In the 2010's, many people told me 'WWIII will never happen, the world is too interdependent'.
When I look at the world unfold in the 2020's, it seems very few people accounted for how much corruption, economics, social media, propaganda, etc. would factor into geopolitics.
At this point, to me, another global conflict with massive consequences seems inevitable. There is just enough desperation, social unrest, government corruption, and resource depletion to trigger survival instincts on the largest scale.
Just like individuals have a drive for self-preservation, nations do too. Wars happen when two or nation's drive for self-preservation collide. It seems Russia, China, and North Korea have already aligned while the US/EU have aligned, not sure where India stands. The US has warships moving in the South China Sea, China sees that as an act of escalation. Winter is coming in the EU with Russia withholding energy. TikTok is spying on the all it's users and Russia interfered in US elections...
I'm just curious to hear what others think/feel. I'm open to any perspective, none of us are prepared for what's ahead for better or for worse. I'm hoping for the best, preparing for the worst.
I think China and Russia are likely to continue to make moves that economically hurt the West or amplify social divisions here, but I don't see WWIII-type conflict happening personally.
The Taiwan situation is interesting but ultimately China knows they won't be able to take Taiwan by force without extreme consequences - nor would it be easy. China's economy depends on being able to export to the West where as the West could, if needed, find other trading partners. For that reason I think there are limits in how far China will be willing to go with Taiwan. Even if it didn't escalate into direct conflict with the West it would still be economically devastating for China. Maintaining the status-quo is in everyone's best interest.
Then again geopolitical events are nearly impossible to predict. At the end of the day it's just a handful of people who get to decide these things and people can be irrational, emotional and have complex motivations. WWIII will probably happen at some point, I just doubt the probability of it happening soon is as high as some people think.
Did Germany stand a chance to win WWII? Probably not, or at best a slim chance; it made huge, surprising victories against most of continental Europe, but it just picked on too many opponents. By the time the US was in, it was (slow and deadly) game over. They believed their own BS and went ahead with it regardless.
I guess the risk here is that Russia or China could also believe their own BS and do something stupid regardless. Russia clearly did in Ukraine.
As far as I can tell, WWI started kind of because everyone wanted a war. All the belligerents were convinced this is their moment to shine, 3 months and it will be all over, with [shiny new territory]. Alas it was not to be so.
They "incorporated" what they could (Austra, Czechoslovakia), then quickly conquered Poland and France. Capturing Moskow seemed not off limits had they started earlier. I don't want to place bets if it was possible to hold the Soviet Union. Alternatively, if they hadn't attacked the Soviet Union at all.
It is plausible that they would have kept most of Continental Europe, ending with a stalemate with the UK (and no war with the US). Alternatively, not attacking the Soviet Union, and conquering the UK (still, I am not sure if it would work without getting the US to the war). I am happy it didn't work that way - especially as a Pole.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_declaration_of_war_agai...
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"Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win!"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_S._Power
Caveat: I'm not an expert, but I think this is too simplistic. If both sides completely divorced from each other, Western factories would probably struggle to manufacture a lot of things, because they rely on components from China, components you and I have probably never considered necessary.
E.g: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/24/russian-invasion-of-ukraine-...
If it starts today, in 10-15 years the western world can be back to its current level.
Is there a reason to be sure they are this rational? Some people just get mad and kill others just for sake of "honour" as their weird philosophy defines it, no matter the consequences.
For example, does it seem like the Russian public is rational in any way? There are many approving of the 'denazification' rhetoric in Ukraine. Since the CCP has been pushing the narrative that Taiwan is China, it's somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
For any sensible definitions of 'win', there's also no way the US can win against China, or even Russia. Both China and Russia are impossible to successfully invade and they both have nuclear weapons (same applies to the US).
These 3 countries do not want to go to war against each others and they won't. As the WOPR once wisely concluded, the only winning move is not to play.
So every time the US 'flex their muscles' over Ukraine or Taiwan we pretty much know that this is rhetorics and that they won't actually intervene directly.
Edit: I'm bowing in shame and have corrected WOPR (not Whopper). Thanks @jgrahamc.
Whether the countries want to go to war doesn’t matter when a bluff that isn’t a bluff is called.
As for Taiwan, it's an unknown and if you claim otherwise, you're doing it based on nothing. Biden has clearly and repeatedly stated that the US would defend Taiwan. Not saying the US actually wants to, maybe it's just a deterrent. However, if China does attack and the US backs off, that would mean the end of American supremacy regardless.
China's import is far more important for now.
It imports vast amounts of food and fuel by boat. It would be trivial to stop those.
While I agree that propaganda has never quite been as hyper-targeted to specific micro-populations as it is today, you can't forget the larger role propaganda has played since, say, the printing press. Especially propaganda tied to the same concerns as today: economic insecurity, racial and cultural in-groups and out-groups, etc. Ask a Southern male US citizen in the 1850s what he thought about the island of Cuba — although he likely never would have any interaction whatsoever with the island, its inhabitants or its politics, he would've encountered (and probably adopted) talking points given to him by propaganda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostend_Manifesto
There is, as of now, no evidence China is preparing to invade anything. There's always sable rattling, hasn't happened yet.
