No Global Wars in the 20th Century

Archibald

Banned
OK.

Anyway, if we get 10-18 million less deaths due to no WWI and 75 million less deaths due to no World War II, and if we add another 20 million people who wouldn't have died had the Spanish flu been less severe (due to less troop movements and travelling during this time), and if we factor in population momentum to these calculations (due to the young age structure of this population as well as the fact that many of these people would have probably had a lot of children had they lived), we'd probably see 300-400 million additional people in Europe + North America + East Asia.

Of course, these figures would probably be even better if the rise of Communism is butterflied away.

Also, with no Communism, both Eastern Europe and East Asia would be much wealthier on a per capita basis right now. Else, though, there would probably be little to no effect on per capita wealth.

Plus all the ten millions of people killed by Mao and Stalin outside WWII. Things like Holodomor (you know, the Ukraine famine of 1932) and Great leap forward.
 
Overall the World would be better. However technology might be slowed down. Also racism is likely stronger and sexism much stronger
 
Plus all the ten millions of people killed by Mao and Stalin outside WWII. Things like Holodomor (you know, the Ukraine famine of 1932) and Great leap forward.

The breakup of multi-ethnic empires/states tends to be bloody affairs. Good chance the Russian or AH have violent deaths event without the wars. The Ottomans will likely have issues, particularly after oil is discovered. There are plenty of opportunities for mass death without the ideological angle at play.

China is going to have a rough go of it regardless. And I expect Japan will want to exert its influence. You could have Japan vs. Britain/America without it being a Global War. That get's interesting as, without the existential threat that Hitler poses, the US buildup is probably a lot less significant. Potentially no atom bomb and a lot fewer carriers.
 
Maybe no push for women's rights in the UK , as a lot of this came about after they took over so many jobs during World War 1 .
Maybe this means that there is no opportunity for Margaret Hilda Thatcher to come to power :) :) . Or if she does , then no wars means no Falklands war and she cant use that 'success' in 1983 and she loses to Labour - as remember if there have been no wars then Michael Foot's strong CND stance doesnt exist as there are no nuclear weapons to disarm .
 
The colonial order probably remains in place. Birthrates are higher and lower in different countries than is the case in our timeline.
 
It is actually an interesting question that the OP asks about the level of population, wealth and technology without the world wars.

In regards to population, it is relatively easy to quantify what the difference might have been, and moderately so with wealth. There is also seems to be a general agreement that these two would be higher.

But technology seems to be where there is a difference of opinions. Some posters seem to follow the "War as a/the driver of technological advancement" school, which obviously leads to less advancement with less war, but I am sceptical of this. While the two world wars have indeed been instrumental in developing certain technologies, it seems a broken-window fallacy to me to claim that these advancements could not have occurred without the specter of these specific wars, both in terms of the resources which would be additionally available if not used on destructive activities as the sheer numbers of additional brilliant minds alive if not for the world wars.

Also, with technology, there is an issue with the simple measurement of it. If we speak of a 2001-level of technology, a linear fixed path of technological progress seems to be implied, i.e. you always get to the developments of 1985 before those in 1986 etc., which I suspect most of the posters here would reject as too deterministic.
 
The colonial order probably remains in place.

I doubt that colonialism can survive without world wars. Decolonisation is delayed with couple decades and there might be more surviving colonies but there is some degree of decolonisation. Colonialism is pretty expensive and on some point colonial powers should begin develope them. It is cheaper just let them go as try keep them.
 
I doubt that colonialism can survive without world wars. Decolonisation is delayed with couple decades and there might be more surviving colonies but there is some degree of decolonisation. Colonialism is pretty expensive and on some point colonial powers should begin develope them. It is cheaper just let them go as try keep them.
It's cheaper to let them go if you're still paying for two world wars and for a series of benefits programs resulting from the disorder caused by one or both of them. Without the world wars, parts of subsaharan Africa are much whiter, and other parts will be richer/more exploited earlier, and as a result the relationship with the colonizer likely endures.
 
Tech Wise: Probably a little behind, no WWI or WWII can mean that the race to develop better arms and technology can lead to certain techs remaining behind or butterflied decades away.
Actually I remember from various posts about a no WWI world in that technology would actually be ahead of OTL's due to the uninterrupted streaks of innovations and inventions that OTL's WWI put a strain on. As for me, I like to think that a no WWI world would have a tech level about 40 years ahead; heck it might even have space exploration a lot more developed complete with bases on the moon, Mars, and maybe Venus for all I care.
 
The problem with this scenario is that the condition is too vague.

You're setting out to imagine a century without ALL the events that shaped the last century OTL.

In magnitude, it's no different from a "what if there was no America" or "what if Britain had never existed".

The tense diplomatic situation in Europe might have settled, and by now we could have the global economy completely centered around Europe, owning 99.9% of the wealth of the world, exploiting the natural resources of the rest of the planet thanks to a much stronger, possibly international form of colonialism.

People in this thread seem to have jumped steaight to Space in terms of where texhnology would be. On that, I think it possible that we might not be necessarily ahead in the ATL relative to OTL.

Without WWI there is no WWII, without WWII no cold war, which was the main drive behing rocket and space research around the halfway point in the 1900's.
Could be that the European powers continually build up their armies in a perpetual race to armaments, eventually reaching the point where peace is enforced by everyone having nuclear missiles pointed at each other.
Could be that technology develops along a different direction, with a greater focus being put on agriculture and food production to feed an exploding population.

Or, underwhelmingly, could be that without the World Wars as we know them, the world burns up in another global conflict at some point down the line

I don't think anyone is qualified enough to tell.
 
I'm not sure about higher population. No wars=more wealth=earlier population transition, decrease in birthrates.

No post war baby boom. The following 'Hollow Years' are waived away as well. This is a excellent point & a close look at demographic since is needed here. Maybe the 1970-1990s would serve as a model???
 
There is virtually a whole generation of Europeans that perished in the historical First World War, and another lost twenty years later. The baby boomers partially compensated for loss of the second only.
 
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