"Military And Military Sub-Plane" author: Xia Worm can not speak ice
There's an interesting hot topic on the Internet: "Who will be the next superpower to replace the United States?" ”
Japan: I certainly can't, I can't pass this hurdle in terms of land area alone, a superpower must have a huge strategic depth, otherwise the ability to resist blows is about equal to nothing, it will be gone after two blows, and it will not deter people.
▲ A foot-basin chicken that has been hammered to the point of no temper
Russia: I certainly can't, first of all, my population is very problematic. A superpower must have a huge population base, I have such a small population now can not even recruit soldiers, can not organize the industry, want to do something before it has begun to do it, I am breathless, how to be a superpower?
Eu: Don't look at me, I'm not even a country, a superpower must at least have a central government that says one thing or the other, I can't figure out the problem of mutual protection and natural gas in the southeast every day, how to be a superpower?
So, a superpower must have a vast territory, a huge population, and a central government that can concentrate on big things, and there is really no choice.
India: Yes, it's right down there.
▲ Indian military exercises, motorcycle stacking Luohan
Of course, this is a happy paragraph, the answer must be known to everyone, the reaction behind this is that the masses are very concerned about this topic, after all, this topic is really very exciting, today we may wish to talk about this topic.
It has been nearly a week since Pelosi visited Taiwan, but from time to time you can see some remarks on the Internet, such as "dignity is only above the blade of the sword" and "truth is only within the range of the cannon." The latter sentence is from a speech by Bismarck, which many people like to use on certain international issues, in fact, he has said a more important sentence, but many people do not know it.
In Western historiography there is a theory called the Thucydides Trap. This "trap" was proposed by a professor named Graham Allison of Harvard University in the United States. This claim stems from an ancient Greek historian named Thucydides, who summed up the Peloponnesian War in European history and concluded that sparta feared the rise of Athens, making war between the two countries inevitable.
Thucydides
To be more profound, it is that "an emerging power will inevitably challenge the status of a defending big country, and a defensive power will inevitably take measures to contain and suppress the emerging powers ××, and conflicts×× and even wars between the two are inevitable."
It seems that in the history of mankind, the argument that "there must be a war" has a long history, especially in the relations between major powers.
After the opening of new routes, there was a "great power game"
There has never been a shortage of great empires in human history, the Roman Empire, the Peacock Dynasty, the Arab Empire, and our Chinese dynasties, but if you open the pattern, you will find that although these empires have vast territories, they are only unifying the country and the country in their respective civilizations.
Even the Mongol Empire, which swept across Europe, almost drank the Manilo River, and set up tents under the pyramids, fell apart within a few years, each dominating one side. Therefore, before the 15th and 16th centuries, there was never a world power in human history, let alone world hegemony, and the concept of a big country should be the product of the opening up of new shipping routes.
▲ Mongol Empire
The earliest world powers were Portugal and Spain, which had eaten the dividends of the Age of Discovery. In 1494, the "two teeth" divided the earth with the "papal meridian" as the boundary, establishing a global colonial rule, and according to the law of the "Thucydides Trap", challengers soon appeared.
The first to stand out was the British, which fought from the 16th century to the 17th century when the Anglo-Spanish War broke out in 1585. No one expected that the rise of Britain and Spain after 19 years of fighting was the rising star Netherlands, which got rid of Spanish rule through a bourgeois revolution in 1609 and surpassed Spain and Britain in just a few decades and became a new world power.
At that time, the trade exchanges between the countries of the world mainly relied on maritime transportation, and the shipbuilding center of Europe happened to be in the Netherlands, and there were dozens of shipyards in the capital Amsterdam alone, and hundreds of ships could be built at the same time in the country. In 1637, the battleship "Sovereign of the Sea", built by the Dutch, had three decks, 100 cannons, and a displacement of up to 1500 tons, equivalent to the aircraft carriers of that time.
In its heyday, the Netherlands had more than 16,000 merchant ships, with a gross tonnage of three-quarters that of European merchant ships and one-third of the world's transport ships. In 1670, the total tonnage of the Dutch ships was equivalent to that of Britain, France, Spain and Portugal combined, which is why we called the Netherlands the "coachman of the sea".
