I generally agree with this post. I remember writing about a previous Ukraine funding bill in the US Congress that I would've voted to abstain; so I'm definitely notsupporting NATO involvement in the war, but I am sympathetic to the Ukrainian people for having to live through this escalation of violence, so I feel torn and sit on the virtual sidelines wishing both sides would hold discussions to halt the war. It appears I'm joined by 73 countries who voted to abstain on the latest (https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3994052?ln=en) UN resolution regarding the conflict.
Does this qualify as a "world war" or if not do I think it will escalate into one?
Has me thinking of my criteria for the term. What would count as WWIII? Many people have equated WWIII with a nuclear exchange, but there's no way of knowing whether a declared war between Russia and the US would involve any nukes, and a limited nuclear exchange need not involve the rest of the world.
Do we even bother to "declare" war anymore?
"A world war is an international conflict which involves all or most of the world's major powers." Says Wikipedia.
OK, we definitely have an international conflict. The conflict "involves" the military (either directly or via military aid) of 5 of the top 10, or 6 of the top 12, or 7 of the top 14 world powers (but whether a country is a world power or where they rank may be subjective). So close to "most" but not quite! We're missing China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and India, for example. Although we see signs of escalation in Asia over the Taiwan Strait. And we could yet see Saudi Arabia get into a shooting match with Iran as both countries covertly develop nukes. I could see the fire spreading to Asia and the Middle East during the next few years.
I guess we need only one more world power's involvement to call it a "world" war under the standard definition. But this is more like the Poland stage of WW2, when only one country was the subject of the fighting and the rest were afraid to shoot at each other yet. Did we call the Vietnam and Korean wars "world" wars because both superpowers were "involved"? The fighting needs to spill into more than one country, I'd say.
As for your point regarding whether we can stop WWIII from happening ... we didn't stop the previous two from happening, of course. If one person could go back in time and do something, what would that person need to do to stop a world war from happening? Would it have been enough to strangle Putin, Hitler, or Gavrilo Princip in their cribs? Or are these wars more like earthquakes in that they represent gigantic opposing forces that must periodically shift violently? Can world powers move up and down in the ranks without fighting openly?
I'd say the most important problem in the world today is finding ways to allow China to become a superpower without fighting her over it. Depending on how you measure it, China has the #1 or #2 economy now, and instead of embracing China the US is viewing her with ever more suspicion and targeting various strategic goods and services to make sure China can't take away the lead from the US. But the struggle between the EU/NATO and Russia over Eastern Europe has exploded into the open, we may see Saudi/Iran do the same, we may see China/US-Japan-Australia do the same.
I don't know how to predict the outbreak of a shooting war. There's probably a constant stream of random low-level contacts between military powers and it only takes an accidental spark to blow up an international incident. Pelosi's visit to Taiwan didn't provide a spark. Blowing up the underwater pipelines didn't provide a spark ... who knows.
no subject
I generally agree with this post. I remember writing about a previous Ukraine funding bill in the US Congress that I would've voted to abstain; so I'm definitely not supporting NATO involvement in the war, but I am sympathetic to the Ukrainian people for having to live through this escalation of violence, so I feel torn and sit on the virtual sidelines wishing both sides would hold discussions to halt the war. It appears I'm joined by 73 countries who voted to abstain on the latest (https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3994052?ln=en) UN resolution regarding the conflict.
Does this qualify as a "world war" or if not do I think it will escalate into one?
Has me thinking of my criteria for the term. What would count as WWIII? Many people have equated WWIII with a nuclear exchange, but there's no way of knowing whether a declared war between Russia and the US would involve any nukes, and a limited nuclear exchange need not involve the rest of the world.
Do we even bother to "declare" war anymore?
"A world war is an international conflict which involves all or most of the world's major powers." Says Wikipedia.
OK, we definitely have an international conflict. The conflict "involves" the military (either directly or via military aid) of 5 of the top 10, or 6 of the top 12, or 7 of the top 14 world powers (but whether a country is a world power or where they rank may be subjective). So close to "most" but not quite! We're missing China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and India, for example. Although we see signs of escalation in Asia over the Taiwan Strait. And we could yet see Saudi Arabia get into a shooting match with Iran as both countries covertly develop nukes. I could see the fire spreading to Asia and the Middle East during the next few years.
I guess we need only one more world power's involvement to call it a "world" war under the standard definition. But this is more like the Poland stage of WW2, when only one country was the subject of the fighting and the rest were afraid to shoot at each other yet. Did we call the Vietnam and Korean wars "world" wars because both superpowers were "involved"? The fighting needs to spill into more than one country, I'd say.
As for your point regarding whether we can stop WWIII from happening ... we didn't stop the previous two from happening, of course. If one person could go back in time and do something, what would that person need to do to stop a world war from happening? Would it have been enough to strangle Putin, Hitler, or Gavrilo Princip in their cribs? Or are these wars more like earthquakes in that they represent gigantic opposing forces that must periodically shift violently? Can world powers move up and down in the ranks without fighting openly?
I'd say the most important problem in the world today is finding ways to allow China to become a superpower without fighting her over it. Depending on how you measure it, China has the #1 or #2 economy now, and instead of embracing China the US is viewing her with ever more suspicion and targeting various strategic goods and services to make sure China can't take away the lead from the US. But the struggle between the EU/NATO and Russia over Eastern Europe has exploded into the open, we may see Saudi/Iran do the same, we may see China/US-Japan-Australia do the same.
I don't know how to predict the outbreak of a shooting war. There's probably a constant stream of random low-level contacts between military powers and it only takes an accidental spark to blow up an international incident. Pelosi's visit to Taiwan didn't provide a spark. Blowing up the underwater pipelines didn't provide a spark ... who knows.