Dear Matt,

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

> I don't have enough experience with actual battles to make that
> determination. I'm interested to hear more about why Malplaquet
> could have only happened during a crisis war, and Somme could not.
> Maybe John can field this one.

I'm having trouble understanding some of the reasoning in your
discussion with Mike. I'm especially perplexed by the discussion of
the meaning of the fact that the Germans stopped killing people at
Sedan. Are either of you implying that in a crisis war one side must
completely exterminate the other side, or it isn't a crisis war? Did
we not stop bombing Germany when Berlin fell? Did we not stop bombing
Japan when they surrendered?

(I now see that Jenny is making a similar point in her posting.)

Both of you have been looking for reasons why the War of the Spanish
Succession is not a crisis war, and if you're looking for reasons for
something like that you'll always find them. Neither of you has been
looking for reasons why it IS a crisis war.

The only way to evaluate a war completely is to do what Strauss and
Howe did -- read several histories and diaries of the war and really
get a feel for it. Without that, you're trying to make a decision
based on very few facts.

The Crisis War Evaluation Algorithm that I came up with is designed
for exactly that purpose -- to provide a crisis war evaluation for a
war when you have very few facts about the war available.

So I'd like a different approach for you -- and for Mike if he'd
like to participate.

Let's start with a few facts about WW II, approximately the same
level of facts that you have about WSS:

(*) Someone name Hitler started a war in Europe; Japan bombed Pearl
Harbor.

(*) There was lots of bombing in Europe and Japan.

(*) Finally, after a lot of bombing, Allied forces defeated Germany,
and Japan surrendered.

Now, that's approximately the level of facts that you have about the
War of the Spanish Success. Using this set of facts alone, is this
set of facts enough to convince you that WW II is a crisis war?

It wouldn't be enough to convince me. So here's the question: What
additional 5 or 10 facts about WW II would convince you that WW II is
a crisis war? I'm asking for a specific list of facts.

If you can provide such a set of facts, then we can look again at the
War of the Spanish Success to see what the corresponding facts are
that would convince you and Mike that it's a crisis war.

War Deaths: Malplaquet vs Somme and Verdun

The idea of applying Strauss and Howe principles to a single battle
(as opposed to an entire war) is really something new. I did it on
my web site in the recent Lebanon war, and as usual I'm astounded by
how well the Strauss and Howe principles describe the situation -- not
just the outcome of a war, but actually the fighting style of the two
sides. Lebanon is in an awakening era and Hizbollah fought in a
"cool" non-crisis war style; Israel is in a crisis era and fought in
a "hot" crisis war style. The fighting styles fit Strauss and Howe
principles perfectly.

So now we're going to do something similar with the battle of
Malplaquet, contrasting it to the WW I battles of Somme and Verdun.

And as I understand it, neither you and Mike are claiming any special
similarity between these battles except for one thing: The high rate
of war deaths.

The Crisis War Evaluation Algorithm requires four separate
evaluations to be made: Historical significance, intensity of
genocidal violence, level of political considerations, and
resolution.

(For anyone else reading this, you'll find this algorithm in Chapter
8 of my book, Generational Dynamics for Historians, the
current draft of which can be read for free on my web site.)

Now we're going to try to apply that same algorithm to a single
battle, rather than to an entire war. That's OK, as long as we
realize that we aren't evaluating an entire war, and that evaluations
of other battles in the same war may be more important.

Where could war deaths fit into that algorithm?

Remember Matt, you yourself have made the point that whether a war is
a crisis war affects how each side behaves, not what the other side
does to them.

Thus war deaths CANNOT POSSIBLY have anything directly to do with the
evaluation of a crisis war battle, since you don't know the war
deaths UNTIL THE BATTLE IS OVER.

With this understanding, there are two possible places in the
evaluation algorithm where war deaths might fit.

In step 2, a high rate of war deaths might be indicative of a
high level of genocidal violence. I agree with this intuitively, but
as a practical matter I've never found it to be true. What matter is
how the two sides behave during the battle.

I've previously given the example of the Lebanese civil war, where
only a few hundred or possibly a couple of thousand people were
massacred in 1982 at camps in Sabra and Shatila. This incidentally
completely overshadows Lebanon today, and it's the mere fact that one
group of Lebanese citizens was able to massacre another group of
Lebanese citizens that's creating the shock.

In step 4, a very high number of war deaths can contribute to
the resolution of the war, and this appears to be what happened in
the battle of Malplaquet. The thing that's REMEMBERED about
Malplaquet is the high number of war deaths, and there was a desire
at the Utrecht conference in 1714 to avoid for as long as possible
another violent conflict such as the one that had just ended.

And the Treaty of Utrecht was successful, since there were no more
European wars until the French Revolution, 75 years later.

Now let's turn to the battles of Somme and Verdun. Were the high
levels of war deaths remembered in the same way as they were in
Malplaquet?

I have some personal insight into this question, since WW I was
discussed frequently when I was in school in the 1950s. The picture
I have of WW I from my school days is only a few sound bytes, and
they summarize to the following: My school days picture of WW I is of
two armies facing each other across a huge trench, shooting at each
other for four years.

I cannot recall much concern about WW I war deaths from my 1950s
school days. Everything I remember from then is that WW I was a
static war with people sitting there shooting at each other. Perhaps
the horrors of WW I seemed tame at that time compared to the horrors
of WW II, but there was no sustained horror at WW I war deaths the
way that there apparently was sustained horror at the Malplaquet war
deaths, as far as I can tell.

War Deaths vs Genocidal Violence

The whole question being answered here is the value of a human life.

Strauss and Howe point out that the value of an individual human life
becomes important during the Awakening era, and reaches its peak
during the Unraveling era. In the crisis era, the a human life
becomes less important than protecting the nation and its way of
life.

So the "genocidal violence" concept is supposed to measure Strauss
and Howe's concept. At the beginning of the Fourth Turning, the
value of a human life is still very high. As the crisis era
continues, the value of a human life continues to fall, and by the
climax of the crisis war, the value of a crisis war is pretty close
to zero.

Once the crisis is past, people start saying to one another, Ohmigod,
what have we done to each other??? Then the value of a human life
starts to increase again.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

First Turning: "High" vs "Austerity" Era

I think I finally have a resolution to this question.

As people may recall, I've always been very troubled by this whole
question of whether to call the First Turning a "High" era or an
"Austerity" era.