> Wars happen when two or nation's drive for self-preservation collide
That's a naive view of war, which ignores individual a-holes. There's no self-preservation in Russia invading Ukraine...
I understand it's easy to despair and fear seeing some of the things happening in the world. I am much more optimistic.
Russia was massively clear during the pre-invasion buildup that it was about Ukrainian NATO aspirations. They offered to deescalate and remove troops from the boarder if US declared opposition to Ukrainian admission. They publicly stated they saw it as an existential threat and were willing to invade over it.
It is still not clear if the threat was real or imagined, I'd the "deescalation" proposition had real things or was just a very unrealistic set of terms and essentially an excuse to proceed. NATO was less ready to accept any new members half a year ago than it is now.
(Which is what matters.)
A prospering, west-oriented, large and largely Russophone country on their borders would be a terrible reminder for both populations what a massive failure the Russian state is.
If the world becomes more unsafe it's because autocratic leaders are feeling the pressure of their citizens, mainly due to the internet and free access to information.
You can see this in the Arab world where the enemy is always "israel and the zionist world order", the US in Cuba and Venezuela, NATO in Russia, the "western humiliation" in China, Colonization in Zimbabwe, ...
It somehow always winds up that organizations that promote democracy are agents of the west and should be suppressed. Formenting domestic problems in democracies only serves to make their regime look better in comparison.
Will this lead to a world war? I don't think so, but there will definitely be a lot of manufactured conflict designed for their own internal consumption.
In Russia's case, the Belarus and Kazakhstan revolutions apparently triggered the regime sufficiently to into an unprovoked invasion with a "kill list" of Russian speakers that were critical of the kremlin and the resolve to drag the only russian-speaking area under democratic rule into poverty.
China doesn't have a pressing need to invade anybody at the moment but I do believe that they will blockade Taiwan in the next decade.
WWIII is already happening. The US is closing up on Russia now for more than a decade. China is growing economically but they are still far away militarily and except for Russia there isn't really another contender for the US militarily speaking.
Before 2010 the world was quite multi-polar with the US being the leader. Now, we are moving to a uni-polar world and this is of course triggering reactions both from China, Russia and countries that want to remain sovereign (ie: India, Brazil, ASEAN, etc...)
Countries not in the western sphere are already aware of this. The EU is quite aware of this too and it's going to be a loser in this new order but it doesn't seem to be able to build a politically independent force to have its own policy. Russia is the main target and they know this, that's why they are freaking out. China probably doesn't like Russia much but certainly would prefer a multi-polar world (at least until they are able to become the leader); so they'll help the Russians to slow down the West. Major other countries like India do not like China or Russia but they are concerned about the accumulation of power and inflation in the West/US hands. Smaller countries are trying to survive in this environment and feed their people either by selling their young labor for pennies, or opening their borders for rich people from the West to sun bathe.
That's the world for you, in a nutshell.
If I am to predict the future:
- Russia gets drawn in a long war with Ukraine. The US is playing the long game of starving them financially and technologically.
- China will probably collapse in a spectacular fashion. They are far from being a united country. The outcome won't be easy to predict and China is huge. It is possible this will happen without much disruption to trading lines.
- Europe/Euro/Schengen will end sometime in the next 10 years. Some European countries will be back to third-world status.
- With the fall of the Euro, the US dollar will become the ultimate currency. The US will be able to yield enormous influence all over the world.
The western conspiracy over Russia is the Russian narrative and doesn't make any sense whatsoever because if you look closely won't be able to explain why Europe opted to depend on energy from Russia when conspiring to start a conflict with Russia. In reality, the west was simply naive to believe that what worked for EU would work with Russia too and that is the peace model through inter-dependence. Why would you start a conflict with your neighbours when you depend on their wellbeing? It turns out, when the neighbours leaders don't stay in power by providing prosperity for its people the model doesn't work.
For the West, Russia is relevant as a petrol station. Russia has turned into a petrostate and unlike Norway they chose to live off it and not do much more. Russia is no contender to the west in any form. Some might blame this too on the west but it's not west that has chosen Putin.
The EU is only weak in the Energy department(that's why they actually wanted this Russia thing to work). EU has a well educated and healthy society that is going through demographics crisis, which means there will be problems related to it but it's in much much better shape than China or any other place in the world with exception to the USA.
EU/Schengen etc might end at its current form but this is not a video game and those who fail don't simply disappear. Whatever replaces EU will be like EU in different configuration because it doesn't make any sense whatsoever to have 30 smallish countries trying to do their thing without cooperating. EU might fail and become an EU sans social security and human rights.
