People always talk about a potential WW3 everytime there is even the slightest confrontation between powerful countries but it never happens. At this point I'm convinced there will never be a WW3.
It would almost necessarily be America that starts it, which narrows things down a bit. Given that the empire decline continues, I think there's at least two scenarios here: America goes somewhat gently into that good night (and then either continues being the world's treat consumer with a few changes to make sure that boiling seawater doesn't kill us all, or it balkanizes and there's regional warfare and corporate fiefdoms and shit); or America rages against the dying of the light in a desperate attempt to hold on.
I'm gonna assume that WW3 means that nukes will be used, because I feel like, in a conventional war that's "agreed upon" beforehand, if any nuclear country was close to defeat it's gonna make the calculation, and at least one of them would go "yep, fuck it, fire the nukes, we've gotta do something or we're all gonna be killed in our war rooms" and that would start the chain reaction.
To me, the central question of it is "What do capitalists think is in their best interest?", and the answer to that question may change based on how dire things get. Right now, there's no reason whatsoever for them to destroy civilization and hide in their concrete bunkers with robot slaves for the rest of their lives, as there's not really any existential threats to them. If the proles are banging on their doors then maybe they pull the trigger on the nuclear missiles, but by that point, who would they aim at? Themselves, to kill everybody else around them in the ultimate revenge play for losing their extremely cushy lives? And if we're at that point, who would be at their stations to fire the missiles?
At the end of the day, my instincts are "no". That's not necessarily the same question as "will a nuke ever be dropped in wartime ever again?" because they might try some shit in Iran or the DPRK or whatever, but nuclear armageddon is off the table, unless the US does something exceedingly stupid in Russia or China. I would hope cooler heads would prevail in that situation, but y'know, there were several close calls throughout the Cold War, so you're really gambling with the probabilities here.
I think there’s at least two scenarios here: America goes somewhat gently into that good night; or America rages against the dying of the light in a desperate attempt to hold on.
Truly the Dark Souls of... wait...
I guess a third scenario is that America manages to keep its empire going and climate change ends up being even worse than pessimistic estimates, leading to an inhospitable wasteland where there are only the remains of structures, half-eroded and coated into microplastics being slowly eaten by bacteria. And like, there's a dude with a really cool sword who can summon lightning and shit.
I’m gonna assume that WW3 means that nukes will be used, because I feel like, in a conventional war that’s “agreed upon” beforehand, if any nuclear country was close to defeat it’s gonna make the calculation, and at least one of them would go “yep, fuck it, fire the nukes, we’ve gotta do something or we’re all gonna be killed in our war rooms” and that would start the chain reaction.
I think this precludes a Russia-style decline, in which the US just kinda eats itself in a Civil War. Not enough coordination or capacity to launch a nuclear strike because all the various military factions are just in a scramble for power.
Even Russia is a shadow of its former self. Under the USSR the Soviets often matched or outpaced American industrial output for specific industries on a yearly basis.
Russia minus the other Soviet Republics now has the industrial capacity of Italy, and is pretty much a petrostate that sells oil and imports tech/industrial. Unless someone starts supplying Russia with mechanical/electronic replacement parts it is limited to border skirmishes of its own frontier.
Only the US kept its defense production at WWII levels for 80+ years. Most other countries it would have been political suicide to spend so much on the military while neglecting domestic needs for so long.
Russia might take a few miles of the borderlands it shares with Ukraine; however, anything more would take years, maybe decades. Ukraine's population is 1/3rd the size of Russia and there is rail, air, and roads to bring in material from NATO/EU sympathizers.
Taiwan is ~20 million people with no land borders and only five major sea ports, it is only independent because China doesn't want to deal with the economic or political fallout.
I have two alternative takes.
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WW3 has been going on since the start of the cold war and to this day, it's the just means that have changed. There are local wars, coups, etc, but more or less controlled. The biggest battle is for the people's minds (which helps with the coups, local conflicts, etc) and that's only heating up now. You couldn't have such a battle for brains without the internet before.
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What made the previous two WW's possible, why involve the entire word? Because they were imperialist wars where countries were either empires themselves or they were colonies of those empires. So everyone got involved. Those were distinctly capitalist imperialist wars. There are still many colonies under different names and euphemisms now (NATO is a way for the US to have colonies in Europe, for example, or Japan), but still there are fewer who are willing to play that game. And the more independent states there are, the less is the chance to have another worldwide conflict. I feel the world is moving in that, multi-polar, direction, where WW3 is hopefully postponed forever. But we're living in very fucking interesting times, so who knows.
I'm on the side that WW3 is currently happening, it's just different than previous international conflicts. It's still a hot war, involving intense violent conflicts over resources through proxies, mercenaries, organized crime, and coups. The two primary sides in the conflict are: loosely sympathetic anti-imperialist elements and nations, and more tightly organized Anglo-American imperialist nations and capitalists. The anti-imperialist side is incredibly loose, since it's more diversely and comprised of working classes, national bourgeoisie (Russia), theocracies, and semi-feudal societies. The imperialists are much more easily and tightly defined, since they decide what the formal rules are for international conflict.
