EconAir

BACKGROUND Over the last two years, Iran's influence in the Middle East has declined. Iran lost a client state when the people of Syria overthrew the vicious regime of Assad. Hezbollah has been weakened by Israeli attacks and, after attacking Israel, Hamas and Gaza has been massively assaulted by Israel, which occupies part of Gaza. Hamas was trained, armed, and financed by Iran. Iran's air defenses were degraded by earlier American and Israeli attacks. The Iranian economy continues to weaken. Very high inflation rates and probable economic contraction and shortages. Much of the economy controlled by the Revolutionary Guards and the religious hierarchy. Massive demonstrations brutally put down by an extensive and brutal internal security force. An aging ayatollah, whose imminent death might have led to a power struggle among various groups in the government and security forces. It has always been recognized by the Gulf States and  American national security analysts (according ...

Written by Andrea Dragon, Ph.D. Dr. Dragon investigates and writes about New Jersey's industrial history. Professor Dragon will be teaching a continuing education course on "New Jersey's Explosives History" at Rutgers - New Brunswick on October 8, 2025. See details at the end of this essay.   1914:  World War I Breaks Out   Russia started to modernize its army in 1913, with substantial French financial and weapons support. The beginning of a five-year plan, one of the main goals was to expand artillery to catch up with Germany. But war broke out.    After the first four months of the war, all combatants realized they were in for a long war with deadly modern weapons. Every country’s strategy of a quick victory through offensive warfare failed. Germany did not defeat France and England in the west, and the Russian offensive against Germany in the east ended in disaster. The result was four years of trench warfare in the west and three years of large-scale bu...

SVG  Map_Europe_alliances_1914-fr.svg   ORIGINS OF THE WAR This is an extraordinarily complicated story. One reason is that it is difficult for the modern reader to understand the mentality of the key decision-makers – their prejudices, mental frameworks, how they reacted to threats and stress. Fortunately, there are several excellent books that attempt to describe the key players’ assumptions, mentality and motivations.   World War I was started by the decisions of a very small number of men, often in secret, implementing secret agreements and understandings, who represented the most reactionary, nationalistic or conservative groups in their countries and governments. Most were incompetent, narrow-minded, myopic and/or delusional. They thought going to war - appealing to nationalist sentiments - would solve or subsume social problems and political challenges that were mostly the result of industrialization and rapid economic  and social change. All planned to w...