A century later history repeats itself-Who to blame?

Editor: Johnathan Meyers | Tactical Investor

A century later history repeats itself-Who to blame?

It was another “first” for the US president-elect, Donald Trump before he moves into the White House. Using just 140 characters on Twitter to explain his future nuclear policies he tweeted: “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”

For sure, neither Richard Nixon, who negotiated the first nuclear non-proliferation treaties with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War nor the “Star Wars” champion Roland Reagan would have achieved such a reductive feat!

Not even George W Bush with all his linguistic and semantic shortcomings would have so recklessly ventured to tackle such a very dangerous topic. In this tweet, however, Trump didn’t make any spelling mistakes as he has done in previous messages.

When asked to explain what he meant, Trump’s communication aides said his aim was to send a message to terrorist groups and rogue states.

But what about nuclear rivals like Russia and China, and how could they perceive and understand Trump’s tweet? Wouldn’t they find themselves obliged to take similar action? What also about other nuclear-armed countries like India and Pakistan?

Wouldn’t this impetuous posturing create a warmongering atmosphere, so to speak? Full Story

Precisely 100 years ago this morning, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. At first sight, just a confrontation between a decrepit empire which was already breaking up, and an impoverished, small Serbian state on the southern edge of Europe whose most substantial exports at that time were banditry and terrorism.

But Austria-Hungary’s war declaration unleashed an avalanche of others. Within a week, most of Europe and its colonial dependencies – including Singapore – marched into battle. And, a few years later, so did the rest of humanity.

World War I not only claimed the lives of an estimated 10 million soldiers plus a further 20 million civilians, but it was also instrumental in creating the conditions for World War II with all its butchery in which at least another 100 million perished.

The way a string of small-scale and seemingly irrelevant diplomatic spats during a hot European summer of 1914 unleashed the biggest conflagration the world has ever known should by now, be a subject best left to historians. Yet, the drama which began a century ago is still deemed to offer grim warnings to today’s world leaders, particularly those in Asia.

Similarities today

AND for good reasons since, at least superficially, the tensions in Asia now appear to almost exactly replicate those in Europe a century ago. Full Story

A century later history repeats itself-Who to blame?

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