▲ "Monarch of the Sea"
With strong military capabilities, the Dutch navy has defeated Spain, Portugal, France, for a time, the Dutch military and colonial bases throughout the world, the treasure island of Taiwan is this period fell into the hands of the Dutch, occupying Taiwan is the Dutch East India Company.
Friends who know a little bit of Western history must have heard of the East India Company, especially in the history of Western colonization, the East India Company was an absolute C-bit debut. There have been several East India companies in history, such as the Danish East India Company and the Swedish East India Company, but these two were mainly soy sauce players, the most famous of which were the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company.
The Dutch East India Company was a relatively pure business organization. It is the first joint-stock company and stock issuing company in human history, with a market value of nearly 80 million guilders at its peak, and some scholars have estimated that it is equivalent to today's 8 trillion US dollars. Apple, which ranks first in the world's top 100 by total market capitalization in 2022, has a total market capitalization of $2.85 trillion, less than half of the Dutch East India Company.
▲ Dutch East India Company
At its peak, the Dutch East India Company had more than 150 merchant ships, 40 warships, more than 50,000 employees, and a mercenary army of more than 10,000 men. Zheng successfully recaptured the island of Taiwan from the Dutch colonists, and the group actually worked for the Dutch East India Company, and the governor was also a middle-level leader of the company.
Later, Zheng successfully recovered Taiwan, and the governor Yu Yi was sentenced to life imprisonment by the company and exiled to a small island in the Malaysian Bunda Archipelago, and was released back to the Netherlands in 1674.
▲ Zheng successfully recovered Taiwan
It can be said that the Netherlands at that time not only controlled the sea power of almost the whole world by relying on military strength, but also the trade center, financial center and shipping center of the whole world. A monopoly, the hegemony of the world, is it familiar? Is it like a country in the world today?
Who will challenge this game?
From trade wars to white-hot wars
This time it is still the United Kingdom that stands out, not how iron the United Kingdom is, it is really bullying his mother to open the door for the bully - the bully has arrived home. At that time, the Dutch not only competed with the British in every corner of the world, but also sold herring caught off the coast of England to the British. You stole my family's wool, and you still have to knit a woolen sweater to sell me, is there any royal law?
Don't talk about the king's law, even the king is gone. In 1649, Cromwell sent King Charles I to the guillotine. There is a law that everyone does not know whether to find or not, but in history, whenever a great power rises, there will definitely be a centralized political strongman. Two years later Cromwell promulgated the famous Navigation Ordinance, the most important of which was that all goods imported into England or transported between British colonies had to be carried by British ships.
▲ In 1651, the British promulgated the "Navigation Ordinance"
Fools can see that this one is for the Netherlands. The Netherlands is known as the "sea coachman", what you do is to run errands in the world to deliver the business of express delivery, now you tell me that I deliver myself, then you let our group of courier brothers drink the northwest wind to go?
The following year, the First Anglo-Dutch War broke out. Probably because he had long been ready for a war with the Netherlands, Cromwell from the beginning of his reign to develop the navy with the strength of the whole country, not only took out all the tariffs, but also sold the land to the navy for a salary increase, from 1650 onwards, Britain had more than 10 warships launched every year, although the British shipbuilding speed was not as fast as the Netherlands, but the power gap between Britain and the Netherlands had been visibly decreasing.
In April 1654, the Dutch and the British signed the Treaty of Westminster, paying a loss of £270,000, ceding not only British trade rights around the East Indies, but also ceding the island of St. Helena in the Atlantic. More than a hundred years later, the French Emperor Napoleon I was exiled and died on the island.
The Westminster Contract
The battle was also fought, the contract was signed, but both sides were unhappy, so the United Kingdom continued to revise the Navigation Regulations in the next few years, and each time it was more and more fierce, from tobacco, cotton, wool, to ginger, linen, rice, anyway, it can do it itself basically does not rely on the Netherlands, it is simply a copy of today's trade war.
In North America, the British unreasonably took the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, then changed its name to New York with a big hand, and in West Africa, the British began to compete with the Netherlands for ivory and slave business. Cutting off people's financial roads is equivalent to killing parents, and at this time, the Netherlands is still the world's largest country, so the Second Anglo-Dutch War broke out.
