Is WWIII on the way?

We are already fighting it, and we are losing.

Is WWIII coming sometime soon? <<

It depends on what you mean by WWIII.  A war involving the exchange of strategic nuclear weapons?  Or simply (to use Gwynne Dyer’s definition of a world war, of which he has inventoried about six in modern times) a war involving all the major powers that exist in the world at a given time?

Put a top hat on me, make more of my hair go grey and call me Neville, but I will say no war in my lifetime.

I do wonder about that Russian sub in Swedish waters. Very strange.

The war starts when China and her drywall fleet of garbage and ex Soviet mothballed carrier try to take Formosa.

@Imperious:

The war starts when China and her drywall fleet of garbage and ex Soviet mothballed carrier try to take Formosa.

Very possible!

@Imperious:

The war starts when China and her drywall fleet of garbage and ex Soviet mothballed carrier try to take Formosa.

:lol:  :lol:  :lol:

I heard (or read) somewhere recently that we are currently fighting the Second Cold War. I think it is generally not recognized as such, but I totally agree with that statement. Instead of USSR centered communism it is nationalist Russia and China, plus global terrorism. “And we are losing” … yeah, to some degree. We sure aren’t winning the optics portion. And our financial priorities are not in order. We look like polite pushovers right now.

And WWIII doesn’t start until sometime in the 2060s… don’t you watch Star Trek?

@LHoffman:

We look like polite pushovers right now.

I beg to disagree on that point.  If anything the USA and its cronies look pushy rather than pushovers in places like Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.  They pick battles we can’t win, and when the political/economic SHTF and all they can do is gloss over it with propaganda that no one really buys anymore. Sure the military does its job but the politicians are corrupt.  Now their latest genius move has been to rig the oil price to try and starve out ISIS, Russia, Iran, Venezuela.  How pathetic.

@variance:

I beg to disagree on that point.  If anything the USA and its cronies look pushy rather than pushovers in places like Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.  They pick battles we can’t win, and when the political/economic SHTF and all they can do is gloss over it with propaganda that no one really buys anymore. Sure the military does its job but the politicians are corrupt.  Now their latest genius move has been to rig the oil price to try and starve out ISIS, Russia, Iran, Venezuela.  How pathetic.

I would agree to some extent, though my point is that we don’t back it up with much internationally. Domestically our government is only escalating in pushi-ness. Easy to take on your own citizenry… suppose I should drop it at that.

Or WW3 will be known simply as the ‘first thermonuclear war’  instead. Nuclear strategy is a vastly complex exercise that adds a formidable dimension to foreign policy. A ‘world war’ between rational state actors in the atomic era would most likely necessitate the use of thermonuclear weapons at some point. Unpalatable as it may seem nuclear wars can be waged and some (read Herman Kahn) have argued successfully. The gap in nuclear assets between the various nuclear powers is considerable not to mention the doctrinal differences in their use. That alone almost ridicules the predicament that would like to reduce nuclear weapons to merely a political weapon without any practical use. Back to nuclear free G40 now  :-D

@Slovenehero:

A ‘world war’ between rational state actors in the atomic era would most likely necessitate the use of thermonuclear weapons at some point.

The concept of rational state actors in politics is a bit like the concept of rational investors in economics: tricky.  In the abstract, the concept of rationality in politics (and economics) basically implies that the people involved in a decision-making process (“Should we go to war against such-and-such a country?”  “Should I buy or sell this particular stock?”) are making decisions based on a clinical analysis of the costs, benefits, risks and opprtunities, and that one of their objectives is to avoid decisions that would result in their coming out on the losing end of the cost-benefit trade-off.  Sounds reasonable enough, and by that logic politicians (and investors) would be unlikely to make stupid decisions, to say nothing of decisions that are monumentally stupid and massively harmful to both themselves and others.  But in reality, things don’t always work out that way.  It’s said in the world of finance that nobody ever performs more badly on the stock market than the average investor; I’m not sure if there’s an equivalent expression in the world of international politics, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were.

The three problems with rationality in politics and in finance are that: a) emotions can easily trump rationality, as can be seen whenever there’s a panic sell-off on the stock market; b) rational analysis can often be tainted by prejudices, misconceptions, incorrect assumptions and incomplete information; and c) even correct and dispassionate analyses can sometimes produce the wrong answer, given that political and economics events are the products of the collective actions of countless individuals (of varying degrees of importance) interacting with each other in multiple and complex ways.  These things simply can’t be analyzed and predicted accurately and reliably.  The outbreak of WWI is a classic example of a major war breaking out through a complex combination of deliberate intent and unforeseen miscalculation.  In business, the notorious Edsel debacle is a good example because it was actually one of the most carefully planned new car projects in automotive history, yet it flopped to such a degree that “edsel” became and remains a synonym for a lemon.

The made-for-TV movie World War III includes, as I recall, a conversation that sums up the problem neatly.  The US President (played by Rock Hudson) is on the phone with a US Army colonel (layed by David Soul) during a crisis involving Soviet troops in Alaska. The President gravely informs the colonel (who’s in Alaska) that the incident could lead to a thermonuclear war.  The colonel says, “But nobody would win a thermonuclear war!” The President answers, “That has nothing to do with getting into one.”

