Analysis of military spending patterns and a 400-year timeline of international conflict.
Military Spending and the Abuse of Power
Military establishments represent a unique vector for government overreach. They combine massive resource consumption, inherent secrecy justifications, concentrated interests, and—ultimately—the state's capacity for organized violence. Understanding military overreach requires examining how defense spending escapes normal accountability.
Why Military Spending Is Prone to Overreach
Information Asymmetry
- Governments claim specialized knowledge about threats that citizens cannot verify
- Classification systems prevent scrutiny of spending justifications
- Technical complexity of weapons systems obscures evaluation
- “If you knew what we know, you'd agree”—unfalsifiable claims
Fear as Political Resource
- Security threats (real or exaggerated) justify expanded budgets
- Politicians face asymmetric risks: blamed for under-spending if attack occurs, rarely blamed for over-spending
- Threat inflation is professionally rewarded; threat deflation is career-ending
- Public systematically overestimates threats they cannot assess directly
Concentrated Benefits, Diffuse Costs
- Defense contractors, military personnel, and base communities have intense interest in spending
- Costs spread across all taxpayers, each paying small amount
- Geographic distribution of contracts creates Congressional coalitions
- “Iron triangle”: military, contractors, and legislators with mutual interests
Revolving Door
- Officers retire into contractor positions
- Contractor executives move into Pentagon roles
- Creates shared perspective and mutual back-scratching
- Criticism of spending becomes criticism of colleagues and future employers
Institutional Momentum
- Large bureaucracies resist cuts to personnel, programs, and budgets
- Sunk cost arguments: “We've invested too much to stop now”
- Each service competes for budget share, driving aggregate expansion
- Weapons programs create 30-40 year commitments difficult to reverse
Patterns of Military Overreach
Threat Inflation
Historical pattern of systematically exaggerating adversary capabilities:
- Bomber gap (1950s): Claimed Soviet bomber superiority that didn't exist. Drove massive US bomber production.
- Missile gap (1960): Kennedy campaign claimed Soviet ICBM superiority. Actual ratio was opposite—US had overwhelming advantage.
- Soviet military spending (1970s-80s): CIA estimates of Soviet military burden later revised dramatically downward. Helped justify US buildup.
- Iraqi WMD (2003): Intelligence failures and political pressure produced false confidence about weapons programs. Justified invasion.
- China threat estimates (ongoing): Debate continues about whether assessments reflect reality or institutional interest in larger budgets.
Pattern: Initial estimates favoring higher spending rarely corrected; careers built on threat inflation, not deflation.
Weapons Programs That Serve Contractors More Than Defense
- F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: Trillion-dollar lifetime cost, components manufactured in 45 states (creating political constituencies), persistent performance problems, original mission requirements questioned
- Littoral Combat Ship: Navy program producing vessels widely criticized as unsuited for claimed missions, but contracts distributed across multiple shipyards
- V-22 Osprey: Decades of development, multiple crashes during testing, costs vastly exceeding estimates, but program survived repeated cancellation attempts
- Zumwalt-class destroyers: Original plan for 32 ships reduced to 3 as costs exploded; ammunition so expensive the guns may never be fired
Common features: Costs exceed estimates, timelines slip, performance disappoints, but programs continue because cancellation would affect contractors and jobs.
Base Structure Exceeding Strategic Need
- US maintains approximately 750 overseas bases in 80 countries
- Numerous domestic bases kept open despite Pentagon recommendations for closure
- BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) process repeatedly blocked by Congress protecting local bases
- Bases create local economic dependencies that generate political pressure for continuation
Forever Wars and Mission Creep
- Afghanistan (2001-2021): Original mission (al-Qaeda) expanded to nation-building, women's rights, counter-narcotics, and more
- Global War on Terror: Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001) stretched to justify operations in dozens of countries
- Mission expansion creates demand for resources; resources enable further expansion
- No clear victory conditions means no natural endpoint
The Military-Industrial Complex
Eisenhower's 1961 warning has proved prescient:
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Structure of the Complex
- Prime contractors: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman receive majority of contract dollars
- Subcontractor networks: Spread work across districts, creating broad political coalitions
- Think tanks: Defense-funded research organizations provide intellectual justification and personnel pipeline
- Lobbying: Defense sector spends heavily on lobbying and campaign contributions
- Media: Retired military officers as commentators, often with undisclosed contractor ties
How It Perpetuates Overreach
- Contractors fund think tanks that identify threats
- Think tanks recommend responses requiring new systems
- Military requests funding for systems
- Contractors donate to legislators who approve funding
- Legislators protect contracts and bases in their districts
- Retired officers join contractor boards, maintain Pentagon relationships
- Cycle continues regardless of actual threat environment
Comparative Military Spending
Global Context
- United States spends more on military than next 10 countries combined
- US accounts for ~40% of global military spending
- Spending levels reflect Cold War posture maintained decades after Soviet collapse
- Allies protected by US umbrella spend less (free-rider dynamic)
What Would Non-Overreach Look Like?
