A War a Decade

[russdm]

Was reading a news article and started thinking, From about at least the French Revolution, there has not been a single or many world decades without a War happening. The War might not involve the US but a War was happening in the world. So then, There should be more War to come in the future. It seems to work like clockwork.

1770s American Revolution (now that I think about it)
1780s American Revolution
1790s French Revolutionary Wars
1800s Nap Bonaparte guy Wars
1810s Nap Bonaparte guy Wars, War of 1812
1820s Can't think of any off the top of my head Maybe something in India? Or something involving Andrew Jackson
1830s Texan War of Independence
1840s Mexican War
1850s Crimea War
1860s US Civil War, Austria Prussia War against Denmark, Austria Prussia War, Franco Prussian War
1870s Franco Prussia War
1880s British Empire Wars against natives in Africa, Afghanistan (Which DR. Watson served in), India
1890s Spanish American War
1900s Russo Japanese War, Balkan Countries war for Independence against Ottomans
1910s Balkan Wars, First World War, War against Bolsheviks in Russia
1920s Wars in Greece with Turkey, Turkey's unification War
1930s China Japan War, Spanish Civil War, Second World War
1940s Second World War
1950s Korean War
1960s Vietnam War
1970s Vietnam War
1980s War in Afghanistan by Russia, maybe something in Balkans?
1990s War in Balkans, Kosovo
2000s US Afghanistan War, Iraq War
2010s US Afghanistan War, Iraq War, Syrian Civil War, Ukraine Civil War, Russia's Wars against other countries

So it clearly means there will some kind of war for each following decade. Now, that I think about it, the American Revolution kicked off this "A War a Decade" effect. So there should be a war for the 2020s and beyond.

Did I miss any Wars? Did I miss any peaceful decade where no war involving anyone was happening anywhere in the world?

[Frozen_Feet]

It wouldn't surprise me if the "war a decade" trend actually stretches further into the past, those wars were just smaller scale due to limitations imposed by technology. I think your list is missing quite a few wars which happened on the African continent.

[Eldan]

I was jsut about to say. I wonder if there's been a year without at least a minor war.

[Frozen_Feet]

Eldan, I do think such years are indeed quite rare. It might be possible to even mathematically estimate some treshold of human population beyond which there is always at least some pocket of conflict existing.

[Murk]

Yep. Sad to say, but this seems like a vast underestimation of the amount of wars in history (and the present).
Wikipedia has a nice "list of wars" section, per period, and in a quick scroll through the entire list I haven't seen any year in which there was not a war going on until before 1500.

Before 1500, the wars get a little more sparse (meaning there is sometimes a year without wars listed), but you'll also see that the listed wars are mostly limited to Europe and East Asia - simply because we know more about those regions. I think the lack of wars in those years is more an indication that we don't know was fighting than that we know they weren't fighting, so to say.

[factotum]

Yeah, I think you're missing a lot of wars from your list, russdm. Wikipedia actually has lists of wars for various time periods, you should check them out.

[Dienekes]

Well, off the top of my head, the Colombian Armed Conflict has been ongoing, technically, since the 1960s. So, it's not so much there has been a war every 10 years as there has been a single war going on for the last 55-ish years.

And history is full of that sort of thing. If you display all armed conflicts going on everywhere on the planet, and organize them I think you'd see war as pretty much the norm for our species. Somewhere, for some reason, one group of people will want to murder another group of people.

But if we want to be lazy and pick 1 war per decade.

1760s: Anglo-Cherokee War
1750s: French and Indian War or the Seven Years War
1740s: War of Austrian Succession
1730s: War of Polish Succession
1720s: Ottoman-Persian War
1710s: various Jacobite uprisings
1700s: War of Spanish Succession
1690s: Nine Years War
1680s: Great Turkish War
1670s: Franco-Dutch War
1660s: Polish-Tatar War
1650s: Second Northern War
1640s: English Civil Wars

And I'm sure people can think up more. Hell once we get to the 1450s we hit easy mode and can just say "Hundred Years War" for the next 12 decades.