The issue is that "High" seems to apply only to the victor, while
"Austerity" would be a broader term.

In addition, I really have no personal memory from the 50s of it
being a "high." Adults generally didn't talk much about the war, but
when they did it was only in, well, austere terms.

One of my favorite teachers was a woman with a wooden leg. I don't
know how she lost her leg, and she never said that I can remember,
but it must have been in the war. She occasionally mentioned the
Depression or the war, but never in "high" terms.

Since I was born in 1944, it's possible that later Prophets saw more
of the "high" attitude than I did.

More important, it seems to me that this is an important distinction
between the survivors of the war and Prophet generation that comes
after.

In other words, the First Turning is an "Austerity Era" for people
who survive the crisis war, and a "High Era" for the Prophet
generation born after the war.

So BOTH terms apply, but to different generations. The High versus
Austerity difference then comes to a head in the generation gap of
the Awakening Era.

That seems to resolve the issue in a way that's fully consistent with
Strauss and Howe's research.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Excerpts from history of battle of Malplaquet

A couple of weeks ago I posted the URL for a site giving details
about the battle of Malplaquet.

I'd like to return to that web site and point to some specific text
that sheds some light on the evaluation of this battle and the War of
the Spanish Succession.

The first extract describes the evolution of warfare from the Thirty
Years War to the War of the Spanish Succession. It shows how the
Thirty Years War was a "bitter-armed conflict" with pestilence and
atrocities on all sides, but the wars between 1648 and 1703 were much
more orderly and disciplined. This supports the view that the Thirty
Years War and the War of the Spanish Succession were crisis wars, as
opposed to the wars in between.

> The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 brought to an end the Thirty
> Years War, which had ravaged Europe not only with bitter-armed
> conflict, but also with pestilence, and the atrocities committed
> by all sides caused military thinkers to revaluate their whole
> concept of warfare. By 1700 the art of war had became the art of
> manoeuvre, and in particular the art of fortification and siege
> craft. Campaigns were normally fought during the spring and
> summer, armies going into winter quarters in October and emerging
> once again in April to continue their chess- like manoeuvring.
> Armies were now far more disciplined in comparison to the
> marauding hordes of mercenaries employed during the Thirty Years
> War, and although foreign troops were still used in most armies of
> the period, they were subject to the same stringent measures of
> discipline as the indigenous soldiers of the country under which
> they served.

> Weapons and tactics had also changed. Between 1648 and 1703 the
> pike gradually became obsolete, and infantry were now all armed
> with the flintlock musket and the socket bayonet. With the
> adoption of one single weapon, battlefield tactics and formations
> were simplified, and the battalion became the basic unit of most
> armies. Each battalion was around 600-800 strong and organized
> into left and right wings, these again being subdivided into
> divisions and platoons, eighteen platoons normally made up a
> battalion. The French still continued to use the traditional
> method of firing by ranks, but the English and Dutch armies had
> begun to use platoon firing. The effectiveness of this type of
> "rolling" fire meant that each platoon gave three controlled
> volleys along the whole front of the battalion from right to left
> as follows, 'After the battalion formed up, the line was
> sub-divided into 18 equal platoons of 30-40 men, half the elite
> grenadier company taking post at each extremity of the line. The
> platoons were then told off into 'firings' of six platoons apiece,
> not contiguous groups, but scattered proportionately down the
> line. Sometimes the fire of the entire front rank would be also
> reserved as a fourth 'firing'. The colonel (or deputy) and his
> pair of drummers took post to the fore of the centre, the second-
> in-command and the colour party drew up to the rear, whilst the
> major and adjutant hovered on horseback on the extreme flanks,
> ordering the lines. A subaltern and a sergeant were told off to
> supervise each platoon, any spare officers taking up positions in
> the rear of the battalion line. After advancing towards the enemy,
> the battalion would halt at 60 yards range. On the order 'First
> Firing, take care!' the platoons of the first six platoons would
> prepare to discharge, giving fire together in a patterned
> sequence. Next, as these platoons opened order to reload, the
> platoons of the second firing would come to the present and fire
> in turn. The remainder, which included the grenadiers, then gave
> the third fire. By this time (approximately 30 seconds), the first
> sub-units would have finished reloading and would be ready to fire
> a second time, and the whole process would be repeated'.

> http://www.battlefieldanomalies.com/...quet/index.htm

The next extract gives details about the actual battle. Notice how
the battle becomes increasingly undisciplined as time goes on.

This gets into the question of "war style" that I mentioned
previously in contrasting Hizbollah's "cool" non-crisis style to
Israel's "hot" crisis style of fighting in the recent Lebanon war.

> Now safe from any French counterattacks, Lottum's depleted
> command, together with Orkney's two fresh British battalions
> finally burst into the southern tip of the Wood of Sars, pouring
> over the entrenchments and finally coming to grips with their
> adversaries using the bayonet and clubbed musket. The fighting
> here must have been terrible, as thousands of men yelled, cursed,
> screamed, gouged, kicked and tore at each other within no more
> than 600 square meters of woodland. Those that could still re-load
> in the crush, fired without heeding the drill-book regulations,
> but just banged off shot after shot as fast as they could. The
> officers who had managed to survive the initial attacks also took
> part in this hand-to-hand struggle, slashing to right and left
> with their swords, or taking up a musket and fighting like a
> private soldier, although their gaudy uniforms, decorated with
> silver and gold lace marked them out as special targets. This
> woodland fighting must have been quite exceptional for its time,
> and one can only guess at what it must have entailed -the stifling
> clouds of smoke that only gradually drifted up into the treetops;
> musket balls coming in from all sides, sending leaves and twigs
> cascading down to the ground as in an autumn storm; flying wood
> splinters piercing eyes and flesh and turning men frantic among
> the welter of death and destruction that surrounded them, while
> flocks of birds wheeled overhead in perplexed agitation. ...