Difficult to determine, but questions include:
- What threats actually require military response vs. other tools?
- What capabilities are sufficient for deterrence vs. force projection?
- How much of current spending reflects genuine security vs. inertia and interests?
- If citizens fully understood budget and alternatives, what would they choose?
Countries With Different Approaches
- Costa Rica: Abolished military in 1948; relies on police and international law. Freed resources for education and health.
- Japan: Constitutional limits on military (Article 9), though reinterpretation has expanded capabilities. Spent ~1% of GDP on defense for decades.
- Iceland: No standing army; relies on NATO membership and coast guard.
These examples involve special circumstances (US security guarantees, geographic isolation) but demonstrate alternatives exist.
Military Overreach Beyond Spending
Domestic Military Deployment
- Use of military for domestic law enforcement (Posse Comitatus Act limits this in US, but exceptions exist)
- National Guard deployments for protest control
- Militarization of police through equipment transfers
- Military involvement in border enforcement
Covert Operations
- CIA paramilitary activities outside normal oversight
- Special operations with minimal Congressional notification
- Drone programs operating in countries not at war with US
- Covert support for foreign militaries and militias
Surveillance Capabilities
- NSA collection enabled by military intelligence infrastructure
- Military satellites and signals intelligence
- Sharing with domestic law enforcement
- Technologies developed for warfare applied domestically
Influence on Foreign Policy
- Military perspectives dominating interagency processes
- Combatant commanders with regional authority exceeding ambassadors
- Military-to-military relationships bypassing diplomatic channels
- Security assistance creating dependencies and entanglements
Why Democratic Oversight Fails
Classification
- Vast amounts of defense information classified
- Congress receives briefings but cannot share with constituents
- Whistleblowers face prosecution
- Courts defer to executive on classification decisions
Complexity
- Few legislators have expertise to evaluate weapons systems
- Reliance on Pentagon and contractor expertise for evaluation
- Technical details obscure policy choices
Political Risk
- Voting against defense spending characterized as “weak on defense”
- Attack ads featuring military imagery
- Veterans groups mobilized against budget cuts
- No political reward for responsible restraint
Capture of Oversight
- Armed Services Committees populated by members with defense industry in districts
- Committee staff often from military or contractor backgrounds
- Oversight becomes advocacy
Procurement Reform
- Repeated attempts to improve acquisition process
- Goldwater-Nichols (1986), Nunn-McCurdy provisions, various secretarial initiatives
- Modest improvements but fundamental dynamics unchanged
- Reformers become captured or replaced
Base Closure Commissions
- BRAC process designed to insulate closure decisions from politics
- Has achieved some consolidation
- But increasingly blocked; no BRAC round since 2005
- Demonstrates difficulty of overcoming concentrated interests
Audit Requirements
- Pentagon failed its first-ever audit (2018) and subsequent attempts
- Only federal department never to pass an audit
- Trillions in spending without basic financial accountability
- Limited consequences for failure
Threat Reassessment
- Post-Cold War “peace dividend” proved modest and temporary
- Post-Iraq/Afghanistan attempts at restraint (sequestration) worked around
- New threats (China, cyber, terrorism) immediately filled justification gap
- Institutional resistance to any reduction in mission or resources
The Opportunity Cost
Military overreach consumes resources unavailable for other purposes:
Direct Costs
- US defense budget (~$800+ billion) exceeds discretionary spending on education, transportation, housing, and environment combined
- Debt service on past military spending continues decades later
- State and local costs of supporting bases and veterans
Indirect Costs
- Engineering and scientific talent directed to weapons rather than civilian innovation
- Manufacturing capacity tied to military production
- Political attention and institutional capacity devoted to security
- Foreign policy distorted by military tool availability (“when you have a hammer...”)
