Is the world drifting toward another world war? While the question certainly sounds dramatic, there has been significant concern about the potential for inadvertent escalation. There is little consensus, however, on which of the previous world wars the current conditions parallel.
Some suggest that the world is witnessing a return to the conditions before World War I, while others point to those before World War II.
Uncomfortable parallels exist with both eras. Prior to World War I, a combination of shifting great power balances, hyper-nationalism, and misperceptions of both power and intent led world leaders to sleepwalk into a war whose consequences they did not fully understand.
Elements of these conditions are present today as well, as China, due to its rise and hyper-nationalism, seems to be on a course that increases the chances of a war with the US and its partners in the Indo-Pacific region. There is also a significant amount of misperceptions on both sides that heighten the danger. Several pathways can ignite such a conflagration, especially considering China’s conflicts with countries around its periphery that look to Washington for protection.
Then there are circumstances that parallel with some of the conditions prior to World War II, which developed much more slowly than World War I. Unlike the First World War, which began with a series of war declarations in just a couple of weeks in August 1914, the Second World War was not a single event that pitted all great powers against each other. A number of different, unconnected regional conflicts slowly came together over more than two years to make it a global war by the end of 1941.
The WWII parallels today are clear, with Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, the Hamas terrorist attack and Israel’s subsequent horrible war in Gaza, and the continuing threat of China’s attack in the South China Sea and Taiwan.
The sense of growing crisis is further strengthened by the development of opposing camps, with the US and its partners on one side, and Russia and China on the other, coupled with their ‘no limits’ partnership.
The formation of opposing coalitions is another feature that was common with both periods.
Analogies suspect, but necessary
Such analogies with previous eras are always suspect, even though we use them all the time. The human tendency to create such intellectual shortcuts may lead to a misdiagnosis of contemporary conditions and misapplication of the wrong lessons—a concern indicated by the old aphorism that ‘generals are always preparing to fight the last war’.
On the other hand, drawing analogies may be psychologically unavoidable because leaders, as human beings, cannot take every circumstance they face as sui generis and approach it completely afresh. We take readings from the past to help guide us in the present and prepare for the future.
Using analogies is, therefore, unavoidable; the only way to deal with it is by being careful and open to potential alternative explanations, especially given that many specific events are contingent and not, even in retrospect, inevitable. The question then becomes about which historical analogy to use, or more importantly, which aspects of these analogies are useful.
Despite the caveat above, debating concerns about the growing great power tensions and its parallels with past crises may be necessary for raising awareness of current dangers, especially considering the consequences of a larger war for the entire world. We need to keep in mind one more important point: nuclear difference.
These analogies drawing parallels with previous world wars do not fully acknowledge the difference that nuclear weapons make to crisis escalation. While the basic principles of interstate politics have arguably remained familiar if not constant since the beginning of inter-state relations, one fundamental element has not. Among nuclear-armed states, war is no longer normal.
Both the US and the Soviet Union took great care, especially after the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, to ensure that they would not risk nuclear escalation again.
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Rattling the nuclear sabre
This does not mean that nuclear weapons can prevent all wars. We do have several examples of nuclear-armed states going to war, including Kargil. But fear of nuclear escalation does dampen the enthusiasm for war.
Even in Kargil, both India and Pakistan imposed constraints on their use of force that suggests concern about nuclear escalation. Indian leaders ensured that Indian military action stayed on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC) while Pakistan essentially abandoned its forces rather than escalate—Instead of responding to India by starting a conventional war, Rawalpindi let its forces be butchered.
So, will this nuclear difference prevent a future war between either the US and China or the US and Russia? On the positive side, Russia’s repeated nuclear escalation threats have so far been shown to be empty rhetoric, even if nuclear threats can never entirely be dismissed, given the scale of their consequences.
However, the rapid expansion of China’s nuclear force suggests that China intends to use it as a shield to engage in conventional aggression in its neighbourhood. This carries great risks. Moreover, the larger and more complex a nuclear arsenal is, the greater the challenges of controlling it in a crisis.
On the other hand, is concern about nuclear escalation always a good thing? What if it leads to policy paralysis, as it did in the US’s support to Ukraine? If other countries assume your reticence is driven by the fear of nuclear escalation, then it’s a potential vulnerability that can be exploited. For decades, Pakistan exploited this to support terrorism against India.
Will the US be deterred from intervening in Taiwan if China rattles the nuclear sabre? One countervailing point is that the US also has to worry about its own credibility, especially with allies that are under its nuclear umbrella and can build their own nuclear weapons.
This is what has seemingly constrained the US toward No First Use (NFU), for example. Ukraine faced a similar concern, but it is not a formal ally and now it doesn’t have the ability to build nukes. However, several US partners in East Asia are both formal allies and nuclear powers.
Would the threat of nuclear escalation alone prevent a repeat of the follies of the past? While it is difficult to be certain, the first two decades of the nuclear age were fairly troubled, with frequent crises. It was only after looking down the abyss in 1962 that the two superpowers pulled back.
All this to say that this first decade of US-China nuclear parity is likely to be rocky.
Rajesh Rajagopalan is a professor of International Politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. He tweets @RRajagopalanJNU. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)