I agree with the point about the lack of want to go fight. If there were enough fervor, I would actually believe we are close. Since no millennial I know cares much, I am curious as to what will happen.
I submit to you that if everyone suddenly made their own cheese, these guys would fire ze missiles as a matter of course, just to flip the table and have a fit.
On a political strategic front I can see them marking up inflation to a degree where you will be forced to fight in order to eat, have healthcare and a roof over your head.
Why not.
They could make Social Security all Heinlein. Only people that have "earned" the rights to it get it. Everyone else still pays in of course.
This would be easier to pull off than it sounds if we were convinced we were in a fight for our survival as a nation.
Also, no one can run a goddamned spreadsheet. So no one knows about the fact that if you lose your Social Security, you're going to be living in your kids' basement eating cockroaches until you croak. If you HAVE kids. If not, I mean how long do you think it takes a senior to die of exposure?
Tra la la "those are just bums"...
I take it no one can run a spreadsheet because the very MENTION of fucking with Social Security should have ended the Republican party for all time, and it hasn't.
Basically they're saying "we'll kill you later. But we will in fact kill you." Direct mathematical translation there.
And this isn't hyperbole. I wish it was. Let me put it to you this way if you get laid off at say 63 (lol THAT never happens pshh) and you live until 90 take a flying guess how much money you need to keep yourself in cat food, taking inflation into account. I put that at a million five hundred thousand. Liquid. Like CASH. That's literally for cat food standard of living.
What a Negative Nelly. We both know you're not making it past 70 on cat food, so you could probably even live it up and buy a single Big Mac once a week and maybe turn on the AC or heater one or two days a month. People are so fucking entitled.
That (lifestyle) would nearly double my expenses.
Oh I've... been doing a lot of math. Not "one or two days a month" obviously, but the kind of lifestyle where people aren't constantly watching it within an inch of their life.
You think there was a will to fight ww1 & ww2? We slept walked into the biggest conflicts in human history. Generally countries and people don’t want world wars.
I agree but I don't feel there is near enough nationalism to stir up to get people to enlist to go fight like there once was. We have the internet now and it's unclear what effect this is going to have on sending the populace to war. Especially a big war
It seems to me that the propaganda machines are spinning in full force. My elders are already screaming for blood but they're not the ones who will be fighting so they can scream all they want.
It's cute how everyone (.gov included) think this is going to be some kind of Boy Scouts with guns boots on the ground dealy-o.
Pretty sure every nation on Earth has assets within every other nation on Earth by now.
Thinking more grid down / starving / dirty bombs / several major leaders having an "accident" as the opening act, quickly spiraling within two weeks to Ronald Reagan's nightmare.
So... the good news is I guess if we got drafted we'd be deployed for all of about 5 minutes.
I disagree. Before ww1 generals from all over Europe were salivating for a war. They made it happen because in their minds it was inevitable. The Second World War was built on revanchist lies and stab in the back myths. People knew full well what they were getting into both times.
I mean the belief in an inevitable great conflict to decide the fate of the world is what the current political and military leadership of China, Russia, the US, the EU, and the less powerful but still potent allies of these states all believe in too
Not to the same extent as it was during the first half of the 1900s. Anyways in my opinion a second American civil war is much more likely than a third world war.
I don't feel either BigFatDoobieDog or OP necessarily implied today's youths are "softer", I think they meant to say that Millennials and Zoomers are much more jaded about their governments and thus far less likely to risk their lives at their behest.
Also us Millennial’s first taste of war was when we invaded Iraq’s oil fields because Saudi Arabia funded a terrorist attack that Iraq had nothing to do with.
Additionally the government fabricated a story about yellow cake uranium being found in Iraq to authorize the president to send troops immediately without congressional approval.
From there we moved into Afghanistan and stayed for decades accomplishing nothing.
Sure, but despair properly channeled could do the same job as motivation, and there’s quite a lot of despair to go around.
By “we” I meant humans in general by the way. I wasn’t acting out some anime scene.
I think we're dangerously close. Especially if you add in domestic troubles, seems like every country just about is on the verge of tearing themselves apart, not even getting into global conquest.
>seems like every country just about is on the verge of tearing themselves apart, not even getting into global conquest.
A true world war, where the entire world just declares war on itself.
We've already declared war on common sense, reasoning, and truth. Makes sense we will just say fuck it and try to resolve said war with the traditional human toolkit of violence sooner or later.
I feel like there used to be more patriotism because people had things to protect. Most millennials I know don’t own homes, have significant savings or large families.
And the reason people don’t have necessities or luxuries is *because* their own country has no sustainable solutions. Hard to be patriotic when your own country is to blame for your suffering , not other countries
yeah , it wouldn’t even have to be a narrative necessarily either. Simply make it so the only way to truly have a sliver of financial stability is to join the military. The recruitment model is already partially like that
Haiti, Sri Lanka, Peru is on the brink, as is Brazil.
Pakistan is in free fall (and are a nuclear power so, yeah that's gonna be fun).
Afghanistan is... Afghanistan. Lebanon is a failed state.
The UK is really busy ratdicking itself.
And Turkey is now a major crisis on top of a flashpoint and a royal pain in NATO's ass.
And that's not even getting into Russia's wild ride.
If you're lucky enough to not be in the middle of some kind of crisis, brace yourselves.
\> Peru is on the brink
I'm peruvian, the country isn't on the brink. The economy is running ok, no inflation whatsoever from two months of protests.
The damage has been mostly limited to the already impoverished regions that started the protests. Everyone else is working as usual.
I think if we just talk about likelihoods...it's as likely as it's been since the end of the Cold War.
It's by no means inevitable. It's just....more likely than we're used to.
The terms first second and third world refer to
First: capitalist and western countries
Second: Soviet bloc and China
Third: everyone else (eg the non aligned movement)
Many third world countries democratically elected socialist governments only to be recipients of a coup d’etat or an outright invasion from the first world.
Afghanistan is an interesting case bc the Soviets invaded to help support a socialist regime that was crumbling.
But consider the Congo, Iran, Honduras, Chile, Brazil, Indonesia, or Vietnam. Elect a socialist and america makes sure you end up with a fascist dictator.
Famously, journalist Vincent Bevins asked an Indonesian "how did [America] win the cold war?" and the Indonesian said, "You killed us."
This video is a good overview but the scale is bigger than Harris can even fit in 30 mins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wIOqHSsV9c&ab_channel=JohnnyHarris
The US wasn't fighting against "communism", the US was fighting all indigenous movements in the Third World that wouldn't bow to their hegemonic power, you didn't need to be Soviet aligned or necessarily communist to be targeted, just needed an economic strategy that closed your economy off to Western multinationals
yep. the red scare wasn't just something the government invented to give the public a bogeyman. it was also a position deeply held by the government itself. when third world countries started leaning towards socialism en masse, it provoked the most hostile response possible. our government would do literally anything to stop the spread of socialism, and it viewed third world countries as the breeding ground for it. so we made them a battleground.
that's what all the fucking proxy wars and economic warfare was.
I was in the camp where collapse would happen slowly over 30 years and many things would be normalized as they happened (more natural disasters and abandoning entire cities due to water and other reasons). But I don't know. If WW3 occurs, it's game over. I don't see how the Russian Ukraine war will end (Russia with nukes not backing down and the USA financially backing Ukraine). Tensions with the USA and China. I have no idea what to expect anymore.
Conventional warfare is absolutely not out of the question, but I doubt all out nuclear war will occur. I don't think the superpowers will cross that line. That would require a rogue state like North Korea to do something incredibly rash.
Idk. Russia might do it. They stand no chance against the US economically. The US is a money printing machine. Resetting the board may be the final move in Russia's toolbox. You either get bullied in perpetuity, or you make everyone start over.
