User:Sbandrews/index of democracy

WWI
For example, as World War I approached, Winston Churchill, then-First Lord of the Admiralty, made an historic decision. He shifted the British Navy from coal-power to oil, on the eve of the war, to make the fleet faster than the German Navy.

The oil-powered fleet, however, was now subject to insecure oil supplies from what was then Persia, rather than relying on local supplies of coal from Wales.

The move forced Great Britain to face a new national strategy challenge — securing essential energy sources. Churchill had this advice: "Safety and certainty in oil," he said, "lie in variety and variety alone,"

Berlin-Baghdad Railway

It was one of the most important "stakes of diplomacy" and as such may be regarded as one of the factors that contributed to bring about the War of 1914; indeed, the frustration of the German "Berlin-Byzantium-Bagdad" plan was publicly declared by Allied and American leaders during the War to be a vital issue of the world conflict Talk:Baghdad Railway

World War I fails to clearly label the asasination as a trigger - implies it is a cause which is not in line with the recommendations of WikiProject Military history - e.g. "However, the conflict also had deeper causes which were multiple and complex."

".. when in 1863, a new railroad link placed Cleveland in a position to compete in business".

Berlin-Baghdad Railway
- Soon after the Oriental Railway had transported its first passengers through the Balkans to Constantinople in 1888, German bankers received permission from Turkish leaders to construct a railway deeper into Turkey. By 1903, other nations in Europe had realized that Germans were planning to construct a railway which would provide a rail link from Germany to the Persian Gulf. This would have given Germany open access to African colonies, trade with India, and oil from Iraq. The new and huge impact of oil as fuel was recognised by the British, for its impact on German industrial and growing naval potential (see Engdahl). The Suez Canal and the British control of shipping could be avoided by rail, and German power would threaten the British, French and Russian entente. They feared the Baghdad Railway would permit Germans to dominate the political and economic arenas of Europe (see Jastrow).

Geolpolitics

 * Geopolitics
 * The Geographical Pivot of History


 * Noam chamsky raving about the pluto press (publisher of "a century of war)