> Having made sure that no more suicidal attacks would occur, and
> that the role of the left wing was to only contain the French,
> Marlborough and Eugene rode back to the centre to await news of
> the combat in the Wood of Sars. It was now 11.30 am, and the smoke
> and noise were still indicative of the continuing violence near at
> hand, where close to thirty thousand Allied infantry pressed
> forward against four or five thousand French defenders, trampling
> friend and foe alike underfoot. Many became crazed killing
> machines, 'Sir Richard Temple's regiment lost more men that day
> than any other single British battalion. They performed prodigies;
> but their high spirits took a savage form. "They hewed in pieces"
> wrote a German observer, "all they found before them…even the dead
> when their fury found no more living to devour."' The French put
> up a gallant resistance, which caused the allies to pay for every
> inch of ground with their blood, but even as they withdrew it
> would appear that other obstructions had been made ready to
> confront their antagonist after the first line of entrenchments
> and breastworks had been breeched. Corporal Matthew Bishop of the
> 8th Regiment of Foot has left us a tantalizing glimpse of how the
> French had fortified even the interior of the woods. ...

> The battle died down at just after 3.00 p.m. with no pursuit
> forthcoming from the Allies, who were close to exhaustion after
> seven hours of bitter fighting. Many sank down on the spot, others
> looked for water, while some took to looting the bodies, which
> were plentiful. The whole field was covered in dead and wounded
> men and horses. In front of the French entrenchments along their
> right wing the bodies of the Dutch, Swiss and Scottish lay four or
> five deep, with small hope of survival for any of the wounded that
> might lie below the dead weight crush of the corpses. Before the
> re-entrant where the 20 gun French battery had been concealed, the
> mutilated remains of the Dutch battalions of general Dohna lay in
> ghastly windrows. Severed arms legs and heads lay among blackened
> torsos which were strewn in all directions, the whole expanse of
> ground, some 1000 meters wide by 100 meters in depth from the Wood
> of Tiry to the Wood of Lanieres being one vast carpet of pain and
> death.

> http://www.battlefieldanomalies.com/.../05_battle.htm

(Continued in next posting)

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

(Continued from previous posting)

The final extract summarizes some of the results of the war. Note
the last few sentences: "end the war no matter how many of their own
soldiers got killed or wounded" and "the Duke had begun to consider
victory at any price worthwhile."

These are very strong signals of crisis war behavior.

> One is reminded of the bitter fighting that occurred in the
> Wilderness Campaign of 1864, during the American Civil War, and
> indeed the circumstances are almost identical to the way things
> took place at Malplaquet. The similarity is so striking that I am
> surprised that no one has ever bothered to compare these
> engagements before. In both instances the defending forces had
> constructed log breastworks and entrenchments covering the
> approaches to their front, and in both cases the stronger force
> was cut down in swathes endeavouring to break through the
> defenders lines. If this is not military history repeating itself
> without having learnt from its mistakes I do not know what is?

> The main question to be asked about Malplaquet from the allied
> perspective is was it necessary? The French were not defeated,
> and even had they been forced from the field in more disorder than
> they actually were, it is by no means sure that the Allies would
> have had the strength, or the will, to pursue them and complete
> the victory? Marlborough and Eugene could both be accused of
> criminal sacrifice of life for no real purpose. One feels that in
> this, their last joint effort together on the battlefield, both
> commanders threw restraint to the wind, and were endeavouring to
> end the war no matter how many of their own soldiers got killed or
> wounded to do so. Dr David Chandler says that, 'The pressure in a
> Marlburian battle was relentless.' It was relentless for friend as
> well as foe, and if Malplaquet proves nothing else, it does show
> that the Duke had begun to consider victory at any price
> worthwhile.

> http://www.battlefieldanomalies.com/...7_thoughts.htm

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

First Turning: "High" vs "Austerity" Era

I think I finally have a resolution to this question.

As people may recall, I've always been very troubled by this whole
question of whether to call the First Turning a "High" era or an
"Austerity" era.

The issue is that "High" seems to apply only to the victor, while
"Austerity" would be a broader term.

In addition, I really have no personal memory from the 50s of it
being a "high." Adults generally didn't talk much about the war, but
when they did it was only in, well, austere terms...

I have to agree with you here, John. I also experienced the 50s as austere. Considerably few in my high school had much expendable cash at all, or even a car. But austerity is a relative thing, of course. Compared to what I remember in the 40s (I was born in '39), the 50s seemed like living off the hog. Compared to today, the 50s seem very austere to me.

That austerity, however, had a galvanizing effect on the public mindset, as I'm sure you remember. And then Dinah Shore sang: "See the USA in your Chevrolet! America is asking you to call...!" Ike put up the freeways, credit cards all around in the 60s, fat cats making war and money like stink, and pretty soon that galvaning austerity turned into its own mockery at Woodstock, and the ghost of Woody Guthrie disappeared with the onset of Disco and Donny Osmond.

There's goodness in austerity.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

First Turning: "High" vs "Austerity" Era

I think I finally have a resolution to this question.

As people may recall, I've always been very troubled by this whole
question of whether to call the First Turning a "High" era or an
"Austerity" era.

The issue is that "High" seems to apply only to the victor, while
"Austerity" would be a broader term.

In addition, I really have no personal memory from the 50s of it
being a "high." Adults generally didn't talk much about the war, but
when they did it was only in, well, austere terms.

I don't really remember the 50s (I was born in the middle of 1956) but I do remember the optimism of the early 60s and all the dreams we all had. I also remember hearing about the German economic "miracle", where millions of Germans got central heating, cars, and other consumer goods that we associate with modernity. It certainly felt like a "High" to my childhood self.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

On my web site I've documented a few analytical pieces, by both American and Chinese analysts, indicating that China is planning a war with America, and how their planning what they call "acupuncture" warfare, which strikes at America's weakest point.

Again, what any prudent leadership would be doing in the position the Chinese are in. Who else would they be afraid of? Against whom else would they be more inclined to prepare strategies? India, perhaps (and I'm sure particularly since Indian nuclearization, the Chinese have done just that). And as for the concept of 'surgical' strikes -- for that is all the term comes to, pulled as it may have been from a metaphor in a foreign language -- this is hardly a Chinese innovation; in fact, as their planning might indicate, they recognize the US as being their predominant threat and are moving quite prudently to incorporate into their strategy tactics that have been successful in the past.
Nonetheless, such preparation may be (I would argue, almost certainly is, due to the utter lack of suicidal mania in the Chinese character over the course of their entire history; they have their flaws, but that certainly isn't one of them) purely defensive and in no rational way indicate an intention -- or even a capacity -- to meaningfully initiate war on the United States.

Short, of course, for nuclear holocaust of the sort described by the general. But please note, the threat is of retaliation, not of attack. And in all of human history, only one nation has ever initiated nuclear attacks (hint: not China). So deterrence isn't all that unreasonable a motive, all things considered.
Looking at China's actions, including planning and diplomatic maneuvering, the only clear aims are first defense and second deterrence. To assert that China will be initiating a war with the US flies in the face of all evidence.