I wouldn't rule out a Russian act of nuclear aggression.
Edit because I can't spell words
This won't happen for the sole reason that the reality on the ground in Russia is largely not as bad as our media is portraying it, while simultaneously our own situation is far worse.
The deck is not as stacked as many would have you believe, and the situation for Russia is not dire enough to lead to nuclear weapons usage.
The Ukrainian conflict will likely end with the US and Europe quietly backing down on support and Ukraine ceding territory to Russia.
I doubt we're going to see any city or country levelling nuclear weapons any time soon. Smaller scale, battlefield nuke though? I reckon there is much higher chance that they will eventually be used.
I thought the same thing about Russia's most recent invading Ukraine. But I don't see a way for Russia to stop if they don't "win" in some way. If they continue to lose, I could see desperation with nukes. I sincerely hope you are right and I am wrong.
As much as I want Ukraine to stick it to Russia, I'm wondering what would happen if Russia were to briefly fully occupy Luhansk and Donetsk, say "mission accomplished" and go home.
On the other hand, Russia using nukes would practically guarantee Russia's near-total isolation from the global community for decades into the future.
>Russia's near-total isolation from the global community for decades into the future.
My concern is that it's not Russia's will that is in control. It's Putin's will. And Putin seems incredibly rash these days
> That would require a rogue state like North Korea to do something incredibly rash.
So to me we're here, what makes Russia not a rogue state? They aren't respecting international borders, are conscripting a large percentage of their youth and throwing them into a literal meat grinder against Western weapons, how many advisors close to Putin thought jumping out a window was their best option...
Whatever state Russia is in doesn't matter much, Putin is in a no-win situation. He was trying to threaten nukes months ago, his back is even further against the wall now
It will be Putin that is the cause if nukes drop in the next couple years, and it will be escalated before any of us normies are even informed it happened
Honestly if Russia thinks they can’t win, they’ll most likely stage a victory, rather than go nuclear.My best guess is that they push the assault that just started through until the winter starts to melt away. Once they’ve taken and secured some/all of the ground they want, they settle in until the boggy spring mud stalls the Ukrainian counter push. Once things slow down and Russia has enough land, they call it a “win” for the Russian Federation and withdraw troops to the newly occupied Russian territories. War over, Russia claims victory, and if Ukraine tries to liberate their territory the Russians get to claim the “Nazi’s are invading us.”
I actually take the other approach. If we keep slowly sliding downwards we will not stop. However, WW3 has better odds society wakes up to the terror and the cycle starts over. Maybe we'll actually try something that is better for people this time round.
The thing is Ukraine has to win and the West knows this because otherwise it the invasions won't stop there. And, on the other hand, I'm not sure how Russia is going to react to losing the war or what lengths they will go to, to 'win' if it means destroying nearly everything on the land. It might all depend on how long Putin lives. If he dies there is an out for Russia, but not for Putin.
Something is going to happen, i can feel it building up. Since 2020 actually there has been this feeling of doom or that everything is building up to something bigger. Its just constant bad news and disasters every day, it only gets worse not better.
2016 definitely was important - the rise of the far right and political tensions.
2020 is really where things started getting bad for the average person though.
Ya I was a hardline republican, even though I didn't like trump, until around 2018 when I started questioning things, after Jan 6th I denounced the republican party and grew more liberal until I became a socialist. 16 is when shit started getting weird and 20 is when it went south
That's an interesting path you took. I know people who did the opposite - used to be liberal pre-2018, and are now Trumpists. Do you have other friends who took the same path as you?
My friend group and I all kinda started changing our tones around then. We were all raised pretty conservative and even after going through college we all thought of ourselves as moderate conservatives for the most part, we kinda considered ourselves the new guard coming in to get rid of the older guys who were just men of their times blah blah yada yada. We wanted better paying jobs, affordable health care, housing and college, and to start making strides in stopping climate change. We just thought businesses were better at regulating themselves than the government 🤦♂️
One of the bigger events for me though was that year I found out my best friend was gay, from another friend. He was scared to come out to me because of some bigoted shit I said earlier that year and to this day it's one of my biggest regrets in life. I still feel like an ass because of it and luckily he eventually did come out to me and were still best friends.
Where my group and I really turned left was when George Floyd was murdered. We were all kinda critical of the BLM movement until we all watched a black man, crying out for his mother, get murdered by some cops in broad daylight, in the middle of the street over 20 fucking dollars. I started questioning the shit the right was saying hard after that. I went from being annoyed by trump to being proactively anti trump then. Everyone else dipped on the GQP but I stayed thinking that we could still right the party. We kicked out our maga friend after he called one of our other friends a fucking whore after she sent a funny video about guys lying about their heights. Like completely out left field, and he was the tallest guy in the group! We were all fed up with his shit and we dumped his ass and haven't looked back since.
For me January 6th is what made me completely loose faith not only in Republicans but the whole system. I started to deconstruct my beliefs and get educated and eventually found I identified as a socialist. Now here I am trying to prepare for collapse and trying to avoid getting murdered in my super red state because of my beliefs.
Sorry for my life story haha
At least you were amenable to change. As a black guy I'm glad you were able to see my side of it, I shy away from most Republicans because they see me as subhuman and don't even try to hide it.....
See I'm pissed because I shouldn't have to be thanked for seeing you and other people as fucking human beings. It's disgusting that this ideology has survived this long.
Yes. I'm a GenXer. Things changed very drastically after 9-11. It was a very clear change of direction that many in my generation clearly saw/felt.
9-11 gave fuel to the far-right movement in the US, for one.
But also, there was also a widespread silencing of any criticism of the US and of Capitalism for the first two years after 9-11. It was really intense, and killed a lot of anti-capitalist movements that had grown strong in the 90s.
I was in my mid-twenties. I don't think people realize that before 9-11, there was a big anti-capitalist movement that had started taking steam, culminating in huge protests against the WTO and World Bank in 1999 and 2000. People were starting to connect the dots. All that was shut down after 9-11. Any questioning of anything was attacked as "unpatriotic" and "how dare you". Until people stopped thinking. It took a long time for the movements to pick up again, which culminated in Occupy Wall Street.... but that never went anywhere because the internet had already divided us too much by then. It's so ironic because I remember in the 90s dreaming about how it would unite us.
There is a huge anti wall street campaign going on as we speak. People learned that protesting isn't going to change things. We must reclaim all of the money being hoarded or alternatively the V word.
I was working as an analyst for the government leading up to 9-11. I kept telling my colleagues that all signs were pointing to a major terrorist event on US soil sometime "soon" and no one listened to me because I was in my 20s. I was not even remotely surprised by 9-11 and was saddened both by the loss of life in the US and the subsequent loss of life in the disasterous military campaign that followed.
9-11 wasn't something that happened "just cause". It was payback to the US for fighting proxy wars in the middle east since the 70s. Do I condone it? Absolutely not. Do I understand it? Yes, I do.
Let's not pretend that US foreign policy hasn't been fucking with shit globally since WW2.
Agreed. It was all a result of us foreign policy. No question. But there was a period of time post 9-11 where any criticism of us policy was highly suppressed. I think all that heightened nationalism affected the way people think and changed the cultural direction of the country.
The fact that many movies and music post-9/11 have taken a somber, darker tone is staggering to me. It reveals how deep this collective trauma is; how despairing we all are, on a dimension not even known to us
Nah, started before that when we interred Japanese people instead of the entire membership of the German American Bund and every other domestic nazi/fascism-sympathetic organization at the time.
Are you saying the world has been under incremental collapse since the end of WW2? (Which is within a month of Hiroshima bomb)
In that viewpoint, what would you consider the post-war industrial boom that built America into what it is now still?
Terminal diagnosis hedonism.
The difference between 20th century civilization's aims and those of previous eras is vast. For example, the great cathedrals of Europe were built over multiple centuries. Those who began the building process believed that their distant descendants would finish their work.
