%0 Generic %1 Thompson:2006b %A Thompson, William R. %C Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Marriott, Loews Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA, Aug 31 %D 2006 %K global rivalry security war %T Commercial Rivalry, Strategic Rivalry, and Global War %X Systemic wars mean many things to different analysts. For some, they are simply an artificial conglomeration of a number of wars going on more or less simultaneously. For others, they represent instances of power transition in which new powers catch up with old, declining powers and are attempting to seal the transition on the battlefield. Another emphasis stresses preventive combat on the part of declining hegemons attempting to prolong their stay at the top of the system's power hierarchy. Still another viewpoint is to see these very intensive wars as an outcome of nonlinear dynamics among a number of separate but non-independent strategic rivalries. The point to be made here is not that some analysts are wrong and others are right but rather that complex affairs lend themselves to a variety of interpretations -- many of which may be plausible. Rather than attempting to sort out the analytical disarray, I propose to add to the interpretative cacophony (and the complexity) by stressing a feature of systemic wars that is often underappreciated. Global wars uniformly involve commercial/economic rivalries, have done so since the emergence of the global war format in 1494, and presumably will continue to do so into the immediate future -- assuming that we may not quite be free of intensive competition among major economic actors. Whether this thesis is controversial or not, it has implications for what we might be looking for in the 21st century. The effects of economic interdependence are likely to be mixed. Conflicts may be constrained but they can also be aggravated by the inherent natures of commercial exchange and industrial production. Singled out as particularly problematic in the past are tendencies toward closed markets, sectoral development similarities, access to raw materials, and perceived unfair practices -- all of which have tended to promote intense conflict among major economic actors. Combinations of the four also have the potential to overwhelm any conflict constraining effects of economic interdependence.

@conference{Thompson:2006b, abstract = {Systemic wars mean many things to different analysts. For some, they are simply an artificial conglomeration of a number of wars going on more or less simultaneously. For others, they represent instances of power transition in which new powers catch up with old, declining powers and are attempting to seal the transition on the battlefield. Another emphasis stresses preventive combat on the part of declining hegemons attempting to prolong their stay at the top of the system's power hierarchy. Still another viewpoint is to see these very intensive wars as an outcome of nonlinear dynamics among a number of separate but non-independent strategic rivalries. The point to be made here is not that some analysts are wrong and others are right but rather that complex affairs lend themselves to a variety of interpretations -- many of which may be plausible. Rather than attempting to sort out the analytical disarray, I propose to add to the interpretative cacophony (and the complexity) by stressing a feature of systemic wars that is often underappreciated. Global wars uniformly involve commercial/economic rivalries, have done so since the emergence of the global war format in 1494, and presumably will continue to do so into the immediate future -- assuming that we may not quite be free of intensive competition among major economic actors. Whether this thesis is controversial or not, it has implications for what we might be looking for in the 21st century. The effects of economic interdependence are likely to be mixed. Conflicts may be constrained but they can also be aggravated by the inherent natures of commercial exchange and industrial production. Singled out as particularly problematic in the past are tendencies toward closed markets, sectoral development similarities, access to raw materials, and perceived unfair practices -- all of which have tended to promote intense conflict among major economic actors. Combinations of the four also have the potential to overwhelm any conflict constraining effects of economic interdependence.}, added-at = {2010-03-02T17:25:53.000+0100}, address = {Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Marriott, Loews Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA, Aug 31}, author = {Thompson, William R.}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2706c29cecaf804516fab0a0ea6a9c110/jrennstich}, date-modified = {2010-02-28 21:03:37 -0500}, interhash = {3662eb3cac4d415b7922edcbef558914}, intrahash = {706c29cecaf804516fab0a0ea6a9c110}, keywords = {global rivalry security war}, timestamp = {2010-03-06T17:36:40.000+0100}, title = {Commercial Rivalry, Strategic Rivalry, and Global War}, year = 2006 }