[Eldan]

Well, before that, you have the thirty year's war, 1618-1648, and the Dutch War of Independence, 1568-1648.

Apart from that, from Wikipedia:
1630: Fedorovych Uprising in the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth takes most of the modern Ukraine.
1631: The War of the Mantuan Succession
1632: Rebellion of Orléans against King Louis XIII
1633: The Dutch East India Company attacks Xiamen, and the Ming strike back and defeat the DEIC
1634: End of the Smolensk war between the PLC and Russia, since 1632
1635: Dutch "Pacification" in Taiwan
1636: Massachusetts against the Pequot Indians, Manchu forces occupy Liaoning
1637: Shimabara revolution in Japan, second Manchu invasion of Korea
1638: Mughals conquer Kandahar
1639: The Bishop's war between England and Scotland


So yeah. Random decade, that's just the wikipedia headlines. I'm sure if I clicked on every year, there'd be more.


Edit: and the Dutch-Portuguese War, 1601-1661. That fills up another half century.

[Eldan]

Some wars just hve great names. The War of Jenkins' Ear, 1739-1748.

[Lord of Gifts]

Technically the UK was at war with the Netherlands for 335, from 1651-1986.
We couldn't really be bothered with any actual fighting, and it's kind of uncertain how legitimate the declaration of war was, but they definitely signed a peace treaty. Probably the longest war win history if it's actually valid.

The UK also fought the shortest war in history, with Zanzibar in 1896, lasting somewhere between 38-45 minutes.

[jayem]

There's about 2 years without a British combat fatality in the last century and a bit.
i think to be interesting you'd definitely want some criterea (e.g. pick a nation that has to be significantly involved, or significantly multi party conflicts)

If USA only need 1980's (Granada and the like?), 1930's (would that be UFC wars), 1900's (Philipines), 1870's 1880's (Indian wars?), 1820's (???), 1800's (Barbary wars-shores of tripoli), 1790's (???) then have Ango-French wars for a few decades before that.

[Aedilred]

Never mind decades or even years, I wouldn't be surprised if barely a day has passed in human history without a war going on somewhere on the globe. Wikipedia lists 57 armed conflicts currently ongoing, and while they may not all be formally declared wars there are a lot in there that are, some of which have been going on for decades.

There is often a regional cooldown on major wars. Western Europe was generally at peace from 1815-1848, and there was no international war between state actors in Europe until 1853. But there were still (relatively bloodless) revolutions in 1830 in France and the Netherlands, a number of uprisings in Naples, and a civil war in Spain during the 1830s and 1840s. If operations by terrorist organisations are not considered "war" then there has of course been peace in western Europe since 1945. The US has often been in a position of being able to pick and choose its wars, so, again, there can be long periods of relative peace. But Euro-American myopia means we have a foolish tendency to forget that just because there isn't a war ongoing on our doorstep, there isn't one ongoing somewhere else.

For an infamous example of a war that gets forgotten because hardly any Euro-Americans died, there is of course the Taiping Rebellion in the mid-19th century. More people died in that conflict than the First World War, but it has almost no currency in popular awareness outside China.

I mean, there are no African, Oceanian or South American wars in the OP's list, and only one wholly Asian war. That's not meant as a criticism so much as it is to point out the lack of awareness of wars that don't affect Europe or North America - which comprise only 30% of the world's inhabited continents and a rather smaller proportion of its population.



1820s Can't think of any off the top of my head Maybe something in India? Or something involving Andrew Jackson
The South American wars of independence lasted throughout the 1820s. The Greek war of independence also took place during this decade. Wikipedia tells me there were also major wars in south-east Asia.


Technically the UK was at war with the Netherlands for 335, from 1651-1986.
We couldn't really be bothered with any actual fighting, and it's kind of uncertain how legitimate the declaration of war was, but they definitely signed a peace treaty. Probably the longest war win history if it's actually valid.