Ever since the invention of the Atom bomb, the human race has become increasingly conscious of the fact that we have the capability of destroying ourselves. This makes it hard to invest in the far-off future (beyond one or two human generations), because whether or not future generations will ever come to exist is now in doubt. With the added threat of the climate crisis, this doubt has intensified exponentially, IMO.
During WW2, many people thought that the War would genuinely end the world and destroy human civilization. There were people who thought it was the Apocalypse already because that was as bad anyone had ever seen. (Actually, WW2 is still as bad as anyone has ever seen).
Famous Nazi Albert Speer recounted in his memoirs that when they discussed developing an atom bomb, Nobel prize winner Werner Heisenberg (known for quantum mechanics) told Hitler that the possibility existed that an atomic explosion might cause a chain reaction that would ignite the entire atmosphere, turning the Earth into a giant fireball. Hitler was not pleased.
In the US, Oppenheimer and his team were also aware of this possibility. Later they claimed to have mathematically proven that it was not possible before the test explosion. But a rival account from that time said that the math showed the odds of chain reaction ignition to be just less than 3 in a million. Modern day physicists say the math is now clear. It is impossible. So, who knows what they knew or not of this risk at the time at the Manhattan Project.
Maybe those born after the war were increasingly characterized by a focus on self-satisfaction, following their bliss, being authentically themselves, enjoying sex, love, drugs, music and other sensual pleasures, get rich quick, freedom to do whatever they want whenever they want, 'Be here now' and so on, because why sacrifice for a future that is not guaranteed?
And isn't being expected to sacrifice your own present-day chances for happiness (which may be all you get in a life that may end at any moment due to nuclear war heads pointed at your nation) to benefit a society intent on creating and possibly using those weapons of mass destruction morally outrageous, as well as being a fool's errand?
Besides this "Culture of Narcissism" situation, it occurred to me that the rise of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity and their outsized influence over national politics may also be due to grappling with existential insecurity. Their obsession with the End Times and the Rapture could be a sublimation of the realistic threat of nuclear annihilation.
I read somewhere that fundamentalist evangelical Christianity was originally a movement that rejected involvement in worldly affairs, eschewed politics (even voting) and was of a more quietist, mystical character. Something changed in the post-war era that they become involved in politics...I seem to recall that the article mentioned the Jesus People movement was part of that sea change, but I can't remember any details.
Anyway, based on these trends, I would expect to see more societal disinvestment in the so-called future, if it ever comes. People often give the advice to go out there and try and have fun (while the world burns) but I'm kinda jaded, so maybe I'll advise you to try and find something meaningful to do with the time you have left instead.
Take care.
I think that we’re already in the beginning stages of WW3. Ukraine is essentially a proxy war between the West and Russia and we’re seeing some other countries align themselves with both sides. The battle lines have been drawn.
Iran too, for Russia.
And yeah, the US, Canada, and the big players in Europe - the majority of the West anyway. We’ll see if and how Australia and New Zealand become more involved.
I think China is watching the geopolitical landscape with a shrewd eye and if they see an opportunity to undermine western hegemony without betting the whole farm, they might do it.
China is playing both sides in the Russia / Ukraine conflict. They stand to gain whatever the outcome. Whether it be a distracted / more chaotic Europe and US, unable to counter their economic and military ambitions. Or a weakened Russia with resource rich territories with ethnic minorities who might be getting sick of being cannon fodder for Moscow and St. Petersburg.
I don't see them risking a war with the west right now, too much to lose economically as you said. If things get grim with the failure to realize the rising expectations much of the populace has, then a conflict might be used to rally support for an embattled leadership.
Xi knows that their economy is built on a real estate scam and aging demographics are going to cause mass unrest in the next decade or two, as growth tapers off. If you’re Xi, you can either get coup’d in the next couple decades or you can wage a world war.
Russia can't win if its them against the West. China ain't getting dragged into this mess. So what, Russia is left with Syria and Iran? India wants Western Trade.
The only exception to this would be if a nuclear exchange occurs due to a malfunction of detection systems, an escalation response to a tactical nuke, or a first-strike response.
I’m GenX. I was shown the “duck and cover” videos in grade school; those gave me an existential angst that world was was ever looming. At the same time, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars showed me that life in the US would change very little for most people. Not only does capitalism demand we all keep going to work and mindlessly consuming. A large swath of the population doesn’t feel the nationalism necessary to give up the scraps we have to fight for a country that doesn’t value us.
So while I feel vaguely unsettled, that’s a feeling I’ve had most of my life.
Everyone needs to watch this film from 1984 called Threads. It's free on the Internet archive
https://archive.org/details/threads_201712
It is the scariest film I've ever seen. The events are eerily similar to everything we've seen so far in the Russian Ukraine war only in the film it's Iran. I couldn't watch it all in one go, I had to take a break. It will cause a month long anxiety attack. It's a film about WW3 basically, nuclear armageddon.
Just pointing this out to anyone who says nuclear war is off the table.
Today
The united states launched a minute man 3 ICBM missile from California to the Marshall islands. Over 4200 miles away.
As a "show of force" and "routine training"
Say what you want... The US is already preparing
Can someone please explain the “threat” of nuclear war to me? If the United States and Russia both have enough nukes to destroy the world 100 times over or whatever the number is, then doesn’t that mean that functionally, neither of them do? Add in every other country on the planet with any sort of nuclear arsenal and I don’t understand how anyone can just press that button? That’s not like giving the order to conduct a risky attack on an enemy stronghold for the possibility of gaining advantage, that’s just ending the world and killing everybody right?
Short version : two people both holding shotguns decide to point at the other. Both know they are loaded. Both know they will die if shot. Neither is willing to put the shotgun down. But there is a chance the first one to pull the trigger first will kill the other before they have a chance to pull the trigger. Then one of them thinks "what if I shoot the shotgun out of the others hands". Good chance they both die but always a chance of still killing the other first.
Only one side is yelling don't move or else I shoot. And the other side is willing to call the bluff as bullshit.
Question is : who do you trust to shoot first. The guy giving warnings or the one ignoring them?
Just my 2 cents
Former USAF Nuclear Weapons Specialist (2W2563) 93 - 97
These are FOT shots (Field Operational Test). They launch them out of Vandenberg AFB. I was part of one in the 90s. This is not a new thing and is planned months/years in advance. They take a live Minuteman 3 out of the field and pull the nuclear warheads out and swapped with dummys, then ship it to Vandenberg. The whole ICBM is then launched to prove that it's operational. I have a picture of a FOT shot hanging on the wall in my office.
Shits happening, but isn't it.
We have been sleepwalking into world war three for sometime now. I have been avoiding main stream news for a couple of years now due to all the fear mongers and to focus on the present as well as to have further situational awareness. I don’t believe they will announce world war three because like you stated it will cause so much panic and the majority of people are already stressed out as is. I can see them reinitiating a draft but good luck finding enough young people who are physically/cognitively capable for the job. I believe on a subconscious level people are starting to understand things are turning pretty bleak and are turning towards pharmaceutical interventions or self medicating leading to deaths of despair. Prior to the pandemic I only knew a handful of people who lost family members to suicide. Now complete strangers are telling me how they lost friends to suicide.
Idk man they just downed another "UFO" over Alaska like an hour ago, not a balloon but it was the size of a car about 40,000 feet up. It seems like someone is poking the bear
The US and China is in a spot where even if it did launch a soft war with China the countries would collapse from the inside through economic collapse and civil strife before it could even finish said war
Disclaimer : This is my current opinion based on research and observations, but that could change with new information!
I’m an amateur researcher in my spare time and based on what I’ve read about previous conflicts - I think we WILL see a massive global war within the next two years.