China has been militarizing at double-digit increases for years.

And they still have a hell of a long way to go before even (for example) their air force would be able to stand up to the utter thrashing it will take from the US's integrated air-and-space-and-information warmaking infrastructure in the even of war over Chinese skies. A deterrent is hardly credible unless it has the chance of working, after all.
Again, with the belligerent stance the US has been taking towards the world at large, and towards China in particular over the last decade, they'd be fools not to be prepared. Weren't you ever a Boy Scout?

China has the goal of using its navy to defeat the American navy and take control of the entire Pacific Ocean region and all the sea lanes, and to be the dominant power in Africa.

Hmm. On my globe, Africa lies between the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans. So the Chinese intend to achieve total naval domination of all the world's seas (Arctic excepted?). To what end? Muwahaha-World-Domination?

In addition, China is making plans with Iran to be the dominant power in the Mideast and destroy Israel.

Again, why? Is Israel such a threat to them that they would risk nuclear war? How does the plan of action you assert to be theirs benefit the Chinese in the slightest?

To say that China can only attack a few military outposts is VERY unfortunate.

Actually, what's unfortunate is the fact that China can attack quite a number of military outposts. Unfortunate, that is, because it contains within it the fact that the US maintains a large number of military outposts even over on the other side of the world -- that is, in China's and Russia's and India's, and several other not-Americas' backyards. A very unfortunate situation.

Dear Justin,

Can you please explain to me why Japan bombed Pearl Harbor?

If you can do that, then I might be able to explain why China might
attack us.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

IMO what sets Crisis wars appart from non-Crisis wars is not ferocity or "genocideness," what Crisis wars cause are major realignments in international politics (or, if it is a civil war, the structure of a state having the civil war, which ties into international politics if the civil war causes the breakup of the state).

During a 3T the old international order atrophies and then a new international order is established at the end of the ensuing 4T. The failure of the Post-Napoleonic Metternich system*, the disintergration of the Great Powers international system after WW1, and the end of the Cold War and the weakening of American hegemony, are good examples of this 3T atrophy. A new international system is reinforced during a 1T, attacked during a 2T, atrophies during a 3T, and disintergrates and is replaced during a 4T, following the same pattern of the evolution the civil order within a state as articulated by S&H.

*I consider the Anglo-American and Western European Saeculae to be offset from each other by 1 turning in the early 1800s

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

And the Treaty of Utrecht was successful, since there were no more European wars until the French Revolution, 75 years later.

Here are some European wars between 1714 and 1789.

War of the Quadruple Alliance

War of the Polish Succession

*War of the Austrian Succession

*Seven Years War

War of the American Revolution

The asterisks denote major wars.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

I have some personal insight into this question, since WW I was discussed frequently when I was in school in the 1950s. The picture I have of WW I from my school days is only a few sound bytes, and they summarize to the following: My school days picture of WW I is of two armies facing each other across a huge trench, shooting at each
other for four years.

You went to school in America, right? WW I was a traumatic event for France, Britain and (surprisingly) Australia--but not for the US. For the Australian experience ask Tristan Jones.

I cannot recall much concern about WW I war deaths from my 1950s
school days. Everything I remember from then is that WW I was a
static war with people sitting there shooting at each other. Perhaps
the horrors of WW I seemed tame at that time compared to the horrors
of WW II, but there was no sustained horror at WW I war deaths the
way that there apparently was sustained horror at the Malplaquet war
deaths, as far as I can tell.

Did you personally experience a sense of horror from the battle of Malplaquet as a school boy? If not, then comparing what you read about Malplaquet to your personal experience about WW I is comparing apples to oranges. If you look into it you will find that both France and Britain were quite traumatized by WW I--which the principal reason they were willing to do just about anything to avoid going through another war like that.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Matt,

I'm having trouble understanding some of the reasoning in your
discussion with Mike. I'm especially perplexed by the discussion of
the meaning of the fact that the Germans stopped killing people at
Sedan. Are either of you implying that in a crisis war one side must
completely exterminate the other side, or it isn't a crisis war?

No, I'm implying that if civilians are targetted, it is indicative of a crisis war. If civilians are not targetted, it doesn't really show anything.

Both of you have been looking for reasons why the War of the Spanish
Succession is not a crisis war, and if you're looking for reasons for
something like that you'll always find them. Neither of you has been
looking for reasons why it IS a crisis war.

It's been more about the Franco-Prussian war. I never implied that either the WSS or the FP war wasn't a crisis war. The argument for it being a crisis war are obvious. For genocidal energy, I fail to see how France didn't fight the war with genocidal energy, climaxing with the Paris Commune. Germany is a little more difficult, since they seemed to have pretty cool heads. But they got what they wanted; Why continue the slaughter?

The Crisis War Evaluation Algorithm requires four separate
evaluations to be made: Historical significance, intensity of
genocidal violence, level of political considerations, and
resolution.

(For anyone else reading this, you'll find this algorithm in Chapter
8 of my book, Generational Dynamics for Historians, the
current draft of which can be read for free on my web site.)

Now we're going to try to apply that same algorithm to a single
battle, rather than to an entire war. That's OK, as long as we
realize that we aren't evaluating an entire war, and that evaluations
of other battles in the same war may be more important.

Where could war deaths fit into that algorithm?

Remember Matt, you yourself have made the point that whether a war is
a crisis war affects how each side behaves, not what the other side
does to them.

Thus war deaths CANNOT POSSIBLY have anything directly to do with the
evaluation of a crisis war battle, since you don't know the war
deaths UNTIL THE BATTLE IS OVER.

With this understanding, there are two possible places in the
evaluation algorithm where war deaths might fit.

In step 2, a high rate of war deaths might be indicative of a
high level of genocidal violence. I agree with this intuitively, but
as a practical matter I've never found it to be true. What matter is
how the two sides behave during the battle.

I've previously given the example of the Lebanese civil war, where
only a few hundred or possibly a couple of thousand people were
massacred in 1982 at camps in Sabra and Shatila. This incidentally
completely overshadows Lebanon today, and it's the mere fact that one
group of Lebanese citizens was able to massacre another group of
Lebanese citizens that's creating the shock.

