Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail

by Ray Dalio

For example, the decline of China from around 1840 to 1949, known as the “Century of Humiliation,” came about because the Western powers and Japan exploited China. As you read on, keep in mind that the two things about war that one can be most confident in are 1) that it won’t go as planned and 2) that it will be far worse than imagined. It is for those reasons that so many of the principles that follow are about ways to avoid shooting wars. Still, whether they are fought for good reasons or bad, shooting wars happen. To be clear, while I believe most are tragic and fought for nonsensical reasons, some are worth fighting because the consequences of not fighting them (e.g., the loss of freedom) would be intolerable.