My pessimistic outlook is that we could be living in the complete collapse of all civilization. Surviving future historians 1000 years from now might have a framework where World War 1 to the upcoming collapse are seen as a single running event instigated by the boundaries of empire hitting their limit.
Optimistic outlook says that the anglo-American imperial dominance is on the way out and we're living in the dying embers just before a wave of positive changes.
Optimistic outlook says that the anglo-American imperial dominance is on the way out and we’re living in the dying embers just before a wave of positive changes.
oh god, I wish
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As time goes on - I think a possible an end of the civilization scenario might go like this...
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Two countries that share a border go to war.
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If they are poor countries - the world won't even pay attention to this localized war.
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One side decides to use bioweapons to win easily. The weapons are sneaky to allow the side using them to have deniability. It's a highly transmittable respiratory illness. It seems to be a bad cold at first and after 3 week it progresses rapidly likely causing death.
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Through some combination of greed, hubris, stupidity, etc - the bioweapon goes beyond the enemy country into neighboring countries.
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Due to yet more hubris, stupidity, plus propaganda, etc - infected people in neighboring countries at fist don't realize they are infected.
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Due to globalization - say, a dozen people travel on planes. They go to Cairo, Tokyo, Peking, New York or wherever. And it quickly becomes a pandemic.
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As time goes on variants develop - killing people in countries all over the world.
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Because it's a bioweapon - scientists, medical researchers and the link can't figure out how to combat it.
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Over decades it keeps killing gigantic numbers of people.
I'm just a layman in terms of everything in this scenario. Maybe a couple (or a few) list items aren't plausible. Or aren't plausible now.
In any case - I think the unfortunate term for this century will be "weaponization".
From what I understand, again just someone who works in a bio medical lab the bio weapons that exist are extremely lethal but typically because they are so lethal they don't spread easily, there are some contradict to that I admit that, see damn you got me thinking like plague inc now 🤔 which deadly virus or even better maybe Cdj but modified. I mean the real under lying issue is how far clandestine labs the us has can use methods like crisper to really understand a organisms DNA to get to to do particular things which is basicly where we are kinda trying to understand poly genetic traits better. An analogy would be that we can now play every key on a piano 🎹 but we don't know how to make music. So hell this isn't that far off.
thinking like plague
Another possibility is a bioweapon that's sickening nature on steroids: multiple sicknesses in one. Like a mashup of a respiratory illness plus you disease where you die a gruesome death a à la Marburg.
What is Marburg? This Virus Causes Victims to Bleed From Every Orifice and Die
Another possibility is - I'll call it - blackmail war. Country A and Country B are two weeks into a "normal" war when troops and citizens of Country B start coming down with a respiratory illness. Country A then says (privately or perhaps publically) to Country B - we've secretly infected your troops and the citizens of your five largest cities with covid-marburg.
Surrender now and we'll give you the antidote. Otherwise most of your your troops will die, a few million of your citizens will bleed out from every orifice and die in the next ~7 days, and we'll win anyway. You have 10 hours to comply.
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Never is a long time.
The longer humanity survives the closer to certain us having another World War comes.
So a reformulation of the question is, will humanity be driven extinct before we start another world war?
For that to happen I think humanity would either need to be unified or otherwise move beyond war without first having another world war and then go extinct before that unity crumbled or there would need to be a natural event which either kills everyone instantly or at least destroys our ability to have a global scale war over the last food/water/fuel/sunlight before subsequently driving us extinct.
I don't think there's a significant probability of either of those happening before another world war.
Probably not, but all it takes is a series of unfortunate human and mechanical errors to trip it. As mentioned earlier, all war has a minimum required infrastructure cost too, if it can't be upheld then war beyond a point is unsustainable, not to mention unprofitable for those making money off death.
WW3 will be different than other wars, like a draft for example, no need when you have drones, cyberwarfare and all sorts of different bombs, but you will need 'a draft' for any sort of rebuilding project afterward for whatever's left, assuming it doesn't go drop-all nuclear right away.
I assume it'll be faster than wars historically are for the most part since JIT and long drawn out wars don't mix, especially when you go to war with the few industrial nations as an de-industrialized one. War is material, even thinking bad thoughts on the internet about the other side requires energy. However, I can see an attempt to bypass this by using rebuilding and ceasefires as a cover to get infrastructure in place (reindustralize to some degree possibly in the imperial core) to continue the war. Something like that could continue on if the US balkanized for whatever reason.
Not a conventional one anyway, if war broke out between superpowers nukes would probably end it in hours. If one country is committed to war enough that they would be perfectly happy to slaughter the millions of opposing soldiers, bomb their cities and factories and leave their country devastated then why not deploy nukes and hope to intercept whatever nukes the enemy sends? Any world war would necessitate mass murder, and there would basically be no reason not to use nukes
There will be a global conflict, but it won't be considered a world war because it won't be contested by nations. Instead, WWIII will be fought between corporations.
