Here an example, what can we learn from it?: Empire Wen ruled China from 180BC-157BC. Some historians consider him an ideal ruler, he let the bureaucracy run the government rather then family. He limited the power of nobles. He taxed the farmers very lightly while taxing trading more heavily. In times of prosperity the empire would buy the extra grain from the farmers, in times of shortage the empire would sell the grain back. During his rain the empire prospered and was in massive financial surplus (really rich). Empire Wu ruled China from 141BC-87BC. Wu was far less conservative with money, he was known as the marital emperor, under his rain many wars were started that greatly increase the size of the empire, to support his militarism he drained the treasure in to deficit, raised taxes, nationalized many private businesses and confiscated property for the nobility. His wars with the northern Mongolian, the Hsiung-Nu, who terrorized and pillaged north china regularly resulted in draining wars throughout Wu rain, Unlikes his ancestries who used diplomacy to hold back the Hsiung-Nu, Wu being the marital emperor of course took the costly offensive that would remain the strategy by successor emperors until eventual the Hsiung-Nu were pushed back, the empire was financially ruined, poverty and despair for the commoners, rebelling came up against the Han dynasty causing its temporary fall by 9AD.
I think he's referring to the series of alliances that Bismarck established after unifying the German state, although I fail to see what his point is re: Israel-the US and Iran-NK. Neither friendship is secret and neither are, at least to my knowledge, true defense alliances that commit one partner to going to war if the other is attacked. That was the problem pre-WW1, with all of those alliances committing so many nations to war. Once one nation mobilized for war, it started a domino effect as everyone else rushed to mobilize to honor alliance agreements if war did break out. If Israel were to be attacked the US might send aid, but it is not obligated to join the fight because of some alliance agreement. Same with NK-Iran obviously. Neither would be in a position to commit troops in the other's defense.
Our alliance with Israel is an unoffical one, but we have spent many resources on assuring the security of Israel. A good 30% of all our foreign aid goes to Israel directly, in the form of both military and economic aid. Aditionally, another 20% goes to Egypt and Syria, giving them good reason NOT to invade Israel. The reasons for this are varied, most notably that stability in the Middle East ensures access to Oil, as is evidenced by the decrease in Oil output in Iraq following our invasion. A true modern WWI style alliance that exists today is between the U.S. and Taiwan. If China invades Taiwan, we have guaranteed that the U.S. military will step in. If we would actually go to war with China or not, I don't know, and this is only one alliance, unlike the many tangled alliances that led to WWI.
Not really. The Taiwan Relations Act, created in 1979 by Carter following the recognition of mainland China as the 'one' China, while requiring the US to provide arms to Taiwan, doesn't officially commit the US to take action in the event of Chinese aggression. It will be up to whatever administration in office at the time to make such a decision. As far as Israel, we've always given military aid to Israel, especially when it has found itself in trouble, such as the 1973 war, but there is no binding defense alliance such as NATO.
We can learn that Wu lived in different times with different problems and had to come up with different measures as Wen to stay in power.
Never force a country to pay large reparations after a war. The Germans made the French pay $1billion in 3 years (the FrankFurt Treaty) after the Franco-Prussian War angering the French. This guided their foreign policy and directly caused France's rapid unnecessary moibilization during WW1. Then the French got revenge with the Versailles treaty pissing off the Germans, whose desire for revenge and suffereing because pf reparations led to Hitler and WW2. Once someoen starts forcing the defeated party to be humiliated further by forcing it to pay up more than really needed or capable, will invoke a desire for retaliation leading to wars in the future. ps visit http://www.redsoulja.tk
Two lessons from poets: Nothing comes of history but history.- edwin Muir The more things happen the more you can't tell or remember even what they were.- William Empson.