In step 4, a very high number of war deaths can contribute to
the resolution of the war, and this appears to be what happened in
the battle of Malplaquet. The thing that's REMEMBERED about
Malplaquet is the high number of war deaths, and there was a desire
at the Utrecht conference in 1714 to avoid for as long as possible
another violent conflict such as the one that had just ended.

And the Treaty of Utrecht was successful, since there were no more
European wars until the French Revolution, 75 years later.

Now let's turn to the battles of Somme and Verdun. Were the high
levels of war deaths remembered in the same way as they were in
Malplaquet?

I have some personal insight into this question, since WW I was
discussed frequently when I was in school in the 1950s. The picture
I have of WW I from my school days is only a few sound bytes, and
they summarize to the following: My school days picture of WW I is of
two armies facing each other across a huge trench, shooting at each
other for four years.

I cannot recall much concern about WW I war deaths from my 1950s
school days. Everything I remember from then is that WW I was a
static war with people sitting there shooting at each other. Perhaps
the horrors of WW I seemed tame at that time compared to the horrors
of WW II, but there was no sustained horror at WW I war deaths the
way that there apparently was sustained horror at the Malplaquet war
deaths, as far as I can tell.

You are talking about feelings of the battle and the effects of a battle, using the crisis war algorithm that you created. But in order to get the feeling, you have to have more than a "few facts" about the war/battle.

From an objective standpoint, the effect doesn't truly become apparent until the next war, no?

While we're on the subject of World War One, how long did that remain on the forefront of European life? It didn't have the lasting effect that World War Two did, but was there a time that there was a return to mid-cycle normalcy, before economic hardships and a new war set in?

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Here are some European wars between 1714 and 1789.

Mike, I'm of the belief that the Seven Years War (French and Indian) was a crisis war for New France, with their previous one being King William's War.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Can you please explain to me why Japan bombed Pearl Harbor?
If you can do that, then I might be able to explain why China might
attack us.

Fair enough. Not so hard to do, if you go by such primary-source records as are around.
Japan, greatly suffering from a US-imposed embargo, and 'reading the tea leaves' correctly, wrt the US Administration's strong desire to embroil themselves in the War, was attempting to both pre-emptively degrade the warmaking capacities of the US in the Pacific (prior to the expected US entry into the War) and also gain some breathing space from the embargo.

So, do you figure the US will be embargoing China anytime soon? Oh, whatever will the Chinese do if we cut off their stream of imports of ... ... umm.... ... something...

(and, by the way, just because they're all slanty-eyed over there doesn't mean that the Chinese character is anything at all like the Japanese. Japan is, to borrow from Treebeard, a much more hasty nation.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

So, do you figure the US will be embargoing China anytime soon? Oh, whatever will the Chinese do if we cut off their stream of imports of ... ... umm.... ... something...

Dollars. Seriously. The Chinese banking system (i.e. the government) desperately needs dollars to cover their own massively inflationary currency policies. China's annual M2 increase is about 18% (their target is "only" 16%) -- compare the US at 4.4%.

When they stop handing out the easy money, their whole house of cards will collapse -- quickly, publicly and painfully. And besides, the US is definitely getting the better end of the deal: we get cheap DVD players, and all they get is a bunch of pieces of paper.

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

Mike, I'm of the belief that the Seven Years War (French and Indian) was a crisis war for New France, with their previous one being King William's War.

The Seven Years War was a major European war and most of the intense fighting was in Europe. There was significant Extra-European fighting too, Winston Churchill called the Seven Years War the first world war. The big winners were Britain and Prussia. Britain gained most of New France, while Prussia gained Silesia and gained enormous influence at the expense of the Holy Roman Empire (HRE). This displacement of the HRE (the First Reich) was the start of the unification of Germany around Prussia (the Second Reich) whcih was completed a century later. It seems to me that the Seven Years War might be a crisis war for at least Prussia. This war was also significant for Russia because it marks the rise of Russia as a European Great Power.

Mike,

Originally Posted by Mikebert

The Seven Years War was a major European war and most of the intense fighting was in Europe. There was significant Extra-European fighting too, Winston Churchill called the Seven Years War the first world war. The big winners were Britain and Prussia. Britain gained most of New France, while Prussia gained Silesia and gained enormous influence at the expense of the Holy Roman Empire (HRE). This displacement of the HRE (the First Reich) was the start of the unification of Germany around Prussia (the Second Reich) whcih was completed a century later. It seems to me that the Seven Years War might be a crisis war for at least Prussia. This war was also significant for Russia because it marks the rise of Russia as a European Great Power.

I'm having a little trouble understanding exactly what you believe in with regards to Generational Dynamics (or about historical cycles in general). Do you believe that John has the wrong wars and there is a cycle or that the algorithm is flawed enough so that there is no such thing as any true pattern in GD?

If I understand you correctly, the Seven Years War was a crisis war for Prussia, and the Franco-Prussian War was not. Do you really believe that?

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

Mike,
I'm having a little trouble understanding exactly what you believe in with regards to Generational Dynamics (or about historical cycles in general). Do you believe that John has the wrong wars and there is a cycle or that the algorithm is flawed enough so that there is no such thing as any true pattern in GD?

I believe that the saeculum likely exists. I don't believe war is a necessary ingredient for a crisis turning, although wars are likely to occur during crises and such wars will likely display what John calls "energy". However I think energetic wars can also occur in turnings other than crises and all wars in crisis turnings are not necessarily energetic.

For me a crisis war is simply a major war that happens, or at least starts, in a crisis turning. So the WSS is a crisis war for England, but then so is the War of the League of Augsburg. The F-P war is a crisis war, but then so is the Austro-Prussian war. On the other hand, the English Civil war is not a crisis war for England because it did not occur in a crisis turning.

One thing I object to is John's claim that he uses an "almost computerlike algorithm" to determine which wars are crisis wars and which are not. This description implies an objective procedure which will give the same answer regardless of who uses it. In reality his algorithm is a series of open-ended questions that guides one to formulating an informed, but still subjective opinion on the status of the war. It is not what was advertised.

The product of generational dynamics is an intuitively-derived turning scheme that is not really any different from those that have been proposed by various people here at this site. There is nothing wrong about that, it's simply that different people will intuit different results. For example, Dave McGuiness has one set of Roman turnings and Kurt Horner has another. If I gave you a list of Roman wars and had you use GD to determine the crises, and from that the other turnings, I suspect the scheme you come up will be different from these other two. So then there will be three different turning schemes for the same time and the same place. Which one is 'right", or are any of them "right"? What does "right" mean and if there is no "right" then does such a cycle actually exist or at least is the cycle concept useful?

