I find it somewhat strange that no matter what occurs in any TL WWI has to occur. In many PODs we see things like “Princip misses,” or “the Archduke’s chauffer doesn’t make a wrong turn,” and the recent “Franz Jospeph dies in1910,” I see nothing but a series of posts as to why it does nothing but delay or simply speed up the increase of WWI. Now this always strikes me as odd, for as a good straight and narrow AH.com guy am I not told every day that nothing is inevitable? The best example I have is the Cold War, for many of the arguments used to point to why WWI will always occur are the same things that occurred in the Cold War. Just as the Cuban Missile Crisis could have lead to war, the First and Second Moroccan Crisis could have done the same. Yet in all these instances nations puffed out their chests and swaggered about but stepped down before war.
Now I know we hear things like “their economy demanded a war,” or “without a war Russia would simply overpower everyone,” and my personal favorite “the alliances made it impossible to stay out of any conflict.” Alright feel free to yell at me for this opinion but I am beginning to view mobilization in the same region as MAD. Both sides are equal, and yet the first one to start moving wins, this was the thought behind mobilization and MAD. So in reality there is this big over hanging thing of making the first strike, and without either nation making the move and relaying on diplomacy or international opinion war can be averted for a long time. This is not saying conflicts will not occur, but not the massive global war.