Territorial expansion didn’t work for the Nazis because they didn’t stop with just Austria and Czechoslovakia. The allies didn’t declare war until Germany invaded Poland, and even then they didn’t really do anything until France was invaded.
It seems to me that the pluralistic countries aren’t willing to risk war with a major power for the sake of a small and distant patch of land (and this goes double if nuclear weapons are potentially involved). They have good reason for their reluctance—the risks aren’t worth the rewards, especially over the short term. But an aggressive and patient country can, over long time periods, use this reluctance to their advantage.
For example, there’s the Chinese with Tibet and the Russians more recently with South Ossetia.
The USSR also got away with seizing large amounts of land just before and during WWII, mainly because the Allies were too worried about Germany to do anything about it. I concede this was an unusual situation, though, that’s unlikely to occur again in the foreseeable future.
I was addressing the idea that a nation could greatly increase its wealth through conquest. Nibbling around the edges the way China is doing, or even taking the occasional bite like the USSR (though that didn’t work out so well for them in the long run) isn’t the same thing.
China’s been using that strategy for a very long time, and it’s netted them quite a large expanse of territory. I would argue that China’s current powerful position on the world stage is mainly because of that policy.
Of course, if space colonization gets underway relatively soon, then the nibbling strategy is nearing the end of its usefulness. On the other hand, if it take a couple hundred more years the nibbling can still see some real gains, relative to more cooperative countries.
Territorial expansion didn’t work for the Nazis because they didn’t stop with just Austria and Czechoslovakia. The allies didn’t declare war until Germany invaded Poland, and even then they didn’t really do anything until France was invaded.
It seems to me that the pluralistic countries aren’t willing to risk war with a major power for the sake of a small and distant patch of land (and this goes double if nuclear weapons are potentially involved). They have good reason for their reluctance—the risks aren’t worth the rewards, especially over the short term. But an aggressive and patient country can, over long time periods, use this reluctance to their advantage.
For example, there’s the Chinese with Tibet and the Russians more recently with South Ossetia.
The USSR also got away with seizing large amounts of land just before and during WWII, mainly because the Allies were too worried about Germany to do anything about it. I concede this was an unusual situation, though, that’s unlikely to occur again in the foreseeable future.
(Edited for spelling)
I was addressing the idea that a nation could greatly increase its wealth through conquest. Nibbling around the edges the way China is doing, or even taking the occasional bite like the USSR (though that didn’t work out so well for them in the long run) isn’t the same thing.
China’s been using that strategy for a very long time, and it’s netted them quite a large expanse of territory. I would argue that China’s current powerful position on the world stage is mainly because of that policy.
Of course, if space colonization gets underway relatively soon, then the nibbling strategy is nearing the end of its usefulness. On the other hand, if it take a couple hundred more years the nibbling can still see some real gains, relative to more cooperative countries.