Another thing I object to is false statements John makes. For example, as part of the justification for why the WSS is a crisis war he states that the no European war (that is non-crisis as well as crisis wars) occurred for 75 years after the Treaty of Utrecht. This is wrong. The War of the Austrian succession was a major European war that involved the WSS players (plus Prussia). It started only 26 years after the Treaty of Utrecht.

How can John even make this claim. Don't you have to evaluate all of the wars to make a statement that GD works. It would appear that John did not know about the War of the Austrian Succession. It appears that he thinks of the Seven Years war is just another name for the French and Indian war and that there wasn't a big war in Europe at that time. Surely he should know that every major European war involving Britain had a colonial equivalent: War of the League of Augsburg = King William's War, WSS = Queen Anne's War, War of the Austrian Succession = King George's War, Seven years War = French and Indian War. Otherwise how can he apply GD unless he has a familiarity with all the wars fought by a particular country over a particular period of time. But statements like the 75 year statement above suggest that he does not have this familiarity.

Finally he makes very specific predictions that he claims are 100% accurate and then when challenged splits hairs and calls people names. For example, he predicted in 2003 that a major Middle East conflict was coming. This conflict would involve the Palestinians and Israelis--NOT Iraq. There would be no civil war in Iraq. Three years later it is clear that there is no major war involving Israel. Rather, there is a major war in Iraq. And this Iraqi war has NO Palestinian involvement as John suggested was likely. John's prediction of no civil war in Iraq rules out any Sunni-vs-Shia conflict in Iraq. GD says that the Shia leaders like Sistani would be successful in preventing a Shia backlash against the insurgency because of the recentness of the last crisis war. GD was wrong, the backlash is underway and increasing in fury. Sistani has withdrawn from the scene after failing to prevent the violence.

Now perfection shouldn’t be expected from a theory like GD, but John claims 100% accuracy, when it clearly is not 100% accurate. And he is dishonest about how his Iraq prediction has turned out, by not admitting that things in Iraq have not moved in the direction he expected them to in 2003, just as the stock market has not behaved as he thought it would.

If I understand you correctly, the Seven Years War was a crisis war for Prussia, and the Franco-Prussian War was not. Do you really believe that?

No, see above.

Dear Jenny,

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

> I don't really remember the 50s (I was born in the middle of 1956)
> but I do remember the optimism of the early 60s and all the dreams
> we all had. I also remember hearing about the German economic
> "miracle", where millions of Germans got central heating, cars,
> and other consumer goods that we associate with modernity. It
> certainly felt like a "High" to my childhood self.

This is a very interesting statement, and I wonder if I could ask you
for a clarification.

You seem to be implying (though not actually saying) that the early
1960s was a "High" for the Germans as well as for the Americans.
Even though the Germans lost the war, this would make sense because
the Prophet generation had no memory of the war anyway, and their
parents were determined to protect their kids from suffering any
aftereffects of the war -- same as American parents.

Does that make sense to you?

One thing that I'm coming to realize recently is that people who
survived WW II just don't want to talk about it, even though it was
the most important event of their lives. My mother frequently told the
story of how difficult life was when her father's candy store went
bankrupt during the Depression, and other stories of that time, but I
can't recall her ever talking about WW II. I only have one or two
vague memories of her mentioning something about the war, and when she
spoke about it her voice became angry. I guess blocking out memories
of it is part of the way of dealing with such a traumatic event.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Jenny,

Originally Posted by The Wonkette
> I don't really remember the 50s (I was born in the middle of 1956)
> but I do remember the optimism of the early 60s and all the dreams
> we all had. I also remember hearing about the German economic
> "miracle", where millions of Germans got central heating, cars,
> and other consumer goods that we associate with modernity. It
> certainly felt like a "High" to my childhood self.

This is a very interesting statement, and I wonder if I could ask you
for a clarification.

Of course.

You seem to be implying (though not actually saying) that the early
1960s was a "High" for the Germans as well as for the Americans.
Even though the Germans lost the war, this would make sense because
the Prophet generation had no memory of the war anyway, and their
parents were determined to protect their kids from suffering any
aftereffects of the war -- same as American parents.

Does that make sense to you?

It makes a lot of sense.

I'll give a little bit of background. I am a "faculty brat" -- my Dad taught at the University of Maryland throughout my childhood -- and he had two sabbaticals where we spent the academic year in Cambridge, England. The first was in 1963-64 and the second was in 1970-71. Both times, the family went over to Hamburg, Germany, to purchase a new WV "Microbus" and both times we also did a bit of sightseeing.

From what I remember of my impressions and things I've heard from my parents is that Germany was in a High in the Sixties, but any discussion of its part in WWII was hush, hush -- we don't talk about it. (Not in my family, but among Germans). In my childhood perspective, they were a Bad Country that became a Good Country.

One thing that I'm coming to realize recently is that people who
survived WW II just don't want to talk about it, even though it was
the most important event of their lives. My mother frequently told the
story of how difficult life was when her father's candy store went
bankrupt during the Depression, and other stories of that time, but I
can't recall her ever talking about WW II. I only have one or two
vague memories of her mentioning something about the war, and when she spoke about it her voice became angry. I guess blocking out memories
of it is part of the way of dealing with such a traumatic event.

Interesting. My mom (1930 cohort) never mentions the war years. She did pass on a Girl Scout uniform to my daughter, who was a scout for a few years, and that is obviously WW II vintage. Of course, my mother went through puberty during the War, and maybe her reluctance to discuss that time in her life is similar to those of other generations who don't reminisce fondly about their junior high years.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

I believe that the saeculum likely exists. I don't believe war is a necessary ingredient for a crisis turning, although wars are likely to occur during crises and such wars will likely display what John calls "energy". However I think energetic wars can also occur in turnings other than crises and all wars in crisis turnings are not necessarily energetic.

OK. This represents a fundamental difference between S&H and GD, although it isn't so different. England didn't really have a crisis war during the FP war, which puzzles me.