@LHoffman:

@variance:

I beg to disagree on that point.  If anything the USA and its cronies look pushy rather than pushovers in places like Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.  They pick battles we can’t win, and when the political/economic SHTF and all they can do is gloss over it with propaganda that no one really buys anymore. Sure the military does its job but the politicians are corrupt.  Now their latest genius move has been to rig the oil price to try and starve out ISIS, Russia, Iran, Venezuela.  How pathetic.

I would agree to some extent, though my point is that we don’t back it up with much internationally. Domestically our government is only escalating in pushi-ness. Easy to take on your own citizenry… suppose I should drop it at that.

agree totally.

@Imperious:

The war starts when China and her drywall fleet of garbage and ex Soviet mothballed carrier try to take Formosa.

I don’t think this is in the realm of possibility without China first dealing with their infrastructure problem, their ethnic identity problems, their economic stagnation, and the very real threat of trying to keep all information censured so their growing middle/ western educated class doesn’t start asking too many uncomfortable questions…among other things.

Contemporary wars seem to be motivated by domestic politics of aggressive states or the agendas of non-national entities (terrorists, secessionists, revolutionaries, etc.).

Open war between major powers would be too expensive, too risky, and offer too little potential reward.

In hindsight, WWII was a futile exercise for the Axis since the colonial (in the classic, overt sense) status quo would have collapsed either way.

I once read somewhere that WWI had convinced the winners that general wars between the world’s great powers had become too destructive to be worthwhile, but that it took WWII to drive home the same point to both the winners and the losers (with the latter group, in other words, understanding that “If only we had won…” was no longer a valid justification for wanting to try again later in the hope that they’d have better luck next time).  And fortunately, there has indeed not been a general war between the world’s major powers since WWII.  There have been lots of small wars – including an awful lot of civil wars and several “decolonization” wars – plus a good number of intermediate-level wars, plus of course the Cold War and its associated proxy conflicts, plus the current trend of asymmetrical warfare involving non-state actors and/or various failed states…but no all-out war (either conventional or nuclear) between the “big five” powers with permanent seats on the UN Security Council and their associated blocks (such as NATO and the now-defunct Warsaw Pact).  Which is a good thing.

@CWO:

… Which is a good thing.

A good thing indeed.

@CWO:

@Slovenehero:

A ‘world war’ between rational state actors in the atomic era would most likely necessitate the use of thermonuclear weapons at some point.

The concept of rational state actors in politics is a bit like the concept of rational investors in economics: tricky.  In the abstract, the concept of rationality in politics (and economics) basically implies that the people involved in a decision-making process (“Should we go to war against such-and-such a country?”  “Should I buy or sell this particular stock?”) are making decisions based on a clinical analysis of the costs, benefits, risks and opprtunities, and that one of their objectives is to avoid decisions that would result in their coming out on the losing end of the cost-benefit trade-off.  Sounds reasonable enough, and by that logic politicians (and investors) would be unlikely to make stupid decisions, to say nothing of decisions that are monumentally stupid and massively harmful to both themselves and others.  But in reality, things don’t always work out that way.  It’s said in the world of finance that nobody ever performs more badly on the stock market than the average investor; I’m not sure if there’s an equivalent expression in the world of international politics, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were.

The three problems with rationality in politics and in finance are that: a) emotions can easily trump rationality, as can be seen whenever there’s a panic sell-off on the stock market; b) rational analysis can often be tainted by prejudices, misconceptions, incorrect assumptions and incomplete information; and c) even correct and dispassionate analyses can sometimes produce the wrong answer, given that political and economics events are the products of the collective actions of countless individuals (of varying degrees of importance) interacting with each other in multiple and complex ways.  These things simply can’t be analyzed and predicted accurately and reliably.  The outbreak of WWI is a classic example of a major war breaking out through a complex combination of deliberate intent and unforeseen miscalculation.  In business, the notorious Edsel debacle is a good example because it was actually one of the most carefully planned new car projects in automotive history, yet it flopped to such a degree that “edsel” became and remains a synonym for a lemon.

The made-for-TV movie World War III includes, as I recall, a conversation that sums up the problem neatly.  The US President (played by Rock Hudson) is on the phone with a US Army colonel (layed by David Soul) during a crisis involving Soviet troops in Alaska. The President gravely informs the colonel (who’s in Alaska) that the incident could lead to a thermonuclear war.  The colonel says, “But nobody would win a thermonuclear war!” The President answers, “That has nothing to do with getting into one.”

The problem with assuming Rational actors is that rational actors most likely wouldn’t engage in a World War. Wars are costly, world wars even more so, and are usually caused by emotions, stupidity, radical ideologies, or out of the necessity to combat any of the above.

There isn’t really a whole lot of rational thought behind plunging the world into chaos and destruction.

As Long as humans are on the Power, there will unlikely be an official WW III (90% of a Chance).

But when humans hand over the total power of Judgement to a Head CPU.

RUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!