This time it was completely different from the last time. Cromwell died on the British side, the head was cut off by the restored Charles II, Charles II nicknamed "Happy King", every day in addition to eating, drinking and having fun, do not do anything else, just rush this brother's nickname, the end of this war can be imagined.
In June 1667, the Dutch general Druid took advantage of the high tide to lead a fleet up the Thames river and kill the British mainland. The Dutch captured the British batteries, burned or captured British ships, plundered tons of gold and timber, and finally shelled London, and returned safely. In 2015, there was a Dutch film called "Admiral", which is about the legendary experience of Druid's life, and interested friends can go to see it.
▲ Poster of the movie "Admiral"
After the end of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the two sides signed the Peace of Breda, and the British reluctantly withdrew from the East Indies and relaxed the Navigation Regulations. The Dutch side saw that Britain had such a good attitude of admitting mistakes, and it no longer pursued New York and the West Indies. Although the British were beaten up fiercely, they did not lose all their bottoms.
Within a few years, King Louis XIV of France launched the Franco-Dutch War in order to compete for hegemony in Europe, and Charles II took bribes from the French, taking short men, so he fought without declaring a war, and the Third Anglo-Dutch War broke out.
Although the Dutch can't fight France on land, but people can not be intimidated at sea, the Dutch navy basically hangs the British Royal Navy, Charles II looked at it, the money given by France is also gone, and his own parliament does not approve the budget, then wash and sleep, so the two sides signed a contract in 1674, what was before and what is now, the third Anglo-Dutch War ended so vaguely.
The Hundred Years' War finally completed the replacement of old and new
Fast forward to 1688, when the "Glorious Revolution" broke out in Britain, establishing a constitutional monarchy and becoming an important turning point in British history. This event is also a turning point in history for the Netherlands.
William, the Dutch ruler who succeeded to the British throne, integrated the resources of the two countries, compared with the excessive consumption of the War, Britain is undoubtedly a larger, more populous, more geopolitically safer country, so the Netherlands soon lost its attraction to capital and talent, many technical talents and bourgeoisie immigrated to Britain in large numbers, making Britain quickly develop a more mature business system.
▲ William and his wife Mary THIRTY, the Dutch ruler who succeeded to the British throne in the "Glorious Revolution"
Nearly a hundred years after the Third Anglo-Dutch War, the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War broke out. In 1780, under the pretext of the Dutch support for North American independence, Britain tore up the peace treaties between the two countries and went to war again, which was the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War.
In this battle, the strength of the two sides has been reversed by 180 degrees.
The Dutch would rather lend the capital accumulated over more than two hundred years to the governments and enterprises of Britain, France and other countries to enjoy a stable and rich interest income, rather than restart the whip of the "sea coachman" and embark on a new journey, resulting in more than sixty years of armaments being abandoned and having no combat effectiveness. The emerging British Empire, after defeating France and winning the Seven Years' War, became the hegemon of overseas colonies and is making great strides towards the legendary empire of the sun never sets.
One is like the sunset, the other is like the sun, and the war is over before it even begins.
The most immediate consequence of the war was the collapse and decline of the world's largest power, which has since plummeted in Europe, indirectly contributing to the Dutch Revolution of 1787 and the French conquest of the Netherlands in 1795. The world's financial center, which also moved from Amsterdam to London, England, did not change hands again until after World War II, which is another story.
▲ The Dutch battlefield burned down in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War
History has proved many times that the outcome of a game between great powers is never decided by a single war. It is destined to be a protracted war, a comprehensive war, a full-dimensional war, and what really determines victory or defeat is not a secret weapon, but time, and only time. It took a century for the Netherlands to replace Portugal and Spain, and nearly a hundred years for Britain to defeat the Netherlands. This is the essence of the global hegemonic change in human history.
It is not the moment that determines the future, it is time
Today's beautiful country also took this route.
In the more than a hundred years after the founding of the United States, it has always advocated the "manifest destiny" and spread liberal democracy to every corner of the world, but after the British army and the Canadian militia burned the White House in 1814, there was no longer the idea of active confrontation with Britain. If you have read the history of U.S. territorial expansion before the military mushroom, it is not difficult to find that most of the territory of the United States was not obtained through war, but through immigration, spending money, etc., the purpose of this is to avoid conflict with those European powers as much as possible, especially with Britain.