For me a crisis war is simply a major war that happens, or at least starts, in a crisis turning. So the WSS is a crisis war for England, but then so is the War of the League of Augsburg. The F-P war is a crisis war, but then so is the Austro-Prussian war.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. Do you mean to say that the crisis turning started before or during the WLA and Austro-Prussian War? If the WSS is a crisis war, then the WLA isn't necessarily, by definition, a crisis war as well because it occured in close proximity to the WSS.

You were arguing with me that the FP war didn't contain a lot of "energy," but here you say it is a crisis war. So it seems you are saying most, but not all crisis wars contain a lot of energy.

One thing I object to is John's claim that he uses an "almost computerlike algorithm" to determine which wars are crisis wars and which are not. This description implies an objective procedure which will give the same answer regardless of who uses it. In reality his algorithm is a series of open-ended questions that guides one to formulating an informed, but still subjective opinion on the status of the war. It is not what was advertised.

I suppose I would agree here, since it is obvious that it doesn't work for you or Sean. But I've found it to work for the times I have applied it.

Here's an idea: Re-read the algorithm chapter in the new and plug in all the different details for an assessment that you would disagree with. I'd be interested to hear one (not Russia in World War Two).

The product of generational dynamics is an intuitively-derived turning scheme that is not really any different from those that have been proposed by various people here at this site. There is nothing wrong about that, it's simply that different people will intuit different results. For example, Dave McGuiness has one set of Roman turnings and Kurt Horner has another. If I gave you a list of Roman wars and had you use GD to determine the crises, and from that the other turnings, I suspect the scheme you come up will be different from these other two. So then there will be three different turning schemes for the same time and the same place. Which one is 'right", or are any of them "right"? What does "right" mean and if there is no "right" then does such a cycle actually exist or at least is the cycle concept useful?

Fine, but if one can find that a certain way of evaluation amounts to a pattern in dozens of different cases, some thought must be given. When I applied it to Native American tribes, I found that there was a cycle. The algorithm was complete before my research began, and I found few surprises. The shortest intercrisis period was 40, and none were longer than 90.

So if you can apply it to several regions and you get the same results, I think the cycle concept is useful.[/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. Do you mean to say that the crisis turning started before or during the WLA and Austro-Prussian War?

The crisis started around 1675-1685 as given in T4T. So the entire WLA, the Glorious Revolution and the period leading up to it all fall within the crisis turning.

If the WSS is a crisis war, then the WLA isn't necessarily, by definition, a crisis war as well because it occured in close proximity to the WSS.

According to GD. I don't believe that objectively "energetic" wars occur at regular intervals.

You were arguing with me that the FP war didn't contain a lot of "energy," but here you say it is a crisis war. So it seems you are saying most, but not all crisis wars contain a lot of energy.

It is a crisis war because it occured in the generalized mid-19th century crisis as identified by historians Dave McGuiness, Dave Krein, David Kaiser and others such as Tristan Jones and others I cannot recall right now, and whose ideas are supported by my own work. America, Britain, Canada, France Germany, Italy and Japan all appear to have been in a crisis turning at this time. Perhaps other countries too that I haven't looked at.

Fine, but if one can find that a certain way of evaluation amounts to a pattern in dozens of different cases, some thought must be given. When I applied it to Native American tribes, I found that there was a cycle.

Did you evaluate all the wars for a particular tribe over say 500 or 600 years so you can get 6-8 or more fairly evenly spaced crisis wars? Or, did you identify 2 or 3 crisis wars over a 100-200 year period of time for several tribes?

There are statistical tests of "evenly spaced" that can be used to establish whether or not an apparently cyclical pattern is non-random. Did you apply them?

Longer sequences are easier to analyze. The longest sequence of GD-type crisis wars which I can recall is this sequence of seven successive crisis wars for Britain:

War of the roses (1455-85) - Armada war (1585-1604) - English Revolution (1642-1651) - WSS (1701-1714) - Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815) - FP war (1870-71) - WW II (1939-45).

The spacing between wars is not all that regular: 100, 38, 50, 85, 55, 68 years - avg 66 st dev 23.

The 95% confidence interval for this spacing is 7 to 125 years. That is, crises wars are restricted to happening at least 7 years, but not more than 125 years after the last crisis war. This is not much of an argument for a regular cycle.

But, as you point out, it is hard to see the FP war as a British crisis war using the GD algorithm If we eliminate that problem by deleting the FP war, then we get this spacing:

100, 38. 50, 85, 124 - avg 79 st dev 35

This distribution has a 95% confidence interval of 0-177 years, in other words crisis wars can happen at any time--no cyclicality at all.

And even then I am hard pressed to see why the Armada war shows more genocidal fury or energy than WW I.

As far as I can tell--the basic assertion that the wars identified as crisis wars by the GD algorithm produce a regular cycle is not supported by the evidence.

Mike,

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Did you evaluate all the wars for a particular tribe over say 500 or 600 years so you can get 6-8 or more fairly evenly spaced crisis wars? Or, did you identify 2 or 3 crisis wars over a 100-200 year period of time for several tribes?

It was impossible to evaluate all the wars for over half a millennia since wars before European arrival were so poorly recorded. I evaluated all wars, both crisis and non-crisis over a 100-200 period.

There are statistical tests of "evenly spaced" that can be used to establish whether or not an apparently cyclical pattern is non-random. Did you apply them?

What? I didn't have to! I was able to digest enough information for most tribes to understand what was going on during the crisis war and during the mid-cycle period. If there is a saeculum, which I believe there is, statistical tests aren't necessary. It's much better to study the four turnings and see how the crisis war formed.

Longer sequences are easier to analyze. The longest sequence of GD-type crisis wars which I can recall is this sequence of seven successive crisis wars for Britain:

War of the roses (1455-85) - Armada war (1585-1604) - English Revolution (1642-1651) - WSS (1701-1714) - Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815) - FP war (1870-71) - WW II (1939-45).

The spacing between wars is not all that regular: 100, 38, 50, 85, 55, 68 years - avg 66 st dev 23.

74, 50, 51, 79, 51, 68 are the respective inter-cycle periods that are listed by GD. However, those are pretty "normal" numbers. You'll find some in the 40's and the 100's and 110's.

The 95% confidence interval for this spacing is 7 to 125 years. That is, crises wars are restricted to happening at least 7 years, but not more than 125 years after the last crisis war. This is not much of an argument for a regular cycle.

Err.. even if this was true, and it's not, since you aren't using the GD numbers, there has never been any mid-cycle period ANYWHERE NEAR 7 years long, nor 15 years long, nor 30 years long. The spacing means nothing. It is way off.