The UK also fought the shortest war in history, with Zanzibar in 1896, lasting somewhere between 38-45 minutes.

The UK wasn't; the Isles of Scilly were. It was all mixed up in the regime change around the Civil War when the Isles of Scilly were the last royalist holdout; internal politics saw the government change a number of times without anyone bothering to sign a peace treaty for a war between a state that didn't exist, might not have been legally declared, and had involved no hostilities since its supposed declaration. A number of peace treaties were signed between England and the Netherlands in the ensuing decades, after the restoration of the monarchy, which logically would have included Scilly even if not specifically named. (There were four Anglo-Dutch wars in the period, plus the invasion of 1688).

By any reasonable definition, really, even if the war did technically exist in the first place, it would have ended in either 1654 (when the Commonwealth of England, now including Scilly, agreed peace for the First ADW), or 1667, when the Kingdom of England (again, including Scilly) did the same for the Second ADW.

Where this sort of thing happens it's usually because due to legal ambiguity or anomaly a small region of a state is listed separately as a party to the war, then by the time the war ends that's been cleared up and the relevance is so negligible everyone forgets to put it in the peace agreement. See also, for instance, how Berwick-upon-Tweed was supposedly at war with Russia from (iirc) 1853 to 1945.

Ultimately that sort of thing is generally no more than a legal fiction and only used as a publicity exercise.

[factotum]

See also, for instance, how Berwick-upon-Tweed was supposedly at war with Russia from (iirc) 1853 to 1945.


That one's an urban legend--it revolves around the declaration of the Crimean War supposedly including Berwick-upon-Tweed as a separate entity which was then *not* included in the peace treaty. However, there's no evidence this is what happened, and even if it did, the Wales and Berwick Act of 1746 already said that any reference to England automatically included Berwick, so it wasn't an issue anyway.

[Aedilred]

That one's an urban legend--it revolves around the declaration of the Crimean War supposedly including Berwick-upon-Tweed as a separate entity which was then *not* included in the peace treaty. However, there's no evidence this is what happened, and even if it did, the Wales and Berwick Act of 1746 already said that any reference to England automatically included Berwick, so it wasn't an issue anyway.

Yeah; these things usually turn out to be pretty dubious on closer analysis. Rather like all those funny laws about how it's legal to shoot a Scotsman with a crossbow on a full moon in York or something because supposedly there's some arcane bit of trivia that justifies it - generally when one looks more closely it turns out that even if such a law did exist it's long since been superseded and even if still technically on the books is no longer in force. And if I remember rightly all such laws were repealed under the Blair government anyway. They inhabit the realm of urban legend, local tour guides and inadequately-researched pub quizzes and so retain currency despite their fictitiousness.

The Berwick one is perhaps more tenuous than the Scilly one, but operates on a similar principle: that a dubious declaration of war stands, and then peace treaties which by rights would have included one of the parties didn't cover them because they weren't specifically named.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Yeah; these things usually turn out to be pretty dubious on closer analysis. Rather like all those funny laws about how it's legal to shoot a Scotsman with a crossbow on a full moon in York or something because supposedly there's some arcane bit of trivia that justifies it - generally when one looks more closely it turns out that even if such a law did exist it's long since been superseded and even if still technically on the books is no longer in force. And if I remember rightly all such laws were repealed under the Blair government anyway. They inhabit the realm of urban legend, local tour guides and inadequately-researched pub quizzes and so retain currency despite their fictitiousness.

The Berwick one is perhaps more tenuous than the Scilly one, but operates on a similar principle: that a dubious declaration of war stands, and then peace treaties which by rights would have included one of the parties didn't cover them because they weren't specifically named.

A bigger version of this is the fact that WW2 was declared against Germany, but Germany ceased to exist, and therefore could not sign a peace deal at the end of the war. When Germany was unified, it did go through the PR of signing the peace treaty "officially" ending WW2.

