeps values deep inside and transmit them from a generation to another.
- Education: To avoid mess, and poverty.
Military? No, you don't really need it. You need values. Look at 2006 war between Isreal and a few folks in Huzb Allah. Isreal has the strongest military in the region, along with support from the USA and Liban (gov), yet they failed.
>- Values: That's why religion works, it keeps values deep inside and transmit them from a generation to another.
More people have died on armed conflicts in the name of religion than for any other reason. National Socialism, for example, is a drop in the bucket compared to it.
In the 'States, non-religious people are much less likely to be in jail.
Religion is great at transmitting values, no doubt, but it's usually the wrong ones.
You have no idea what the relevant numbers are. The estimated loss of life during the Crusades ranges from 3-10 million lives. Current estimates place the Russian loss of life alone from WWII at 19.5 million.
> I have a theory that I haven't found expounded before.
Nietzsche represented this point of view better in his 'Will to Power' back in the 19th century. In the decades since, a lot of paper was devoted to criticism of his work.
Also, one nation that actually tried to live by his principles failed spectacularly.
I expect that it's not a theory well supported by data.
I would expect that peaceful societies are conquered by warlike societies, at a lower rate than warlike societies are conquered by other warlike societies.
Logically this ought to be true since (a) the conditions for long standing peace should necessarily mean either a protection from warmongers due to natural geography or political reality and (b) warlike societies seek out conflict and each conflict carries with it the chance of societal death.
So what exactly have you seen that makes you lead to this conclusion?
The theory you have can be noticed by other travellers and students of history; so I would have to ask: what have you observed and analyzed that led you to this conclusion?
I've heard this thesis before, but I can't find a link. It was put in terms of patriarchal versus matriarchal societies. It posited the same sort of cycle.
Interesting observation - I think another way to describe this phenomenon is that every society has to convince it's members to accept their individual role as members of society in order for it to function (you might argue that is society's only purpose). We can't all be kings, senators, business tycoons, etc. -- someone has to be the janitor or the street sweeper or the factory worker, and society's basic purpose is to re-enforce the individual's choice in accepting their fate.
Long enough ago, this was as simple as raising certain classes and races of people as slaves and telling them what to do and enforcing it with violence. However it seems that no matter how much you try to control it, societies eventually achieve enough self-awareness of the general inequality of things to revolt and re-order society to make things more fair. The next system of control is then instituted, and is seen as a vast improvement, and thus accepted by those who rebelled against the previous, even though it may be simply a more complex version of the previous system (slave-owners/slaves,land-owners/indentured servants,royalty/peasants,ruling class/working class, etc.).
In this way, I believe it's similar to the quote from HHGTTG: "There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable." I think that what happens is every time a society reaches the level of self-awareness required to realize what's happening to them and has the will to change it, a simply more complicated and harder to understand and harder to destroy system ends up replacing it.
I think in this way, you can describe the cyclical nature of societies coming and going, and applying the reasons behind this fundamental change, understand why your theory of war being beneficial fits right in: war simply leaves no room for questioning society's demands of the individual. The reason this works is that members of a militarized or war-time society are indoctrinated, and those who end up members of the military trained from day one to obey orders and follow authority. After leaving the military, if you do you happen to survive and get out of the war, working a factory job and having a few kids is damn near paradise compared to the hell you went through. It is a very effective way to keep individuals from questioning their place in society or the fairness of it's structure and thus why I think it has the society-prolonging effect you've observed. War shifts individual's thinking from long-term (career, legacy, mark on the world, children's future) to short term (survival, employment, simply procreating).
If you buy into any of what I am saying, you might also hypothesize that the U.S came close to becoming self-aware of and motivated to change it's societal inequalities around 2008 with the reaction to the Government bail-outs and the housing market crash. I think the only reason that energy hasn't really gone anywhere yet is twofold: 1) With the economy in the shape it's in, it makes those who are employed more happy with their current employment situation than usual, and more unlikely to try to change things in general, since they are "lucky to even have a job in this economy", and aren't really feeling the inequality in their day to day lives. And it's not bad enough to where mass unemployment is giving people enough free time to organize and actually try to restructure the way our government works. 2) The act of electing public officials to office helps stave off the idea that "we need to restructure society" as it lets people restructure a symbol of society to them. Elections act as a relief valve for political pressure, since it allows people to 1) have input and make changes and 2) it buys time for the newly elected official to "get settled" in their office before people become dissatisfied again or economic/societal conditions improve, whichever comes first.
Sources: Just my theory on the matter, please point out where I am wrong (I'm sure I am in more than one way)
There is a significant body of work done by Lev Gumilev on the death and genesis of ethnoi (the cyclical nature of societies, as You've put it). It will certainly let you see things from a different perspective.
I actually really agree with you. But- I don't think Japan can re-militarize without essentially declaring war on America. Part of the treaty we set up at the end of WWII and all.
Wait... Maybe that means the reason they are declining is because we neutered them...?
P.S. I suspect the reason your theory has not been explored much in public writings is because it has an implied support of continued military activity, funding and dominance, which is a very unpopular position in the US today. Ironically, probably because we reside exactly in the part of your described cycle corresponding with military decline!
> I don't think they can re-militarize without declaring war on America. Part of the treaty we set up at the end of WWII and all.
I think things have sufficiently changed since the 1940's that re-militarizing could happen without too much hostility, given good diplomacy with USA and China.
I actually think America would like another friendly military power in the Pacific.
It might lead to diplomatic tension, but there's like a 0% chance it'd lead to a declaration of war. They've got their hands way, way too full elsewhere.
What are they going to do with a military? Why not just go through Tokyo with a baseball bat and break as many windows as possible? That'll put people to work without risking the peace.
I don't disagree with your thesis that peaceful societies tend to amuse themselves to death, but I don't see how military spending is a magical way out of that trap, unless you go looking for trouble.
It's going to be controversial and maybe even shocking, so brace yourself for a moment before reacting please.
I think peaceful societies self-destruct.
With a few notable exceptions that require a geography suitable to isolationism, long term peace has historically been achieved through your country or one of your ally's having military supremacy over the rest of your neighbors.
Obviously, diplomacy can keep the peace for long periods of time, even human lifetimes, but eventually incidents happen when there's a hothead in one government, and then that's when the military supremacy determines whether you get attacked or not.
Anyways, I've found the more a country renounces war and gets further away from it, the more birth rates go down. You get an explosion of commerce and art for ~30 to ~70 years, and then the society self-destructs.
No longer forced to confront mortality and with no externally unifying cause, people start living for luxury, pleasure, and consumption. They stop having children. Birth rates fall off.
Eventually, this destroys a country's economy, the military supremacy fades, and one of their neighbors comes in and cleans house, and the cycle begins anew.
This has happened many times through history. It's happening in Japan right now. If I became an advisor to anyone in the Japanese government, I'd advocate two things as chief priorities - (1) exceedingly good relations with China, and (2) re-militarize.
Then join the next war they can on America's or China's side. Combined with some standard messages of nationalism/strength/growth/unity, birth rates would almost certainly increase.