So are the high population densities of eastern Iraq and western syria/Lebanon recent developments? If so, could similar developments happen under the Ottomans which cause a boom in population in these areas and maybe could provide a source of people to settle the Balkans? Or maybe make Russia go MUCH harsher on its Muslim population causing more Muslim emigration from Russia into the Ottoman empire?
I wouldn't say that Syria/Lebanon and Iraq had particularly high population densities. But yes, those are recent developments and they happened in the context of a general boom in population across the Arab world, which in turn has happened because there's been a boom across the whole of the "global south" as those regions have moved into equilibrium with Europe.
Those regions could grow more in the 19th Century say, with an earlier restoration of security and central control and a driving back of tribal domination and local warlordism.
Well, European countries developed fine while beating the shit out of each other.
The European countries that were too small and weak died like flies in the period between 1600 and 1900. Japan and the Ottomans in 1900 aren't going to be able to play the role of England, France or Russia - they were obliged to play the role of Burgundy, Venice or Poland. Meat for the wolves if they ever got too close to the fight. And the Ottomans were right next to the fight, so surprise surprise, they got partitioned by more successful states. Japan, by contrast, was a pygmy, but was far enough away that they were too expensive to fight. In 1905, Japan was no-where near to totally defeating Russia, but it was terribly expensive for the Russians to bring their power to bear on Japan. So Japan defeated the Russians in detail every time the Russians realized they'd underestimated Japan and sent more resources and eventually Russia was humiliated and couldn't pay for the war much longer (and didn't know the Japanese were even closer to financial collapse than they).
Also, Europe is weird. Regular transatlantic shipping put Europe at the centre of the world, where before it had been a poor periphery. So economic growth from explosion of trade and agriculture (from the arrival of American crops in Europe) and from looting other regions of the world resulted in economic growth that far outstripped the destruction caused by the wars (and there were deeply destructive wars in Europe, the 30 years war and the Napoleonic wars would have left the continent devastated for much longer without the continual inflow of a relatively small but significant surplus of wealth).
In this case, Europe's division seems to be an advantage, since foolish acts by one state would not be shared by its neighbours and the foolishness made evident in the next war, resulting in a darwinian ratchet that lead to a rapid development in military technology which allowed Europe to eventually loot big targets like the mighty empires of India and China and pull in the surplus wealth to fuel the rapid development of a broad suite of technologies in what we call the industrial and scientific revolutions.
But if you look at the case of world regions that went through stages of being united by large empires and broken up into smaller states like the Middle East, China and India, the technology and science tended to be developed in the periods of large empires, where trade, crop varieties, people and ideas could move more freely. The times of division and competition between the big empires tend to be much more miserable times, though they do tend to produce more moral philosphers - Confucius, Lao Tzu, Zuangzi, most of the great thinkers of Hinduism, all tend to have lived during the times of division and conflict.
fasquardon