Decline
See also: Nuclear peaceThe state and Clausewitzian principles peaked in the World Wars of the 20th century, but also laid the groundwork for their dilapidation due to nuclear proliferation and the manifestation of culturally aligned conflict. The nuclear bomb was the result of the state perfecting its quest to overthrow its competitive duplicates. Ironically, this development seems to have pushed conventional conflict waged by the state to the sidelines. Were two conventional armies to fight, the loser would have redress in its nuclear arsenal.
Thus, no two nuclear powers have yet fought a conventional war directly, with the exception of brief skirmishes between for example, China and Russia in the 1969 Sino-Soviet conflict and between India and Pakistan in the 1999 Kargil War.
Read more about this topic: Conventional Warfare
Famous quotes containing the word decline:
“Considered physiologically, everything ugly weakens and saddens man. It reminds him of decay, danger, impotence; it actually reduces his strength. The effect of ugliness can be measured with a dynamometer. Whenever anyone feels depressed, he senses the proximity of something “ugly.” His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride—they decline with ugliness, they rise with beauty.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“Or else I thought her supernatural;
As though a sterner eye looked through her eye
On this foul world in its decline and fall,
On gangling stocks grown great, great stocks run dry,
Ancestral pearls all pitched into a sty,
Heroic reverie mocked by clown and knave....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)