What Alternatives Would Citizens Choose?
If presented with clear tradeoffs:
- Would voters choose an additional aircraft carrier or universal pre-K?
- Another fighter wing or infrastructure repair?
- Extended overseas deployments or lower taxes?
These choices are obscured by budget complexity and threat framing that presents military spending as non-negotiable.
Assessing Popular Will on Military Spending
Polling Evidence
- Polls show Americans overestimate military spending as percentage of budget
- When informed of actual levels, support for cuts increases
- But “strong defense” polls well in abstract
- Framing dramatically affects responses
Revealed Preferences
- Recruitment difficulties suggest military service less attractive than alternatives
- Tax avoidance suggests resistance to funding government generally
- Emigration to avoid conscription (where it exists) indicates preference limits
The Unfalsifiable Claim
Security establishments argue: “You don't know what threats we've deterred.” This may be true but:
- Makes evaluation impossible
- Creates unfalsifiable justification for any spending level
- Equivalent to protection racket logic
- Democratic accountability requires falsifiable claims
What Would Accountability Look Like?
Transparency Requirements
- Reduce classification to genuine national security needs
- Public cost-benefit analysis of major programs
- Independent threat assessments outside military/contractor ecosystem
- Real-time disclosure of military operations
Structural Changes
- Procurement reform separating requirements from acquisition
- Geographic concentration of defense industry (reducing political constituency)
- Mandatory sunset for authorizations of force
- Congressional war powers enforcement
Cultural Shifts
- Media skepticism of military/contractor claims
- Reduced valorization of military spending as inherently patriotic
- Recognition that restraint can be strength
- Career rewards for accurate threat assessment, not inflation
International Coordination
- Allies assuming greater share of defense burden
- Multilateral approaches reducing unilateral action pressure
- Arms control reducing adversary capabilities and justification for spending
- International transparency and verification mechanisms
The International War Machine: A 400-Year Timeline
This section traces the evolution of organized state violence from early colonialism to the present, marking the technological and political developments that shaped global power. The timeline is divided by a singular threshold: the moment humanity acquired the capability to extinguish itself.
PART ONE: THE ERA OF LIMITED DESTRUCTION (1600-1945)
In this era, wars could devastate nations, depopulate regions, and collapse civilizations—but life itself would continue. The worst atrocities killed millions; survivors rebuilt. The scale of destruction was bounded by the energy humans could harness.
1600-1700: The Corporate Conquest Model
Key Events
– 1600: British East India Company chartered—a private corporation granted monopoly on Eastern trade, with authority to wage war, negotiate treaties, and govern territories
– 1602: Dutch East India Company (VOC) founded—world's first multinational corporation, first to issue stock, and for two centuries the most powerful non-state actor on Earth
– 1619: First enslaved Africans brought to Virginia; beginning of Atlantic slave trade's industrialization
– 1648: Peace of Westphalia—establishes state sovereignty as organizing principle of international order
– 1652-1674: Anglo-Dutch Wars—European powers fight for control of global trade routes
Technologies
– Ocean-going sailing ships enabling global force projection
– Early gunpowder weapons (matchlock muskets, cannon)
– Fortification engineering (star forts)
– Navigation instruments (compass, astrolabe, early chronometers)
Character of Violence
Wars remained limited by logistics. Armies of tens of thousands. Campaigns seasonal. Sieges could last years. Disease killed more soldiers than combat. Violence was brutal but geographically contained.