▲ U.S. territorial expansion
Because the Americans know better than anyone that Britain is not easy to mess with, even if they can take advantage of it, the result is to kill a thousand enemies and lose eight hundred, so the most urgent thing is not to be strong, but to pretend to be grandchildren and make a fortune in a muffled voice. Even if British Canada displayed heavy troops at the north gate of its home, the United States never completely tore its face with Britain.
In 1861, the American Civil War broke out, the North and the South fought for four years and finally won the victory of Northern capitalism, the war paved the way for the development of American capitalism, and greatly boosted the development of the American economy. In 1873, the United States became the fourth largest economy in the world. By 1890, the United States was the world's second largest economy after the British Empire, and four years later it was the world's largest industrial country; By the time World War I broke out, the U.S. economy had surpassed britain, France, and Germany combined.
During World War I, the United States made a lot of money through debt and arms in the first and middle periods, and then participated in the war in time at the last moment, successfully picking up leaks, and its hard power became the world's first. And what really marked the decline of the British Empire was after the First World War, after the war, Britain, which was burdened with huge debts, had no choice but to lend money to the Former "Little Brother" to the United States.
American soldiers in World War I
In September 1939, germany blitzed Poland and World War II broke out. On the other hand, the US Congress "lightning" passed the "Central Legislative Amendment", which abolished the arms embargo and allowed all belligerents to purchase on their own on the basis of the principle of "cash and self-transportation".
In 1941, the United States promulgated the "Lend-Lease Act" and began to export military weapons to the outside world as a neutral country. During the entire Second World War, the United States alone provided 32.5 billion US dollars in materials to Britain and the Soviet Union, and during the period, a large amount of soviet resources were used to pay off debts, and this money was not repaid by the Soviet Union until the dissolution, and some of them were transferred to Russia, and the actual value far exceeded the debt itself.
American supplies shipped to allies during World War II
After World War II, Britain didn't even have an old face. After the war, europe was reduced to rubble and political instability, and throughout the war, the United States not only did not suffer even a single war, but also stockpiled almost three-quarters of the world's gold and precious metals. In July 1947, Americans, who had always been regarded as upstarts by the British, returned to the European continent as the "savior of Europe" and officially became the real world hegemon, 171 years after the founding of the United States.
Europe after World War II
Our neighbor, Japan, on the other hand, is another matter entirely. Since the Meiji Restoration, he has been in a hurry to catch up with the progress, even if he tightens his pants belt to make the emperor hungry, he has to save money to fight with the Great Qing. Later, when the war of aggression against China was launched, the emperor summoned the top officers of the army and asked them about their future plans, and the minister of war, Sugiyama Motoichi, patted his chest and said, "Quick battle and quick decision.", and the emperor wondered how long this quick battle and quick decision would last. Sugiyama yuan said: Three months, three months to solve the Chinese problem. In the end, it waited for eight years and did not solve it.
▲ Japanese War Minister Moto Sugiyama, who proposed "solving the China problem in three months."
When Japan wanted to go to war with the United States in 1941, it was even worse, and the whole country did not do anything else, but waited every day for the countdown to the "final war", which was a race against the clock, and everyone knew the results later.
In contrast, we can clearly see that for a country that needs a peaceful and stable environment for development, who is a friend and who is an enemy matters. Is it important to rush to prove yourself through a certain war?
Some people say, according to the military mushroom, then we will do nothing, just wait at home?
In the view of the military mushroom, for us ordinary people, it is enough to do one thing well: keep a cool head, and then what to do. Work well at work, study well in school, take good care of the family when you start a family, take care of yourself as a single person, each of us has a good life, will the country still be bad? If everyone is rich, will the country still be rich and strong? There is no country in history where ordinary people can rule the world without even enough to eat, and living a good life is the best patriotism.
▲ The rapid development of China makes everyone full of confidence in the future
Does a country confident in the future need to rush to prove itself to the world? Truth is within the range of the cannon, but don't forget that the state is also a ship on the river of time, both of which come from Bismarck.