Is length of a crisis war related to size of country?

Awakening eras, crisis eras, crisis wars, generational financial crashes, as applied to historical and current events
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John
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Is length of a crisis war related to size of country?

Post by John »

I was asked by a web site reader whether the length of a crisis war is
related to the size of the country. "Do larger countries have longer
crisis wars than smaller countries, due to the time it would take to
muster armies and conquer different regions?"

There's no simple answer to this question, but here are some
considerations:
  • Civil wars and external wars usually work differently
  • Wars, expecially civil wars, can go on for decades as low-level
    violence before finally exploding and reaching a climax.
  • The Rwanda civil war ran at a low level for years, then exploded
    within three months.
  • Somalia is a very big country, but the war was focused in
    Mogadishu, and climaxed there, so the size of the country was
    irrelevant compared to the size of the war theatre.
  • CAR is a huge country and peacekeepers have been struggling to
    separate the sides in the capital city Bangui, but the tribal violence
    continues across the country, far out of reach of the peacekeepers.
  • An external war is different, in that its fought by
    state-controlled armies, and depends on popular politics during the
    war.
  • External wars go through a process that lasts 4-5 years. At the
    beginning of an external war, it's extremely popular, and the "rules
    of war" are followed. As time goes on, the population become
    war-weary, and there are calls to end the war.
  • Once setbacks occur, the population panic, the war becomes more
    genocidal, as the war has to be won no matter what the cost in money
    and blood.
  • Towards the end, the value of an individual human life goes to
    zero, and each side tries to win the war through any means possible.
    The war climaxes with an explosion that both winner and loser regret.
    This happens irrespective of the sizes of the countries.

jmm1184
Posts: 118
Joined: Fri Dec 24, 2010 11:02 pm

Re: Is length of a crisis war related to size of country?

Post by jmm1184 »

That makes a lot of sense. I think chance has a lot to do with the length, e.g. French revolution & Napoleonic wars lasting 23 years, as opposed to the war of the Spanish succession lasting 7/10.

Also the difference between China's revolution (15/16 years) opposed to India's partition (a few months).

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