1700-1800: The Colonial Framework Solidifies
Key Events
– 1707: Mughal Empire begins decline after Aurangzeb's death—creates power vacuum Europeans exploit
– 1757: Battle of Plassey—East India Company defeats Bengal's Nawab with 3,000 troops, begins transformation from trading company to territorial ruler of India
– 1756-1763: Seven Years' War—first truly global conflict, fought in Europe, Americas, Africa, India, Philippines. Britain emerges as dominant colonial power
– 1776: American Revolution—colony successfully rebels; limited impact on broader colonial system
– 1789: French Revolution—introduces mass conscription (levée en masse), nationalism as military force multiplier
– 1791-1804: Haitian Revolution—only successful slave revolt creating independent nation; terrifies colonial powers
Technologies
– Flintlock muskets (faster firing)
– Improved artillery (standardized calibers)
– Better ship designs (74-gun ship-of-the-line)
– Early industrial production (interchangeable parts experimented)
Character of Violence
Armies grow larger through conscription. Napoleonic wars mobilize millions. Colonial violence becomes systematic—not just conquest but administrative control of populations. Company rule means profit-motivated violence; extracting value from conquered peoples becomes bureaucratized.
Key Events
– 1803-1815: Napoleonic Wars—6 million dead; demonstrates mass mobilization and national warfare
– 1820s-1830s: Latin American independence movements—Spanish colonial empire collapses (but economic dependence continues)
– 1830: France invades Algeria—beginning of “second wave” colonialism in Africa
– 1839-1842: First Opium War—Britain forces China to accept opium imports, cedes Hong Kong. Beginning of China's “Century of Humiliation”
– 1845-1852: Irish Famine—British policy choices during crop failure kill 1 million, force 1 million to emigrate. Colonial extraction logic applied within British Isles
– 1848: Revolutions across Europe—all suppressed, but demonstrate popular challenges to state power
Technologies
– Steam power (ships no longer dependent on wind)
– Railways (rapid troop movement, supply lines)
– Telegraph (instant communication across distances)
– Percussion caps, early rifled weapons
– Iron-hulled ships beginning to appear
The Opium Wars and the Century of Humiliation
China in 1800 was the world's largest economy, producing roughly one-third of global GDP. The Qing dynasty had restricted European trade to one port (Canton) and demanded payment in silver. Britain, facing trade deficit, began smuggling opium grown in India into China—creating mass addiction and reversing silver flows. When China tried to stop the drug trade, Britain deployed industrial-age warships against a pre-industrial navy. The result was not just military defeat but forced opening of ports, extraterritoriality (foreigners immune from Chinese law), and the beginning of territorial dismemberment. This trauma—foreign powers dictating terms to a civilization that considered itself the center of the world—shapes Chinese strategic thinking to this day.
1850-1900: High Colonialism and Industrial Warfare
Key Events
– 1853-1856: Crimean War—industrial logistics, telegraph reporting, nursing reform (Nightingale), proto-trench warfare
– 1856-1860: Second Opium War—Anglo-French forces burn Summer Palace in Beijing; more “unequal treaties” imposed on China
– 1857: Indian Rebellion (Sepoy Mutiny)—nearly overthrows British rule; East India Company dissolved, replaced by direct Crown rule (British Raj)
– 1861-1865: American Civil War—first industrial total war: 620,000 dead, railroads, telegraph, ironclads, trench warfare, Sherman's March demonstrates targeting civilian infrastructure
– 1870-1871: Franco-Prussian War—Prussian military efficiency; Paris besieged; German unification; France loses Alsace-Lorraine (grievance leading to WWI)
– 1884-1885: Berlin Conference—European powers partition Africa without African representation; “Scramble for Africa” formalized
– 1894-1895: First Sino-Japanese War—Japan defeats China, takes Taiwan; demonstrates Asian power can master industrial warfare
– 1898: Spanish-American War—US acquires Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam; begins American overseas empire
– 1899-1902: Boer War—Britain uses concentration camps against civilian population (26,000 deaths in camps)
Technologies
– Breech-loading rifles (faster reloading)
– Machine guns (Gatling, Maxim—enables small forces to defeat large armies)
– High explosives (dynamite, TNT)
– Steel warships, early submarines
– Smokeless powder
– Early aircraft experiments
Character of Violence
Machine guns create radical asymmetry: at Omdurman (1898), 10,000 Sudanese killed versus 47 British. Colonial conquest becomes industrialized slaughter. The technology gap between industrial and non-industrial peoples reaches maximum. Entire continents subjugated by small European forces. Meanwhile, wars between industrial powers become dramatically more lethal—the American Civil War previews what's coming.