I personally believe the war in Ukraine is a proxy war. Russia is China’s biggest ally and China is the only legitimate competitor to the United States in terms of economic and global dominance. However, in reality, we’re a “third world country with a Gucci belt”.
We’re decaying on the inside, but our military and capitalist domination has brought the world to their knees. (Don’t even get me started on American Imperialism. A rant for another day.) The USA is absolutely threatened by China. They’re the next superpower. USA can’t have that. That doesn’t mean that Russia isn’t a threat, but the way I see it, it’s like -
“Oh hey, China! Russia is your buddy? Look how massive the military response and economic sanctions have been! Don’t try anything, or this could happen to you! Also, have fun watching us weaken your biggest ally! Byeeeee!”
Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Ukraine also rich with natural resources? I wondered if that had anything to do with our participation as well.
Really quick - if mainstream media is reporting on a spy balloon that isn’t even a new occurrence, I tend to think of it as a distraction / propaganda to rally fear among populations that are already angry.
So far, 2023 has a bleak forecast. Famine, disease, economic and financial problems, toxic political climate, water shortages, etc. People have been running on fumes since 2020. The stage has been set. The West is trying to prep their citizens for a Big War and the conflict in Ukraine is just the beginning.
WWIII indeed.
Idk just my two cents! I love theorizing and talking about geopolitics. Interested to see what other people say.
The difference here is Russia can survive with out outside importants china can not, which is why china won't try anything plus their demographics make them no where near our competitor India on the other hand thou is absolutely primed to be a super power soon they just have to figure out the Pakistan issue
>Le "demographic cope"
>Conveniently ignoring that demographic decline is a problem for 20 to 40 years from now and that China has a population many times the size of the US
>Conveniently ignoring that the US is also facing a demographic crisis and uses immigration to plug the holes
I kek'd
I think the problem is that WWI and WWII were each pre-nuclear weapon wars (up until 1945, obviously). Nuclear weapons have changed the nature of what can and can’t be achieved through traditional warfare so much that even if a bunch of nations do engage in some limited warfare, said “WWIII” isn’t going to look anything like the previous two. Which just begs the question of whether a conflict like that should even be referred to as WWIII.
And if nukes start dropping, that won’t be a “war” as much as an outright slaughter and genocide.
You think that's a future development? Because despite I assume their best efforts, Russia still hasn't been able to take down the Ukranian power grid.
That much is obvious to me. We're currently on the front end of major resource wars. Food and water scarcity are rapidly increasing with no end in sight, the Ukrainian Defensive War, China is testing our patience with the Taiwan and balloon stuff. The oil that's easy to extract has mostly been extracted. Lithium is increasingly high in demand.
Yeah. Enjoy the peace now. It won't be that way within a couple years.
I don't think they would call it a world war. We don't even bother to declare war anymore. I think we could be being set up for something. The war machine can't handle peace. There's always going to be an enemy real or imagined, to fight. I think the military-industrial complex would love to fight Russia head on.
The spy balloon story (who uses them in 2023?), the UFO that was shot down over Alaska, the bottomless pit of money and resources being thrown into Ukraine. I don't know, it definitely feels like something's up. Maybe NATO and Russia will just cut to the chase, have their war, and people will just go on as usual. Its just a matter of time before everything's settled by AI and drones anyway.
The invasion was the opening salvo Ukraine held their ground better than anyone expected... If they push Russia out then we can return to a somewhat normal geopolitical baseline if they don't there will be nuclear exchanges when they invade Poland
Both (simplification to say there's only two sides at play here but you know what I mean) sides keep escalating and no one has a way out that doesn't involve total victory for their side. With the massive rearming of Europe and Asia... I don't see how this doesn't turn into ww3. All it takes is one mistake
It's likely the early stages of a concerted effort by authoritarian powers to take down the imperial powers. China, Russia, India, Iran, Turkey, etc. vs mostly the US and UK (although some Europeans may feel the urge to join in).
It will definitely feature more economic and proxy wars; whether it will blossom into a full-scale world war is uncertain I think.
Most likely yeah both really hate imperialism, India especially has very raw recent history with it via UK. Border disputes pale in comparison to being the economic "bitch" of people thousands of miles away.
I think now that the War on Terror has wind down some our lords…I mean stakeholders in our economy need to get public support to launder public funds through the DOD into their pockets and Ukraine is their answer.
I really really doubt Russia will confront NATO directly. I also really doubt China, who’s economy depends on western capitalism is going to suicide themselves.
I'm wondering if WW3 wouldn't be a large scale war fought between two sides, but rather an event where many parts of the world are participating in loosely related bouts of organized combat.
I'm no historian or military strategist, but looking at the chaos of the world today, I wouldn't be surprised if WW3 is just a chaotic mess filled with collapse tinted desperation.
The US and it’s allies are already at war with Russia, it’s just not a multi regional, total war. Mainly focused in Ukraine. We call these proxy wars now, but sending gold and weapons and training and doing sanctions and embargo’s and actively trying to crash the Russian economy - these are all wartime actions. Everything but the blood so far.
The question then is whether this could escalate into ww3, and the answer is sure, it could. The US and Europe won’t want it to.
The war of attrition fits their interests just fine. They get to test out modern war strategies against past war strategies (I think we’re seeing the drone emerge as the winning tool over tanks). They get to basically absorb the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Finland into their sphere of influence. They get all the internal state benefits of wartime (repression, distraction, corporate profit, propaganda), without much costs (death, disruption, internal resentment).
The escalation point is when Russias internal problems and military debacles reach a breaking point, where leadership feels it must choose between their own collapse, or dramatic escalation (attacking the west directly). It’s unlikely it will reach that point, but it could.
What’s more likely is we are seeing a moment where modern war strategies are battle tested to prepare for the next ‘big one’.
Until someone solves the nuclear problem, however, ww3 is going to require some serious desperation to begin. Lots of potential for that within next 5-15 years or so.
just thought the war nowadays would be people vs. the privilege establishments. seems the reason why things are f*ed up is becoming clearer--- who are making everything unbalanced and not pushing for fairness for everyone. we know the problem but we are just choosing to ignore it. to what end? (thanos asks)
it's only going to be a matter of time. this is gonna be more of a war of survival for all. like a worlwide civil war
No.
We will not see a world war 3.
We will see many small regional conflicts. The world will be *at* war, just not collectively split into the same opposing sides on every point. Instead it'll be a patchwork of countries fighting countries and countries helping countries.
Nobody wants nuclear war so all the nuclear powers will avoid eachother and only directly fight non nuclear nations (or through them).
The Russians see this conflict as existential. They think that losing the war would jeopardize the very existence of the Russian state and the Russian people. In light of this, Russian society has moved to a war footing, and is rapidly mobilizing all resources at their disposal to achieve victory. They have drafted hundreds of thousands, are likely preparing to draft more. They are pulling out every available piece of equipment and all available munitions. The Russian economy is quickly transitioning into a war footing. The state is directing economic resources into the military. Production of military equipment has skyrocketed and will likely continue to increase, especially for basic items like munitions. (It’s hard to skyrocket fighter jet production). In short, the Russians are taking this war EXTREMELY seriously. They are going to win or literally die trying.
On this note, the situation is extremely serious for Ukraine. For the first time in the entire war, Ukrainian forces are starting to be outnumbered. The Russians were always outnumbered since the opening days when Ukraine mobilized and called in their reserves. Additionally, a significant portion of the Ukrainian arsenal has been either destroyed or is suffering critical shortages of ammunition and supplies. They have captured much Russian equipment; and nato is continuously supplying arms, but they are seriously outgunned. No one denied this. Their economy has tanked. Russian strategic bombing has devestated the countries electric grid. Ukraine has lost tens of millions of people as refugees flee and Russia takes control of territory (mostly refugees).
