"Hmmmm....i can't think of anything that's worse."
Proxy wars in every little country where one power can back one side, and other powers back whatever other sides there are in a given conflict. Each sponsor being very careful to supply enough weapons so their chosen side can stay in the game, but not win.
Direct, open and wide scale conflicts like the 100 years war and WWI, along with its second chapter, WWII. Those conflicts occurred in periods where there were several more or less equal powers that got into conflicts for a variety of reasons. The players who valued stability didn't have the means to impose it. So the conflicts became open-ended and brutal. Multi-polar arrangements have never been stable for more than a couple of decades, they always degenerate into massive wars. True, things might be different this time around, but there isn't any real reason to be optimistic. Ideally, countries would recognize that weapons have gotten too deadly to even think about playing around with them, but there isn't any sign that is true. Based on history over the past few millenia, a multi-polar world will, sooner or later, lead to a war or wars with all of the latest technology and no bounds on what is used.
Areas where there is a single, dominant empire tend to be peaceful and stable. Areas where there isn't, tend to be historically more "interesting". Living in interesting times can be exciting, but bad for the health... |