As far as I can tell--the basic assertion that the wars identified as crisis wars by the GD algorithm produce a regular cycle is not supported by the evidence.

The range is wide (~40-120, but never venturing out of the boundaries). It normally stays within 50-80 years. Honestly, I have no idea what you are talking about. You enter the crisis period ~55 years (some are sooner, some are later) after the last crisis war ends, and normally, you have a crisis war sometime within the next few years. It may not be so regular, but generational theory is flexible, and as long as a mid-cycle period is not totally off, I don't see how it proves that GD is useless.

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

If there is a saeculum, which I believe there is, statistical tests aren't necessary.

One cannot establish the existence of a cycle if one has to assume it exists. That's a tautology.

74, 50, 51, 79, 51, 68 are the respective inter-cycle periods that are listed by GD.

S&H's concept of the saeculum is based on generations, a fuzzy concept that a reader interested in reproducing their results cannot readily pursue. How do you find a historical generation? There is no easy way without reading all the hundreds of books S&H did. Could there be a better way?

GD claims to be this better way. GD says that by analyzing wars instead of generations one can find the saeculum. Unlike generations, wars are discrete hisotrical events that occurred at specific times that anyone can look up in a reference text. GD says that certain wars are noticeably different than other wars and can be identified by a procedure given in John's books. These special wars define crisis turnings (in fact they cause them) and so once you have found the crisis wars you have specificed the secular crises and thus the saeculum.

John has identified the following wars as crisis wars for Britain: War of the Roses (1455-85), Armada War (1585-1604), English Civil War (1642-1652), War of the Spanish Succession French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars, Franco-Prussian War WW II

This is the same list I gave, except I forgot that John had included the French Revolutionary War, which changes the dates from 1799-1815 to 1793-1815. Given these crisis wars, I looked up the dates for the wars on the internet and reproduced them. The spacings I reported are simple the time from the end of one crisis war to the beginning of the next. With the changed date for the French Revolution/Napoleonic War the dates become: 100, 38, 50, 79, 55, 68 years - avg 65 st dev 22. The 95% confidence interval is still huge: 8-122 years.

You report this series of spacings for the same wars: 74, 50, 51, 79, 51, 68.

The 95% confidence interval for these values is 34-96 years. This analysis excludes a new crisis war following a crisis war for a considerable amount of time and so is signficant. Hence the difference between the se of spacings I obtained and the one John provides is the difference between significance and insignificance. But how can the spacings be different? Aren't we both using the exact same crisis wars? The answer is yes, but John uses different dates for his wars.

War of the Roses (1455-1485)
Armada War (1559-1588)
English Civil War (1638-1650)
War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714)
French Rev / Napoleonic War (1793-1814)
Franco-Prussian (1865-1870)
WW II (1938-1945)

Most of the differences are trivial with one exception. John's Armada war starts 26 years before the Armada War in the history books begins and ends 16 years before the historical war. By shifting the start of the Armada war back 26 years he changes the first spacing from 100 years to 74 years. By shifting the end back 16 years he lengthens the next spacing from 38 to 50 years. Thus both the longest and shortest spacings are removed, creating a much more regular cycle than one would obtain from using the war dates as given in the history books.

Now John can give a good explanation for why he chose the dates he did, but that's not the issue. The issue is if the GD crisis wars do not exactly match the dates of the real wars for which they are named then they become like S&H's generations, a period of time given by the author based on analysis that is not readily replicable.

Dear Matt,

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

> You are talking about feelings of the battle and the effects of a
> battle, using the crisis war algorithm that you created. But in
> order to get the feeling, you have to have more than a "few facts"
> about the war/battle.

The point I was trying to make was that when we're evaluating ancient
wars, then we have very few facts available. We don't have any way
of knowing how people felt at the time, or what led up to the battle,
or how it was conducted. So the purpose of the crisis war evaluation
algorithm is to make an evaluation even when you have very few facts
available. For example, if a war in the 800s is remembered for
centuries later, or it caused major changes in empires, then chances
are it was a crisis war, even if we know nothing else about it.

So my suggestion was that you think about the question of what are
the minimum bits of knowledge you'd need to know about WW II to
convince you that it's a crisis war.

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

> From an objective standpoint, the effect doesn't truly become
> apparent until the next war, no?

I think it's important to exercise a great deal of caution about
this. The crisis war evaluation algorithm doesn't ask about any
previous wars or the next war, and there's a reason for that. If a
war is a crisis war, then it must be possible to reach that
evaluation without having to say, well, it follows the last crisis
war by 80 years. Each war has to be evaluated individually.

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

> While we're on the subject of World War One, how long did that
> remain on the forefront of European life? It didn't have the
> lasting effect that World War Two did, but was there a time that
> there was a return to mid-cycle normalcy, before economic
> hardships and a new war set in?

I took a look in my copy of Erich Maria Remarque's 1929 book <i>All
Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen Nichts Neues)</i>, possibly the
greatest antiwar book of the 20th century. I see nothing in there
about the impact of the high death rate.

There's another important point that didn't even dawn on me until I
reread that history of the battle of Malplaquet.
http://www.battlefieldanomalies.com/...quet/index.htm

Mike said that WW I contained TWO battles of Malpaquet, because over
100,000 were killed at each of the battles of Somme and Verdun. But
"only" 50,000 people were killed at Malplaquet, so WW I must be
worse.

But holy cow, the battles of Somme and Verdun each took many MONTHS.

The Battle of Malplaquet began at 8:30 am and ended by 3:00 pm. There
were 50,000 people killed in SIX AND ONE-HALF HOURS. That's
incredible, and that's what was remembered for decades after that.

This gives me an idea. As I've said many times, the number of war
deaths doesn't seem to indicate much. But maybe the RATE OF WAR
DEATHS does mean something.

Let's pick a couple of numbers, like 300 and 1000. Then, if this
works, it would mean that more than 1000 deaths per hour would mean a
crisis battle, and less than 300 deaths per hour would mean
non-crisis battle.

This would need a lot of work to make sense, if it works out at all.
There would have to be some way of tying together crisis battles and
crisis wars. And I'm not sure whether a terrorist act that kills
1000 people instantly should count or not.

But still, this may be worth exploring. At least it would satisfy
Mike's need to reduce everything in life to a number, and it would
also make it clear that the Iraq war is NOT a crisis war.


Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com