Colonial Extraction in Numbers
– Belgian Congo under Leopold II: estimated 10 million deaths from murder, starvation, disease during rubber extraction (1885-1908)
– British India: repeated famines under colonial rule kill tens of millions; economic historians debate whether 12-29 million died in famines between 1876-1902 alone
– German Southwest Africa (Namibia): Herero and Nama genocide (1904-1908), 80% of Herero population killed—first genocide of 20th century
1900-1914: The Armed Peace
Key Events
– 1900: Boxer Rebellion—eight-nation alliance (including US, Japan, European powers) invades China to suppress anti-foreign uprising; more humiliation, more concessions
– 1904-1905: Russo-Japanese War—Japan defeats European power; first non-Western nation to defeat Western power in modern war; shapes anti-colonial movements globally
– 1911: Chinese Revolution—Qing dynasty falls; Republic of China established; decades of warlordism and civil war follow
– 1912-1913: Balkan Wars—preview of WWI; demonstrates lethality of modern weapons
Technologies
– Dreadnought battleships (naval arms race)
– Aircraft becoming militarily viable
– Improved machine guns, artillery
– Radio communication
– Automobiles beginning military use
Character of the Period
Europe's great powers built massive armies, created alliance systems, and engaged in arms races while maintaining belief that war would be short and decisive. Military planning assumed offensive warfare would succeed quickly. None anticipated what industrial warfare between equals would produce.
1914-1918: THE FIRST WORLD WAR
What Made It Different
For the first time, industrial powers turned their full productive capacity toward mutual destruction. The technologies of colonial conquest—machine guns, artillery, railways—were deployed by both sides. The result was stalemate and slaughter on an unprecedented scale.
Scale
– 20 million dead (10 million military, 10 million civilian)
– 21 million wounded
– Empires destroyed: Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, German
– Entire generation of European men decimated in some regions
Key Developments
– Trench warfare: Western Front became 400-mile line of fortifications; offensives gained yards at cost of hundreds of thousands of lives
– 1915: Poison gas first used (chlorine, then phosgene, mustard gas)
– 1916: Battle of the Somme—1 million casualties in five months; 20,000 British dead on first day
– 1916: Battle of Verdun—700,000 casualties in ten months; German strategy explicitly to “bleed France white”
– 1917: Russian Revolution—war's strain collapses Tsarist state; Bolsheviks seize power; USSR emerges
– 1917: US enters war—industrial capacity tips balance
– 1918: Germany defeated; punitive Treaty of Versailles creates conditions for next war
New Technologies
– Tanks (break trench stalemate)
– Military aircraft (fighters, bombers)
– Chemical weapons (normalized then partially banned)
– Submarines (unrestricted warfare)
– Improved artillery (caused most casualties)
– Radio, aerial reconnaissance
The Century of Humiliation Continues
China joined the Allies hoping to recover German concessions. At Versailles, those territories were transferred to Japan instead—betrayal that sparked the May Fourth Movement and fueled both Nationalist and Communist movements.
