the two wars of the world

I think David makes an over-simplified claim when saying that World War I and World War II were the same thing. While in some ways, I think that they were a continuation of each other, I think both represented two very different phases of one conflict dealing with, as David pointed out, nationalism. The first World War, however, was about keeping the balance of power in check and not letting one nation get too powerful. Germany was not necessarily to blame for this war, even though they found themselves in a situation in which they were blamed at the end of it, as everyone had strong nationalistic feelings going into this war with tensions that had been stirring for decades upon decades. World War II, from what I have gathered, was more of a war dealing with the product of World War I, thus resulting from but not mimicking World War I. World War II was about fighting fascism, which arose because of the situations countries found themselves in after the devastating first World War and protecting democracy. The top priority was not necessarily maintaining the balance of power, but maintaining the ideology and existence of liberal democracy. It wasn't so much nation vs. nation as the first World War had been but more ideology vs. ideology. In other words, ideology came before the specific state. While the two wars share some similarities in that they involved the same players, the two took on different flavors, as one resulted from the changes the world had experienced due to the other.