China, on the other hand, isn't going away and will be the primary contenders to the west because during the de-industrialisation of the west they build up huge production capacity and know how on industrial production and technology and west almost completely lost it. The main problem with China is that now they are actually very close to the west to catch up on science, technology and culture and design too which would mean complete Chinese dominence. Their primary disadvantage is that they have very serious demographics issues and they are poor on energy like EU.
> Why would you start a conflict with your neighbours when you depend on their wellbeing?
The way I look at it: Where is the war happening? It's happening at Putin's border. This is a defense war that Putin is leading. Whether he is wrong in his assessment of Western plotting or not, is a different story.
> EU has a well educated and healthy society that is going through demographics crisis
You just contradicted yourself in a single statement. A healthy society that's going through a crisis?
> The main problem with China is that now they are actually very close to the west to catch up on science, technology and culture and design too which would mean complete Chinese dominence.
They are not. China is good in planned execution and they do have some innovative companies. The last saga of clamping down on the tech elites at this specific period of time just shows that the country is being run by a circus. Chinese elite are running to the US (and Canada/Australia which is kinda like saying the US but different flags).
Don't you mean the opposite? It was unipolar since the end of WW2, with US being the top superpower. Now other countries want, and can get, a piece of the pie. To be fair that means pretty much only China.
In fact, the US was not much at that time. It had power but little influence. Think of someone who is very rich $$ wise, but can't influence the politicians, police, or the mayor and has no connections whatsoever.
Of course, if you are living in a country where the war is happening, you tend to see things differently. Many people in the West haven't seen a war in a long time and would happily believe what the general media is telling them; or the other side of the media (the alternative media).
I don't have much knowledge of China, it just appears from the outside to me that the State is in much more control.
Look at this last coronavirus crisis: Russia was able to procure a more advanced vaccine than China. You'd think the second most powerful and planned economy in the world should have done better but it didn't.
Edit: Another measure to look at it. Look how many countries of the world were affected by this last war with Russia. (either for food, rockets, raw materials, etc...)
Inevitable because thats history. Pax Americana has effectively come to an end with the Taliban giveaway. The official end will be if/when they abandon Taiwan; and thats why people care so much. If US can't intervene to save its allies then their word means shit. US has become complacent, self-absorbed in its own problems and as every "empire" crumbling from within. The signs are pretty visible both economically and socially and I won't expand because it would take a whole essay. Point is, when an empire stumbles, others run to take its place (or a piece of it). Of course, there is the asterisk of nuclear weapons that ensure MAD but I bet that millions or billions of man hours are spent on finding ways to avoid MAD on both sides. If that will result in MAD in the end , I don't know; but I don't think its a deterrent which is as real as it was in the 60s.
How close are we? I would put a timeframe of 10-15 years if no other major event comes up. Because US is not what it used to be 10years ago even. The fuckup in north africa was the start, the absolute plunder in Afghanistan was next. People in US are tired of wars as inequality grows and the political system offers no exit. Couple this with a societal swift towards postmodernity thanks to the arrogance of the "elites" and you have a great mix of angered populace with no regards to rationality. Now the war in UKR creates a fundamentally unstable system in the heart of Europe. This system will have to stabilize one way or the other, Russia cannot remain a pariah for a long time or it will risk making it even more aggresive. China is asking for "lebenraum" in southeast sea which US doesn't want to give (but IMO they will be forced to). If China decides to take Taiwan the option is either war with china in their backyard, or backing out and accelerate the US downfall. Either way, it won't go out without a boom, it never does.
Newer generations in advanced countries (including me) view war as something extraterrestrial but reality is that its an everyday phenomenon for the biggest part of the world and for the most time in history. So its easy to think/hope that it will be like this forever and "war is finished", but Ukraine showed to most Europeans that its not (and IMO thats what shocked them the most)
From the Euro POV, Pax Americana ended with the second invasion of Iraq. This was a complete misuse of the post-war common pact system based on lies. Since Europe was on the receiving end of those lies, it has not been forgotten.
This is a common view throughout Europe across many political boundaries. The reason that this is important is that the opinion of the rest of the world is what gives Pax Americana its power.
My 2c, I still don't think it's over.
> “We are at the edge of war with Russia and China on issues which we partly created, without any concept of how this is going to end or what it’s supposed to lead to,” he says. Could the U.S. manage the two adversaries by triangulating between them, as during the Nixon years? He offers no simple prescription. “You can’t just now say we’re going to split them off and turn them against each other. All you can do is not to accelerate the tensions and to create options, and for that you have to have some purpose.”
> https://www.wsj.com/articles/henry-kissinger-is-worried-abou...
He had something to say already in May about Ukraine at Davos: “Kissinger vs. Soros on Russia and Ukraine” https://www.wsj.com/articles/dueling-approaches-to-world-ord... (on a lighter note, this URL sounds like a conspiracy theory bingo card)
The Ukrainian invasion was a lose lose situation for Russia and will damage Russia massively. That doesnt mean it is worse than the alternative of not invading for them.
If I were playing risk and not with human lives, I would do the same