1918-1939: The Interwar Period
Key Events
– 1919: Versailles Treaty—war guilt clause, reparations, territorial losses create German resentment
– 1920s: Soviet Union consolidates; Stalin's rise
– 1927-1949: Chinese Civil War—Nationalists vs. Communists, interrupted by Japanese invasion
– 1929: Great Depression—economic collapse destabilizes democracies, enables extremist movements
– 1931: Japan invades Manchuria—League of Nations fails to respond effectively
– 1933: Hitler takes power in Germany
– 1935-1936: Italy invades Ethiopia—League again fails
– 1936-1939: Spanish Civil War—testing ground for WWII weapons and tactics; fascist victory
– 1937: Japan invades China proper—Nanjing Massacre (200,000-300,000 killed); WWII begins in Asia
Technologies Developed
– Improved tanks and armored warfare doctrine
– Modern fighter and bomber aircraft
– Radar (British development crucial)
– Early computers (codebreaking)
– Rocket research (German V-weapons program begins)
– Nuclear physics advances (fission discovered 1938)
1939-1945: THE SECOND WORLD WAR
Scale of Destruction
– 70-85 million dead (3% of world population)
– 6 million Jews murdered in Holocaust
– 20-27 million Soviet dead
– 15-20 million Chinese dead
– Entire cities destroyed; industrial extermination of peoples
Key Developments
– Blitzkrieg: Combined arms mobile warfare; Poland falls in weeks, France in six weeks
– 1940-1941: Battle of Britain—air power alone fails to defeat nation; radar and fighter coordination decisive
– 1941: Germany invades USSR—largest military operation in history; Eastern Front sees most intense combat
– 1941: Japan attacks Pearl Harbor—US enters war
– 1942-1943: Stalingrad—turning point in Europe; 2 million casualties
– 1942-1945: Strategic bombing—Allied air campaigns destroy German and Japanese cities; Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo firebombing kill tens of thousands per raid
– 1944: D-Day—largest amphibious invasion in history
– 1945: Germany surrenders (May); Soviet capture of Berlin
Technologies
– Jet aircraft (German Me-262, too late to matter)
– V-1 cruise missiles, V-2 ballistic missiles (first space-reaching weapons)
– Improved radar, sonar
– Proximity fuzes
– Mass production of everything (US builds 300,000 aircraft)
– Penicillin, blood transfusion (medical advances)
– Early computers (Colossus, ENIAC)
– Nuclear weapons
THE THRESHOLD: JULY 16, 1945
At 5:29 AM in the New Mexico desert, the Trinity test detonated the first nuclear weapon. J. Robert Oppenheimer later recalled the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Three weeks later, Hiroshima (August 6): 80,000 dead instantly, 60,000 more by year's end. Nagasaki (August 9): 40,000 dead instantly. Japan surrendered.
But this was not yet the threshold of total destruction.
The Hiroshima bomb yielded 15 kilotons—devastating to a city, but not existential. The threshold came later:
- 1952: US tests first hydrogen bomb (10.4 megatons—700 times Hiroshima)
- 1953: USSR tests hydrogen bomb
- 1954: Castle Bravo test (15 megatons)—unexpected yield, fallout spreads far beyond predicted area
- 1961: USSR tests Tsar Bomba (50 megatons)—largest explosion in human history
By the early 1960s, the US and USSR possessed enough nuclear weapons to:
– Destroy every major city on Earth
– Ignite firestorms covering entire regions
– Loft enough debris to cause “nuclear winter”—global cooling that would collapse agriculture
The actual threshold: approximately 1960-1962
This is when arsenals reached levels sufficient for civilizational—possibly species—extinction. The Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962) brought humanity to the edge.
PART TWO: THE ERA OF EXISTENTIAL CAPABILITY (1945-Present)
From this point forward, human conflict occurs under a new condition: the species possesses the means to destroy itself. Every decision about war, every arms race, every crisis carries this background reality. The logic of statecraft fundamentally changes when the worst case is not defeat but extinction.
1945-1991: The Cold War
Character
Two superpowers with civilization-ending arsenals engaged in global competition while avoiding direct war. Violence was displaced to proxy conflicts, covert operations, and the developing world.