On the other end of the spectrum, regardless of any treaties, Hiroo Onada (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda)'s squad did continue to fight WW2 until 1974, because he refused to believe the local newspaper's stories about Japan's surrender.

So judging wars by when the declarations & peaces were signed is a rather imprecise and fuzzy affair.

GW

[Eldan]

A bigger version of this is the fact that WW2 was declared against Germany, but Germany ceased to exist, and therefore could not sign a peace deal at the end of the war. When Germany was unified, it did go through the PR of signing the peace treaty "officially" ending WW2.

Oh, this goes much further. Look up the "Reichsbürger" or "Imperial Citizens" of Germany some time. Short version: the Holy Roman Empire was never legally dissolved, all governments since then have no legal power, all contracts and agreements made by them are void, and so they don't have to pay taxes if they don't want to.

[sktarq]

There are always a few wars on.

The War-a-decade illusion is just that we tend to only sample that many in our history books.

And that in the US the SriLankan civil war/Tigers of Tamil Elan, or FARC, or the Shan and Kachin Rebellions, or the Chittikong Hills, the Chinese warlord era, the Turkish/Kurdish issues, The invasion of Tibet, East Pakistan massacres, Balucistan (Iran/Pakistani) the multiple times Haiti invaded the Dominican Republic, the land grabs of Bolivia, the Soccer War, etc etc etc don't really enter into the public mind much or stick around if they do.

[An Enemy Spy]

Oh, this goes much further. Look up the "Reichsbürger" or "Imperial Citizens" of Germany some time. Short version: the Holy Roman Empire was never legally dissolved, all governments since then have no legal power, all contracts and agreements made by them are void, and so they don't have to pay taxes if they don't want to.

We've got those in the US too, only instead of the Holy Roman Empire, they claim to be part of the Republic of Texas and other such things.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

the Holy Roman Empire was never legally dissolved

Obligatory QI video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYeHYg2n1zM) (due to mentioning the HRE dissolution & silly legal consequences)

GW

[thorgrim29]

Ah the power of confident bull****ting with a British accent. Anyway yeah, there's a lot of war going on, but the number of war deaths per capita is probably a more accurate measure of "war-inness": https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace/

[sktarq]

Looks at page from Thorgrim.

Notices no Chinese Wars before Taiping Rebellion. Nothing in Persian or Indian history. And we have every reason to believe the history. So I would challenge the high/low setup that the first chart displays. Yeah this part has real problems.

But the overall calming trend since WW2 is generally solid. That much of it has to do massive population growth swamping the per 100000 factor is part of it.

[Aedilred]

Looks at page from Thorgrim.

Notices no Chinese Wars before Taiping Rebellion. Nothing in Persian or Indian history. And we have every reason to believe the history. So I would challenge the high/low setup that the first chart displays. Yeah this part has real problems.

But the overall calming trend since WW2 is generally solid. That much of it has to do massive population growth swamping the per 100000 factor is part of it.
Well, just because no Asian wars are specifically identified doesn't necessarily mean the data isn't included. Without a comprehensive list of the data points it's very hard to tell.

For most of the period in question, Asia was rather more stable than was Europe, as it was dominated by large empires (Russia, China, the Mughals, the Safavids) which relatively rarely came to blows. And while we have a general understanding of which wars took place in that period, the casualty lists are often pretty unreliable even when they do exist and haven't been so extensively studied by modern historians, which might account for some numbers being excluded.

I went digging into the sources and specifically the linked table, and this appears to be what has happened. There are plenty of Asian wars included in the data (over 500 conflicts in India, China, Japan and Korea before the Taiping Rebellion) but there are fewer wars with huge numbers of casualties (only two, both a million or less, and so comparable to, say, the War of the Spanish Succession). Many of the other conflicts listed are missing casualty figures.

[Vinyadan]

How many years have the USA spent in peace since they became independent? Seven? Ten?
I think your estimate is very optimistic, and I doubt there has been a month or even a day without a war somewhere since the Ancient times, and even then there likely already was constant war, we just lack the information.