professor of European Civilization shared: after some passage of time, historically the two World Wars will be viewed as parts one and two of the same war with a pause during the Twenties and some of the Thirties as the Versailles Treaty didn't adequately address and resolve economic and political issues that underwrote the original war.

A 41 year long Civil War with a 20 year Armistice.

With in academia, that is definitely the case already. WW II was created by the manner in which WW I was concluded. Truth is, and you'll find alot of academic study on this position as well, each war basically "sets up" the next war. It is rare that wars "end" with no follow on wars.

The American revolution was heavily influenced by existing hostilities in Europe. It as preceeded by the "French and Indian Wars", which to some extent were the reason that England began trying to get some tangible taxes out of "the colonies". France's entrance into the revolution was a bit of "proxy war" on their part to harrass England. And it ended predominately because England didn't see the point and was exposing them to attack back home.

It was soon followed however by the War of 1812. This war was set up by the tepid conclusion of the American Revolution. England wasn't "over it" yet and found great pleasure in harrassing the former colonies. The US thought they could get chunks of Canada they always treasured.

Truth is, WWII sets up the conflicts associated with the cold war. Everything from the Berlin blockades all the way to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. And our activity on the part of the resistence there has a thread leading directly to 9/11. Our invasion of Iraq was based heavily upon the basic impression of some that we had not "finished the job" the first time around.

One big beef I had with Obama's NPP speach, was his implication that war was an "answer" to anything. That there were "good wars". War generally is just a long thread that we continue to chop up into arbitrary divisions to give them names. War wasn't the answer to Hitler. Hitler was the response to the end of WW I. The American Revolution sewed the seeds of our Civil war less than 100 years later, not to mention the interveining conflicts with the western indigenous peoples. The war of the roses, the hundred years war, the crusades, all of these wars merely set up the players for the next wars. In both Kosovo and Croatia, decades and centuries old wars defined the battle lines and the allies in those conflicts.

War solves very little. War generally just spawns more war.