In a week in which former allies in a redividing globe separately commemorated the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war, the sense of a runaway descent towards a third world war draws ever closer.
The implosion of Pax Americana, the interconnectedness of conflicts, the new willingness to resort to unbridled state-sponsored violence and the irrelevance of the institutions of the rules-based order have all been on brutal display this week. From Kashmir to Khan Younis, Hodeidah, Port Sudan and Kursk, the only sound is of explosions, and the only lesson is that the old rules no longer apply.
Indeed Fiona Hill, the policy analyst and adviser to the UK government on its imminent strategic defence review, argues the third world war has already started, if only we would recognise it.
To talk about the Gaza conflict in the context of a world war is ridiculous.
Yes the human atrocities are enormous, and the moral sickness equals Nazi Germany. But it is not part of a “world war”.
Yes there are many conflicts around the world ATM. But many separate conflicts do not equal a world war.
And no we are not already in a world war.
And yet if 2 billion muslim people decide they will fight for Palestinians and the US continues to be Israels bitch and tries to protect them from the consequences of their war crimes, itll be a world war.
Has there ever been even the slightest indication of that? The Muslim world has had 70 years to fight Israel, and when someone tried, nobody was helping. I admit I don’t have much understanding of the politics of the middle east, but it seems to be a very far fetched speculation.
Fair point, although Isreal is now making moves on Syria and Lebanon, and if they continue to follow Ben Gurions plan they will attack Jordan and Egypt as well. And Israel hates turkey and hopes to draw the US into a war with Iran, which would not be easy. Israel cant be trusted to stop attacking people before they do something stupid.
I acknowledge this is 100% a true scenario, it even seemed Israel almost succeeded last Trump was president, by almost I mean it was very very close. So absolutely a conflict involving Israel and USA vs Iran cannot be ruled out.
I think Trump likes the idea of the power of being US commander of a war. The man is completely sick in the head.
But I don’t think it will escalate to a world war. The moment USA steps in and goes to war, nobody wants to go up against USA if they have the option not to. USA is simply too powerful.
If anything current could be called a prelude to a world war it would be America’s trade war against the rest of the world because virtually nothing else going on involves enough nations to qualify.
I agree, also because USA is alienating allies, and this clearly emboldens China, Russia and Iran.
But this will hurt USA too, and Trump will hopefully declare victory soon and end it.
Scenario: Israel strikes Iran with missiles, but this time Iran responds for real, with many dead. Maga shithawks jump on the conflict like they’ve been drooling to. Escalation spreads to Iraq and the arabian peninsula. Russia leans in heavily but in other theatres, chaotically. The E.U. steps in under the guise of defence, and with internal tensions stretched thin due to authoritarian members of the union. Ukraine gets more intense as China assists Russia more openly and the USA pulls out.
While things are peaking elsewhere, the PRC makes a move on Taiwan. Shit gets real everywhere, multiple African nations pulled in. Layers upon layers of conflict reflect the global complexity of it all.
If USA attack Iran together with Israel, Iran doesn’t stand a chance. It will be a very short war like when USA invaded Iraq.
There is no logical path for that.
Russian military is a joke now, they have their hands more than full in Ukraine.
That doesn’t make much sense, but let’s say there is a “whatever” reason. That would just make the defeat of Iran even quicker.
China has kept it’s distance from the conflict, and I don’t think China wants to actively increase instability in a world where they are making so much progress. Instability is bad for business. The way China has behaved NOT helping Russia much for 3 years, shows they would much rather participate in deescalation.
This is probably your best point IMO, but as I see it, China has to wait at least 5 more likely 10, until China has independent chip production that at a minimum matches Taiwan and the west. At this point in time, an invasion of Taiwan would be very disruptive to many of the industries that are most important to China.
Even then it’s a very big question if China thinks it’s worth the enormous diplomatic crisis that would follow.
So all in all, I don’t really see your thought experiment having much risk of leading to a world war.
Even though other scenarios might exist, I don’t really see that as a risk we should worry too much about.
Putin going even more crazy and using nukes is probably the biggest danger the world is facing ATM. Gaza is next to irrelevant by comparison.
But I suspect if Putin uses nukes, many of his allies will abandon him. And he will become a valid target for the entire world, and the Russian federation will not be allowed to survive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84P4dzow1Bw
Yeah literally no one is “warring” over this. They aren’t even making harsh comments. Everyone it seems wants the Muslims dead.
IDK why Israel is getting off so easy, there is clearly moral opposition to it, but nobody is doing anything?
Well, the moral opposition is actually pretty low. On here, yeah, we don’t want genocide. But, think about the average angry uneducated citizen of the world. Muslims are often seen as terrorists because so many of the terrorists follow Islam. They might think: not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims. Which is obviously not true because there are plenty of non-Muslim terrorists. But you know how people are.
I agree that there are problems with Islam extremists, just as there are problems with other extremists. But obviously we should not solve the problem by becoming the problem ourselves. In Gaza Israel is the extremist, and it is insane that Israel is allowed to control it like it was some sort of criminal ghetto prison.
As I see it, Israel is a failed experiment, and the countries behind it need to step in and resolve the situation and at a minimum stop further Israeli settlements.
Well, regarding the ghetto prison, Egypt has worked with Israel to block the western border. Yet they are allowed to wash their hands of it.
Additionally, the county most behind it was Britain, given that they controlled the territory and handed it over. Then, additional blame falls on every member of the UN for resolution 181.
This just supports my opinion that a large chunk of people are not actually interested in genocide, but more interested in using it as a weapon to crush the United States. They completely ignore the other counties currently supplying arms, like Germany. Where are the Genocide Merz chants? There is also a global Muslim genocide going on, but if you ask the ML, they will deny it completely, and call you names—which means it is true.
I think there was pretty hard pressure from USA, and USA even wrote into their laws that they are required to protect Israel. Laws that are still used to explain why USA protect Israel even when Israel behaves like a terrorist state.
The US is not required to do anything, although we do have the MOU, which is up in 2028.
Because they still claim to be victims
It’s a huge part of the Israeli identity to claim that they’re persecuted for their religion
I don’t care about their superstition.
I care that they commit atrocities, do truly foul things for the US so that the Americans can maintain deniability, all while being disgusting hypocrites
Israel only exists so that the West has a permanent presence in an oil-producing region. That’s all it ever was
Sadly yes.