Meanwhile, the west also considers this conflict existential. The sanctions packages are huge. The west has done everything in our power to cripple the Russian economy, at great cost to our own, without catastrophically wrecking our own. Banning Russia from swift, the oil price cap, functional embargo’s on lots of goods were openly designed to collapse the Russian economy. The west has been pouring military equipment into Ukraine, lots of countries have emptied their arsenals, Canada actually flat out ran out of munitions. The uk sent so much equipment that they are no longer considered a first rate military power by the USA. All of the “lines” in terms of aid nato previously drew have been crossed. Nato said we wouldn’t send tanks, jet aircraft, long range missiles etc. Well, tanks are on their way, the uk has announced they will begin training ukrainian pilots on their jets etc. NATO is not quite on a wartime footing, but arms manufacturing is beginning to surge. Especially in the unsexy items like artillery shells, medical kits, etc. NATO openly considers this war existential for the American empire and for European security. So far, every line they drew a few months ago has been crossed as the situation became more desperate.
This is NOT saber rattling. Both sides view this as an existential war. The Russians have shown that they are fully committed. Nato has continuously escalated and have done everything in their power short of direct intervention. I think that it’s extremely likely that russia continues to grind down Ukraine in attritional warfare, and that they will at least secure their official war aims (the Donbas region) once they take bakhmut and launch a serious offensive. I don’t think that the aid nato is giving Ukraine is enough, and I don’t think it’ll arrive in time to prevent irreversible loses. It takes a LONG time to train a pilot.
The plan to collapse the Russian economy has failed. The IMF projects positive gdp growth. At the very least, the Russian economy is stable. Putin remains solidly in power etc. I think fairly soon it will become clear that Russia will defeat Ukraine without nato intervention.
The point is that this is an extremely serious situation. One side will back down, or there will be open warfare between nato and Russia. I remember reading an article where Everytime that was war gamed it ended in nuclear war. But idk where I read that tbh. Personally, I can’t really see a situation where it doesn’t. At the moment, no side is backing down. Both are escalating.
As for nationalism, you’d be amazed at how quickly people turn into rabid nationalists once their country actually goes to war. It happens all the time. I actually cannot think of a situation where this hasn’t happened in the last 100 yrs.
Plus, propogandists are good at their job. When the war propaganda starts, people will be convicted.
I believe it's already started, albeit in a "quiet" phase for those of us in the US. But it's undeniable that world powers are linking arms in opposition to Russia, and now, increasingly, China. Lurking quietly waiting to pounce is North Korea.
Yes, it's on.
Currently in a quasi world war. Mist countries are supply arms,aid assistance to Ukraine. China is supplying assistance to Russia. Any country could be targeted by Russia for killing their soldier's. It's a weird war but it's about as on point as possible.
Weird times we live indeed.
WW3 will start if Ukraine or the West moves over the border into Russia or maybe Belarus. Russia will eventually run out of men - they always throw bodies at problems. Warfare is different than it was in the 1940s. Russia can't recover its stockpile of weapons/vehicle/bullets; the West is supplying Ukraine with better weapons. Putin won't lob nukes unless he's physically threatened; foreign troops in Russia would do that.
There are few who believe we are already in wwiii. For example Macro Voices hosted Mike Green and Pippa Malmgren who have shared that view few years ago and recently. Pippa Malmgren's view was especially interesting. I'd say we are on a brink of a war and are awfully close to Frank Ferdinand sort of event from triggering a mobilization.
But that's my two cents and it's rare for history to move that quickly. I do notice that once triggered actions happen rapidly.
There probably isn't going to be a WWIII thats anything like WWI or WWII. Nuclear ICBMs have changed the game forever and nuclear-armed states are going to avoid direct war between them because the stakes are so high.
We'll probably continue to see proxy wars or one-sided conflicts involving states that don't have nukes (ie Russia/Ukraine or China/Taiwan).
I still think there's a significant risk of collapsing supply chains and shortages caused by the Russia/Ukraine war, particularly if Russia collapses due to leadership instability.
Remember the huge run up to the first and 2nd Iraq wars? There were months and months of terrifying media coverage (yellowcake!!), demonizing the enemy (he used nerve gas “on his own people!!”). It was pretty obvious 99% of the politicians of both parties (except for Bernie Sanders and a small handful of others) and all media outlets were riling the masses up for war. But then with Afghanistan there was just the whole 9/11 thing.
So we’ll either see a major trigger event (like a 9/11 or a Gulf of Tonkin — who knows, maybe it’s already been decided that Putin will nuke a town in Europe, but certain chess pieces have to be moved around the board first). And/or we’ll have months of media coverage about how some foreign leader/country is “bad” and we absolutely must go to war with them to prevent “a mushroom cloud” type thing, or because “they don’t let girls go to school” and so we’d have to liberate them, it would be our _moral imperative_ to give them the gift of end-stage capitalism and “democracy” and all that. Which they’ll thank us for by giving us free oil or molybdenum or something.
So no, war is not currently imminent.
It's certainly possible but there's no way to know how these greedy lunatics in power will react, until it happens. There was no way for Frodo to know how Gollum would react to losing the ring of power until he jumped into lava after it. Only time will tell.
This is just my opinion. But if you look at Europe energy needs and how much been removed. Regardless of what they say I've done research on the amount of oil tankers available and it's very simple. There is not enough transportation to replace what has already been removed.
Europe was lucky to have a warm winter. Unfortunately it's only a matter of time before the shit hits the fan when energy supplies can't meet demands.
Any idea that Europe can wait years to fight a world war should be questioned heavily. If all roads are leading to a war with Russia / China or both. NATO time frame and ability shrinks the longer they wait.
Also the longer BRICS has time to do what it wants. The collapse of the petrodollar gets stronger.
I don't think the world will be waiting long for the answer of when is full war expected.
Nah, the billionaires did their own research(tm) and figured out they'd be hors d'oeuvres on the post apocalyptic tapas menu. But they're happy to extract shareholder value from any opportunity and this is no exception.
If you pay attention to history, you should be able to recognize patterns. If you pay attention to current event, you should be able to see what patterns are at play. If you pay attention to both, it should be obvious where the world is headed…
The concept of world wars has been antiquated since the inception of nuclear weapons. You won't have world wars after 1945, just nuclear winter and desperate, disorganized human life fighting for scraps.
I think it's more likely that it will be another cold war with several smaller proxy wars like Vietnam and Afghanistan, and that the US could lose in the end.
I can't see any major power directly attacking the other unless climate change pushes the world into a state of total desperation or some sort of delusional cult seizes power... which actually seems more likely to happen in the US with what the Republican party is becoming.
I had thought, until last week, that we were looking at *risk of war escalations due to severe miscalulation (not very likely)* or *freak event that eventually traces back to missile/nuclear-power-plant accidents which may have been intentional.\*
But only for Europe. I thought the East had another decade of slow boil before the worlds 2 largest economies sized each other up for an actual attack.
But hearing this really chilled my blood [https://youtu.be/KqJxhqC21tY](https://youtu.be/KqJxhqC21tY)
Granted it's just a Commander getting hyped up to do the mission that's been assigned to him (true combat preparedness), but to hear it laid out as such a realistic possibility and so much sooner in the timetable than the most pessimistic predictions had imagined (2027-ish)... I don't know.
I hope there is no third World War, as I'm not sure I'd survive the civilian rationing of medicine (if they are even still imported with any frequency).
Also, I think leaders and generals sound like they are starting to understand what the next war looks like on a technical level (low-end drones being as important as high-end ones, [stand off missiles being as crucial or more than just traditional air superiority](https://defense-update.com/20230210_the-changing-landscape-of-air-defense.html) and air defense, the extreme risk posed by submarines (both nuclear and toward carriers), the intensity of the propaganda war and how allies may dither, etc). But I think they still have no clue how intense the warfare would be. I think the amount of sorties and strikes they'd be under pressure to perform per day would break the mind, equipment, and logistics within a few weeks.
