In his Foreign Affairs essay, “The Age Of Entropy,” Randall L. Schweller takes the appreciation for creative destruction to strange new heights, arguing that world wars–you know, those things that killed tens of millions–had their good side, too, helping to create lasting peace. Yeesh. Not only is it abhorrent from a humanistic viewpoint, but it’s historically incorrect. WWI and its aftermath actually helped create another devastating war just two decades later. From Schweller:
‘CREATIVE DESTRUCTION
How did we get here? The shift began in the twentieth century, with the advent of nuclear weapons and the spread of economic globalization, which together have made war among the great powers unthinkable. As many scholars have pointed out, the world has enjoyed the longest period of relative peace in recorded history. The absence of cataclysmic wars among great powers has obviously been a great boon. But it has also come at a real cost. For the past several centuries, wars between the extant power in the international system and the rising challenger or challengers have occurred every hundred years or so, crowning a new leading power, which is responsible for organizing international politics and shouldering the burdens of global leadership.
In crowning new kings, these hegemonic wars also obliterated the old orders, wiping the institutional slate clean so that a new global architecture, better suited to the times, could be built from scratch. The wars were thus a good thing in some sense, because they replenished the international system with new energy in service of world order and lasting peace. In their absence, we no longer have a force of ‘creative destruction’ capable of resetting the world. And just as seas become foul without the blowing of the winds, prolonged peace allows inertia and decay to set in.”
Tags: Randall L. Schweller