- Long War (20th century)
:"For other conflicts called the Long War, see
Long War ."The Long War is a name proposed by
Philip Bobbitt in "", to describe the series of major conflicts fought from the start of the First World War in 1914 to the decline of theSoviet Union in 1990.The Long War, as proposed by Bobbitt, includes the
First World War , theSecond World War , theKorean War , theVietnam War , as well as theBolshevik Revolution , theChinese Civil War , theSpanish Civil War and theCold War . These wars were all fought over a single set of constitutional issues, to determine which form of constitution –liberal democracy ,fascism orsocialism – would replace the colonial ideology of the imperial states of Europe that had emerged after the epochalNapoleonic Wars that had dominated the world between theCongress of Vienna and August 1914. Just as earlier epochal wars were resolved by major international settlements, - Westphalia, Utrecht and Vienna – so the Long War was resolved by the 1990Charter of Paris for a New Europe . [cite book | last = Bobbitt | first = Philip | authorlink = Philip Bobbitt | coauthors = | title = . Foreword by Michael Howard. 2003 Grand Prize Winner, Robert W. Hamilton Awards | publisher = Alfred A. Knopf | date = 2002 | location = New York | pages = xxviii | url = | doi = | id = | isbn = 0-375-41292-1 ]The Long War follows a view of history understood as a series of epochal wars that have shaped both state constitutions and international relations. Bobbitt traces this perspective of military history via
Thomas Hobbes andNiccolò Machiavelli toThucydides . The Greek historian Thucydides, for example, identified the wars of the fifth century BC in the Hellenic world as a constitutional struggle between the hegemonsAthens andSparta , which he called thePeloponnesian War .References
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