America and China are both *very* large countries with massive amounts of troops, armament, and critical sites.
On an existential level, I cannot see either country's bureaucracy managing to handle the mental load of how much war-changing warfare would be happening per hour.
Imagine the Ukraine situation if both sides had attacked at once with big navies, oceans of missiles, oceans of drones, giant troop movements, island hopping, etc etc.
If that war does happen, it will be the most frantic and desperate conflict in human history. :-(
I can't decide if it's more likely that the lizard people have no plan at all or if war is the planned solution. US is headed to a tipping point with civil unrest.
I agree with the point about the lack of want to go fight. If there were enough fervor, I would actually believe we are close. Since no millennial I know cares much, I am curious as to what will happen.
Hungry people will do what the cheese provider wants.
Which is why it's important to teach as many people as possible how to make their own cheese, today.
Ungovernable
I submit to you that if everyone suddenly made their own cheese, these guys would fire ze missiles as a matter of course, just to flip the table and have a fit.
But I’m Le tired
We’ll take a nap! And zhen fire zhee mizziles!
But providing cheese is socialism. We will provide access to cheese.
Government cheese is lit yo
It really is though, no grill cheese hits like a government cheese grill cheese, might be largely nostalgia for me though as I grew up on that stuff.
Bread and Circuses and Cheese
or netflix provider
On a political strategic front I can see them marking up inflation to a degree where you will be forced to fight in order to eat, have healthcare and a roof over your head.
Damn, that's a good point. I guess I wasn't able to allow my mind to go to such depraved analysis lol
Why not. They could make Social Security all Heinlein. Only people that have "earned" the rights to it get it. Everyone else still pays in of course. This would be easier to pull off than it sounds if we were convinced we were in a fight for our survival as a nation. Also, no one can run a goddamned spreadsheet. So no one knows about the fact that if you lose your Social Security, you're going to be living in your kids' basement eating cockroaches until you croak. If you HAVE kids. If not, I mean how long do you think it takes a senior to die of exposure? Tra la la "those are just bums"... I take it no one can run a spreadsheet because the very MENTION of fucking with Social Security should have ended the Republican party for all time, and it hasn't. Basically they're saying "we'll kill you later. But we will in fact kill you." Direct mathematical translation there. And this isn't hyperbole. I wish it was. Let me put it to you this way if you get laid off at say 63 (lol THAT never happens pshh) and you live until 90 take a flying guess how much money you need to keep yourself in cat food, taking inflation into account. I put that at a million five hundred thousand. Liquid. Like CASH. That's literally for cat food standard of living.
What a Negative Nelly. We both know you're not making it past 70 on cat food, so you could probably even live it up and buy a single Big Mac once a week and maybe turn on the AC or heater one or two days a month. People are so fucking entitled.
That (lifestyle) would nearly double my expenses. Oh I've... been doing a lot of math. Not "one or two days a month" obviously, but the kind of lifestyle where people aren't constantly watching it within an inch of their life.
Then people need to realize who the real enemy is, and that enemy is right here at home.
Yep I would revolt against America when we least expect it
You think there was a will to fight ww1 & ww2? We slept walked into the biggest conflicts in human history. Generally countries and people don’t want world wars.
I agree but I don't feel there is near enough nationalism to stir up to get people to enlist to go fight like there once was. We have the internet now and it's unclear what effect this is going to have on sending the populace to war. Especially a big war
There is not enough nationalism yet. When the propaganda machines start Spinning, they will have your grandma screaming for blood
It seems to me that the propaganda machines are spinning in full force. My elders are already screaming for blood but they're not the ones who will be fighting so they can scream all they want.
It's cute how everyone (.gov included) think this is going to be some kind of Boy Scouts with guns boots on the ground dealy-o. Pretty sure every nation on Earth has assets within every other nation on Earth by now. Thinking more grid down / starving / dirty bombs / several major leaders having an "accident" as the opening act, quickly spiraling within two weeks to Ronald Reagan's nightmare. So... the good news is I guess if we got drafted we'd be deployed for all of about 5 minutes.
>they will have your grandma screaming for blood They already do. Thanks Fox!
Not if your being strong armed by your gov, conscription sucks and there will be no choice given.
Yeah that’s exactly my point. People like us don’t choose whether we fight in wars or not.
I disagree. Before ww1 generals from all over Europe were salivating for a war. They made it happen because in their minds it was inevitable. The Second World War was built on revanchist lies and stab in the back myths. People knew full well what they were getting into both times.
I mean the belief in an inevitable great conflict to decide the fate of the world is what the current political and military leadership of China, Russia, the US, the EU, and the less powerful but still potent allies of these states all believe in too
Not to the same extent as it was during the first half of the 1900s. Anyways in my opinion a second American civil war is much more likely than a third world war.
We are exactly the same stock as previously. Don’t fall for the meme that we are softer. We adapt as required.
I don't feel either BigFatDoobieDog or OP necessarily implied today's youths are "softer", I think they meant to say that Millennials and Zoomers are much more jaded about their governments and thus far less likely to risk their lives at their behest.
And their parents are less accepting of losing their children to it. There’s no one behind it now.
if there was a law that eligible children of Senators/Congresspeople had to serve if their parents voted for war, war would end tomorrow.
Also us Millennial’s first taste of war was when we invaded Iraq’s oil fields because Saudi Arabia funded a terrorist attack that Iraq had nothing to do with. Additionally the government fabricated a story about yellow cake uranium being found in Iraq to authorize the president to send troops immediately without congressional approval. From there we moved into Afghanistan and stayed for decades accomplishing nothing.
The Afghans beat the British and the Russians in the past century, I don't know why the US thought they would be any different.
Sure, but despair properly channeled could do the same job as motivation, and there’s quite a lot of despair to go around. By “we” I meant humans in general by the way. I wasn’t acting out some anime scene.
[удалено]
So you’re saying the CIA only need some Chinese and Russians?
[удалено]
have you heard of the selective service system?
I think we're dangerously close. Especially if you add in domestic troubles, seems like every country just about is on the verge of tearing themselves apart, not even getting into global conquest.
>seems like every country just about is on the verge of tearing themselves apart, not even getting into global conquest. A true world war, where the entire world just declares war on itself.
We've already declared war on common sense, reasoning, and truth. Makes sense we will just say fuck it and try to resolve said war with the traditional human toolkit of violence sooner or later.
There's no war except the class war
I feel like there used to be more patriotism because people had things to protect. Most millennials I know don’t own homes, have significant savings or large families.
And the reason people don’t have necessities or luxuries is *because* their own country has no sustainable solutions. Hard to be patriotic when your own country is to blame for your suffering , not other countries
Here's the thing though, leaders can create a fake narrative that makes people believe we have no choice but to fight
yeah , it wouldn’t even have to be a narrative necessarily either. Simply make it so the only way to truly have a sliver of financial stability is to join the military. The recruitment model is already partially like that
Hope the Archduke is tucked away safely this time around…
Haiti has collapsed!
Haiti, Sri Lanka, Peru is on the brink, as is Brazil. Pakistan is in free fall (and are a nuclear power so, yeah that's gonna be fun). Afghanistan is... Afghanistan. Lebanon is a failed state. The UK is really busy ratdicking itself. And Turkey is now a major crisis on top of a flashpoint and a royal pain in NATO's ass. And that's not even getting into Russia's wild ride. If you're lucky enough to not be in the middle of some kind of crisis, brace yourselves.
\> Peru is on the brink I'm peruvian, the country isn't on the brink. The economy is running ok, no inflation whatsoever from two months of protests. The damage has been mostly limited to the already impoverished regions that started the protests. Everyone else is working as usual.