Key Events
– 1947: Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan—US commits to containing Soviet expansion
– 1948-1949: Berlin Blockade—first Cold War crisis; airlift prevents war
– 1949: USSR tests atomic bomb; NATO formed; Communist victory in China ends Century of Humiliation (in CCP narrative)
– 1950-1953: Korean War—3 million dead; first “hot” proxy war; ends in stalemate
– 1954: CIA overthrows Guatemalan government—establishes pattern of intervention
– 1955: Warsaw Pact formed
– 1956: Hungarian Revolution crushed by Soviet tanks; Suez Crisis shows European powers' decline
– 1959: Cuban Revolution
– 1961: Bay of Pigs; Berlin Wall built
– 1962: Cuban Missile Crisis—closest approach to nuclear war
– 1965-1973: US Vietnam War—58,000 US dead, 2-3 million Vietnamese; US defeat
– 1967: Six-Day War; Israeli nuclear capability achieved
– 1968: Prague Spring crushed; Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty signed
– 1971: India-Pakistan war; Bangladesh independence
– 1973: CIA-backed coup in Chile; Yom Kippur War; oil crisis
– 1975: Fall of Saigon; Khmer Rouge takes Cambodia (1.5-2 million dead by 1979)
– 1979: Iranian Revolution; Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; Three Mile Island
– 1980-1988: Iran-Iraq War—1 million dead; chemical weapons used; US and USSR both involved
– 1983: Able Archer exercise nearly triggers Soviet nuclear response
– 1986: Chernobyl disaster; Reykjavik summit (near-agreement on abolishing nuclear weapons)
– 1989: Fall of Berlin Wall; Tiananmen Square massacre
– 1991: Soviet Union dissolves; Cold War ends
Technologies
– ICBMs (1957 onward)—nuclear weapons deliverable in 30 minutes anywhere on Earth
– SLBMs and nuclear submarines—invulnerable second-strike capability
– Hydrogen bombs—yields measured in megatons
– Reconnaissance satellites—surveillance from space
– MIRVs—multiple warheads per missile
– Precision-guided munitions (developed)
– Early internet (ARPANET)
– Stealth technology
The Proxy War Toll
Because direct superpower war risked extinction, violence was channeled into:
– Korea: 3 million dead
– Vietnam/Indochina: 3-4 million dead
– Afghanistan (Soviet): 1-2 million dead
– Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia...
– Total Cold War proxy deaths: estimates range from 10-20 million
1991-2001: The Unipolar Moment
Character
US as sole superpower; brief optimism about “end of history”; globalization accelerates; new conflicts emerge from collapsed empires.
Key Events
– 1991: Gulf War—US demonstrates precision warfare; 100-hour ground campaign
– 1991-2001: Yugoslav Wars—140,000 dead; ethnic cleansing in Europe; Srebrenica massacre (1995); NATO bombing of Serbia (1999)
– 1994: Rwandan Genocide—800,000 killed in 100 days; international community fails to intervene
– 1996: Taliban takes Kabul
– 1998: US embassy bombings; India and Pakistan test nuclear weapons
Technologies
– GPS-guided weapons (demonstrated in Gulf War)
– Stealth aircraft operational
– Internet goes mainstream
– Mobile communications spread
2001-Present: The Forever Wars and Great Power Return
Key Events
– 2001: September 11 attacks; US invades Afghanistan
– 2003: US invades Iraq (false WMD claims)—destabilizes region; 200,000-1 million Iraqi dead
– 2010-2012: Arab Spring—revolutions across Middle East; mostly fail or produce civil war
– 2011: Libya intervention; Syrian Civil War begins (500,000+ dead to date)
– 2014: Russia annexes Crimea; ISIS declares caliphate
– 2021: US withdraws from Afghanistan—Taliban returns to power after 20 years, $2 trillion spent
– 2022: Russia invades Ukraine—largest European war since WWII; ongoing
New Technologies Defining This Era
– Drones/UAVs—remote killing normalized; thousands of strikes in countries US not at war with
– Cyber weapons—Stuxnet (2010) destroys Iranian centrifuges; attacks on infrastructure possible
– AI and autonomous systems—emerging; lethal autonomous weapons in development
– Precision strike—can destroy specific buildings, vehicles, individuals
– Social media—weaponized information; new domain of conflict
– Commercial satellite imagery—surveillance democratized
– Hypersonic weapons—evade missile defense; Russia, China, US developing
Current Nuclear Status (2024)
– ~12,500 nuclear warheads globally
– Nine nuclear-armed states (US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea)
– US and Russia possess 90% of weapons
– Several near-misses and false alarms since Cold War ended
– Modernization programs underway in all nuclear states
– Arms control architecture eroding (INF Treaty abandoned 2019, New START uncertain)
China's Return
The Century of Humiliation narrative shapes Chinese strategic thinking:
– Military modernization explicit goal of “national rejuvenation”
– 2049 (centenary of PRC) target for “world-class military”
– Taiwan as “unfinished business” of civil war and century of weakness
– South China Sea claims, Belt and Road Initiative—restoring historical centrality
– Second-largest military budget globally; nuclear arsenal expanding