ASDFASf

The narrative fixation on a struggle between abstracts is always going to be attractive because of the political-economic power struggle that occurs in the civilian realm, which then calls for the history of military conquest to fit to the political story behind it.

You can say that Napoleon's facilitation of Republican ideological proliferation fomented the rise of revolutionary/republican movements a generation later through the flaws in the post-1815 breakup of the French Empire planned by the other royal and imperial powers. Those revolutionary movements, particularly those in the area of what is now Germany, set the stage for the Bismarck/Wilhelm/Conservative contingent to try unifying Germany as a way of solidifying the power of the aristocracy against the liberals and radicals of the time, culminating in the F-P war of 1870 getting kicked off by Bismarck thinking the various Germanic states would ally against a common French enemy.

After that war, Bismarck decided to try squashing all the Catholics, a choice which radicals in turn used against him by explaining that religion, even Protestantism, was good for nothing. Along comes Willy Deuce, who decided that good old fashioned military expansion would shut those god damn reds up. This buildup eventually comes to a head in 1914, as Germany starts invading Belgium and then France. At the same time, on the Eastern front, this Lenin guy shows up from Germany and people go apeshit. They overthrow the Romanovs and bring about the glorious Soviet revolution. Despite this opponent being essentially knocked out of the war, Germany still loses. Folks are pissed because those damn Republicans didn't roll over and fall before the Kaiser's superior Teutonic forces, and also because everyone is pretty fed up with Germany's shit at this point and impose pretty harsh punishments.

Naturally, everyone starts blaming the Reds again, and this dude named Adolf shows up on the scene, manages to shoehorn his party into the mix as a bulwark against the Communists. This jackass somehow thinks the Kaiser had the right idea and invades Poland, kicking off WWII.

Following WWII, the tensions between the Eastern and Western allies (e.g. Communists and Capitalists respectively) get put on the slow simmer of the cold war. A side effect of this arrangement is the return of the proxy war. Korea, Vietnam, South America, you have brushfire shit popping up all over. One such place, in the twilight years of the cold war, is Afghanistan. The USSR invades Afghanistan to prop up their puppet against a big ol' Islamist movement that was almost certainly helped along by Western powers. They become embroiled in Afghanistan through the inability to overcome the guerrilla insurgency tactics being taught to Mujahideen by Western agents. One such student was Osama bin Laden.

In short, Napoleon Did 9/11. This bullshit stream of consciousness brought to you by an attempt to out-keldoclock keldoclock. For entertainment use only.

E: The pike-riddled end of the 30YW saw the Bourbon dynasty consolidate power in France. Louis XIV decided he'd make sure this gravy train kept rolling so he started seeding the country's administration structure with lesser nobles. This pissed off the high-birth aristocrats something fierce, but kept that gravy train rolling so well, in fact, that Lou outlived pretty much all of his heirs. When he died, the crown fell to a kid, Louis XV.

XV should have been named King Stepped-on-his-own-balls rather than Louis. His decisions to try outmaneuvering literally everyone ended up damn near bankrupting France and giving rise to the "hey fuck these guys" attitude that ended up getting his grandson killed, abolishing the monarchy, and eventually handing the country over to a young guy from Corsica after the revolution met backlash from the shitters in the aristocracy.

Addendum: PIKES DID 9/11.