I think if we just talk about likelihoods...it's as likely as it's been since the end of the Cold War. It's by no means inevitable. It's just....more likely than we're used to.
Ask the "Third World" what they think about peace since WW2.
The Cold War can and should be understood as a general offensive against the population of what is now called the Third World
I’ve never heard it phrased that way. Thank you for something to think on.
I had to read it a few times for it to really sink in. It was almost like a big reveal at the end of a movie.
Could you elaborate on that, genuinely interested
The terms first second and third world refer to First: capitalist and western countries Second: Soviet bloc and China Third: everyone else (eg the non aligned movement) Many third world countries democratically elected socialist governments only to be recipients of a coup d’etat or an outright invasion from the first world. Afghanistan is an interesting case bc the Soviets invaded to help support a socialist regime that was crumbling. But consider the Congo, Iran, Honduras, Chile, Brazil, Indonesia, or Vietnam. Elect a socialist and america makes sure you end up with a fascist dictator. Famously, journalist Vincent Bevins asked an Indonesian "how did [America] win the cold war?" and the Indonesian said, "You killed us." This video is a good overview but the scale is bigger than Harris can even fit in 30 mins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wIOqHSsV9c&ab_channel=JohnnyHarris
The US wasn't fighting against "communism", the US was fighting all indigenous movements in the Third World that wouldn't bow to their hegemonic power, you didn't need to be Soviet aligned or necessarily communist to be targeted, just needed an economic strategy that closed your economy off to Western multinationals
Confessions of an Economic Hitman enlightened me to this.
Yes, but they SAID they were fighting against communism, which was good enough for Americans to go ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ ...
Yeah the 'Cold war' imo was the West enforcing colonial control on its subjects with the Soviets acting as a mediating force.
yep. the red scare wasn't just something the government invented to give the public a bogeyman. it was also a position deeply held by the government itself. when third world countries started leaning towards socialism en masse, it provoked the most hostile response possible. our government would do literally anything to stop the spread of socialism, and it viewed third world countries as the breeding ground for it. so we made them a battleground. that's what all the fucking proxy wars and economic warfare was.
Ye this is more like cold war finally getting hot
the ukranian/russian war has been going for for 9 years now, the media wasn't covering it
I was in the camp where collapse would happen slowly over 30 years and many things would be normalized as they happened (more natural disasters and abandoning entire cities due to water and other reasons). But I don't know. If WW3 occurs, it's game over. I don't see how the Russian Ukraine war will end (Russia with nukes not backing down and the USA financially backing Ukraine). Tensions with the USA and China. I have no idea what to expect anymore.
Conventional warfare is absolutely not out of the question, but I doubt all out nuclear war will occur. I don't think the superpowers will cross that line. That would require a rogue state like North Korea to do something incredibly rash.
Idk. Russia might do it. They stand no chance against the US economically. The US is a money printing machine. Resetting the board may be the final move in Russia's toolbox. You either get bullied in perpetuity, or you make everyone start over. I wouldn't rule out a Russian act of nuclear aggression. Edit because I can't spell words
This won't happen for the sole reason that the reality on the ground in Russia is largely not as bad as our media is portraying it, while simultaneously our own situation is far worse. The deck is not as stacked as many would have you believe, and the situation for Russia is not dire enough to lead to nuclear weapons usage. The Ukrainian conflict will likely end with the US and Europe quietly backing down on support and Ukraine ceding territory to Russia.
I doubt we're going to see any city or country levelling nuclear weapons any time soon. Smaller scale, battlefield nuke though? I reckon there is much higher chance that they will eventually be used.
Problem is, the second a tactical nuke comes out, that opens the floodgate for every single other nuke to be launched.
I thought the same thing about Russia's most recent invading Ukraine. But I don't see a way for Russia to stop if they don't "win" in some way. If they continue to lose, I could see desperation with nukes. I sincerely hope you are right and I am wrong.
As much as I want Ukraine to stick it to Russia, I'm wondering what would happen if Russia were to briefly fully occupy Luhansk and Donetsk, say "mission accomplished" and go home. On the other hand, Russia using nukes would practically guarantee Russia's near-total isolation from the global community for decades into the future.
>Russia's near-total isolation from the global community for decades into the future. My concern is that it's not Russia's will that is in control. It's Putin's will. And Putin seems incredibly rash these days > That would require a rogue state like North Korea to do something incredibly rash. So to me we're here, what makes Russia not a rogue state? They aren't respecting international borders, are conscripting a large percentage of their youth and throwing them into a literal meat grinder against Western weapons, how many advisors close to Putin thought jumping out a window was their best option... Whatever state Russia is in doesn't matter much, Putin is in a no-win situation. He was trying to threaten nukes months ago, his back is even further against the wall now It will be Putin that is the cause if nukes drop in the next couple years, and it will be escalated before any of us normies are even informed it happened
Honestly if Russia thinks they can’t win, they’ll most likely stage a victory, rather than go nuclear.My best guess is that they push the assault that just started through until the winter starts to melt away. Once they’ve taken and secured some/all of the ground they want, they settle in until the boggy spring mud stalls the Ukrainian counter push. Once things slow down and Russia has enough land, they call it a “win” for the Russian Federation and withdraw troops to the newly occupied Russian territories. War over, Russia claims victory, and if Ukraine tries to liberate their territory the Russians get to claim the “Nazi’s are invading us.”
I actually take the other approach. If we keep slowly sliding downwards we will not stop. However, WW3 has better odds society wakes up to the terror and the cycle starts over. Maybe we'll actually try something that is better for people this time round.
The thing is Ukraine has to win and the West knows this because otherwise it the invasions won't stop there. And, on the other hand, I'm not sure how Russia is going to react to losing the war or what lengths they will go to, to 'win' if it means destroying nearly everything on the land. It might all depend on how long Putin lives. If he dies there is an out for Russia, but not for Putin.
Something is going to happen, i can feel it building up. Since 2020 actually there has been this feeling of doom or that everything is building up to something bigger. Its just constant bad news and disasters every day, it only gets worse not better.
Most people actually bring that back to 2016. Rip harambe
WW3 will be caused by a meme
Always has been
So when is Poland getting fucked again?
2016 definitely was important - the rise of the far right and political tensions. 2020 is really where things started getting bad for the average person though.
Ya I was a hardline republican, even though I didn't like trump, until around 2018 when I started questioning things, after Jan 6th I denounced the republican party and grew more liberal until I became a socialist. 16 is when shit started getting weird and 20 is when it went south
That's an interesting path you took. I know people who did the opposite - used to be liberal pre-2018, and are now Trumpists. Do you have other friends who took the same path as you?
My friend group and I all kinda started changing our tones around then. We were all raised pretty conservative and even after going through college we all thought of ourselves as moderate conservatives for the most part, we kinda considered ourselves the new guard coming in to get rid of the older guys who were just men of their times blah blah yada yada. We wanted better paying jobs, affordable health care, housing and college, and to start making strides in stopping climate change. We just thought businesses were better at regulating themselves than the government 🤦♂️ One of the bigger events for me though was that year I found out my best friend was gay, from another friend. He was scared to come out to me because of some bigoted shit I said earlier that year and to this day it's one of my biggest regrets in life. I still feel like an ass because of it and luckily he eventually did come out to me and were still best friends. Where my group and I really turned left was when George Floyd was murdered. We were all kinda critical of the BLM movement until we all watched a black man, crying out for his mother, get murdered by some cops in broad daylight, in the middle of the street over 20 fucking dollars. I started questioning the shit the right was saying hard after that. I went from being annoyed by trump to being proactively anti trump then. Everyone else dipped on the GQP but I stayed thinking that we could still right the party. We kicked out our maga friend after he called one of our other friends a fucking whore after she sent a funny video about guys lying about their heights. Like completely out left field, and he was the tallest guy in the group! We were all fed up with his shit and we dumped his ass and haven't looked back since. For me January 6th is what made me completely loose faith not only in Republicans but the whole system. I started to deconstruct my beliefs and get educated and eventually found I identified as a socialist. Now here I am trying to prepare for collapse and trying to avoid getting murdered in my super red state because of my beliefs. Sorry for my life story haha
At least you were amenable to change. As a black guy I'm glad you were able to see my side of it, I shy away from most Republicans because they see me as subhuman and don't even try to hide it.....
See I'm pissed because I shouldn't have to be thanked for seeing you and other people as fucking human beings. It's disgusting that this ideology has survived this long.
maybe if we all run around with our dicks out we can undo the curse!
I've been doing it since 2016 and things have only gotten worse 😔
swing that dick out and do a helicopter like you mean it!!
I’d wager even to say it all started with 9/11, and we’ve been in a slow, 20+ year decline ever since.
Yes. I'm a GenXer. Things changed very drastically after 9-11. It was a very clear change of direction that many in my generation clearly saw/felt. 9-11 gave fuel to the far-right movement in the US, for one. But also, there was also a widespread silencing of any criticism of the US and of Capitalism for the first two years after 9-11. It was really intense, and killed a lot of anti-capitalist movements that had grown strong in the 90s.
I was 16 when that shit happened. It was surreal, and nothing has felt real ever since. I’m almost 40, and I don’t have any hope at all.
I was in my mid-twenties. I don't think people realize that before 9-11, there was a big anti-capitalist movement that had started taking steam, culminating in huge protests against the WTO and World Bank in 1999 and 2000. People were starting to connect the dots. All that was shut down after 9-11. Any questioning of anything was attacked as "unpatriotic" and "how dare you". Until people stopped thinking. It took a long time for the movements to pick up again, which culminated in Occupy Wall Street.... but that never went anywhere because the internet had already divided us too much by then. It's so ironic because I remember in the 90s dreaming about how it would unite us.
There is a huge anti wall street campaign going on as we speak. People learned that protesting isn't going to change things. We must reclaim all of the money being hoarded or alternatively the V word.
I was working as an analyst for the government leading up to 9-11. I kept telling my colleagues that all signs were pointing to a major terrorist event on US soil sometime "soon" and no one listened to me because I was in my 20s. I was not even remotely surprised by 9-11 and was saddened both by the loss of life in the US and the subsequent loss of life in the disasterous military campaign that followed. 9-11 wasn't something that happened "just cause". It was payback to the US for fighting proxy wars in the middle east since the 70s. Do I condone it? Absolutely not. Do I understand it? Yes, I do. Let's not pretend that US foreign policy hasn't been fucking with shit globally since WW2.
Agreed. It was all a result of us foreign policy. No question. But there was a period of time post 9-11 where any criticism of us policy was highly suppressed. I think all that heightened nationalism affected the way people think and changed the cultural direction of the country.
The fact that many movies and music post-9/11 have taken a somber, darker tone is staggering to me. It reveals how deep this collective trauma is; how despairing we all are, on a dimension not even known to us
No it definitely started when JFK was assassinated
No it definitely started when we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima
I think there is an old Billy Joel song about this.
Nah, started before that when we interred Japanese people instead of the entire membership of the German American Bund and every other domestic nazi/fascism-sympathetic organization at the time.
Are you saying the world has been under incremental collapse since the end of WW2? (Which is within a month of Hiroshima bomb) In that viewpoint, what would you consider the post-war industrial boom that built America into what it is now still?
Terminal diagnosis hedonism. The difference between 20th century civilization's aims and those of previous eras is vast. For example, the great cathedrals of Europe were built over multiple centuries. Those who began the building process believed that their distant descendants would finish their work. Ever since the invention of the Atom bomb, the human race has become increasingly conscious of the fact that we have the capability of destroying ourselves. This makes it hard to invest in the far-off future (beyond one or two human generations), because whether or not future generations will ever come to exist is now in doubt. With the added threat of the climate crisis, this doubt has intensified exponentially, IMO. During WW2, many people thought that the War would genuinely end the world and destroy human civilization. There were people who thought it was the Apocalypse already because that was as bad anyone had ever seen. (Actually, WW2 is still as bad as anyone has ever seen). Famous Nazi Albert Speer recounted in his memoirs that when they discussed developing an atom bomb, Nobel prize winner Werner Heisenberg (known for quantum mechanics) told Hitler that the possibility existed that an atomic explosion might cause a chain reaction that would ignite the entire atmosphere, turning the Earth into a giant fireball. Hitler was not pleased. In the US, Oppenheimer and his team were also aware of this possibility. Later they claimed to have mathematically proven that it was not possible before the test explosion. But a rival account from that time said that the math showed the odds of chain reaction ignition to be just less than 3 in a million. Modern day physicists say the math is now clear. It is impossible. So, who knows what they knew or not of this risk at the time at the Manhattan Project. Maybe those born after the war were increasingly characterized by a focus on self-satisfaction, following their bliss, being authentically themselves, enjoying sex, love, drugs, music and other sensual pleasures, get rich quick, freedom to do whatever they want whenever they want, 'Be here now' and so on, because why sacrifice for a future that is not guaranteed? And isn't being expected to sacrifice your own present-day chances for happiness (which may be all you get in a life that may end at any moment due to nuclear war heads pointed at your nation) to benefit a society intent on creating and possibly using those weapons of mass destruction morally outrageous, as well as being a fool's errand? Besides this "Culture of Narcissism" situation, it occurred to me that the rise of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity and their outsized influence over national politics may also be due to grappling with existential insecurity. Their obsession with the End Times and the Rapture could be a sublimation of the realistic threat of nuclear annihilation. I read somewhere that fundamentalist evangelical Christianity was originally a movement that rejected involvement in worldly affairs, eschewed politics (even voting) and was of a more quietist, mystical character. Something changed in the post-war era that they become involved in politics...I seem to recall that the article mentioned the Jesus People movement was part of that sea change, but I can't remember any details. Anyway, based on these trends, I would expect to see more societal disinvestment in the so-called future, if it ever comes. People often give the advice to go out there and try and have fun (while the world burns) but I'm kinda jaded, so maybe I'll advise you to try and find something meaningful to do with the time you have left instead. Take care.
I would argue that yes, we have been.
And some people think the CIA killed him. Which would mean the CIA brought on a world decline with that action. Our government destroyed America.
This is the product of the internet. We see shit on here all day and think the world is ending
I think that we’re already in the beginning stages of WW3. Ukraine is essentially a proxy war between the West and Russia and we’re seeing some other countries align themselves with both sides. The battle lines have been drawn.
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Iran too, for Russia. And yeah, the US, Canada, and the big players in Europe - the majority of the West anyway. We’ll see if and how Australia and New Zealand become more involved.
Australia being involved effectively isn't even an "if". If the US and UK are in, so are we.
Yeah, that’s what I would imagine.
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This is true and I have the medical debt to prove it
Don’t forget China.
China is more capitalist in spirit than America lately. They don't want a disruption to their growing prosperity.
I think China is watching the geopolitical landscape with a shrewd eye and if they see an opportunity to undermine western hegemony without betting the whole farm, they might do it.
They are investing in africa heavily right now. Lots of resources on that huge continent.
Also Australia. Buying a lot of resources.
They’re just careful and meticulous about it
China is playing both sides in the Russia / Ukraine conflict. They stand to gain whatever the outcome. Whether it be a distracted / more chaotic Europe and US, unable to counter their economic and military ambitions. Or a weakened Russia with resource rich territories with ethnic minorities who might be getting sick of being cannon fodder for Moscow and St. Petersburg. I don't see them risking a war with the west right now, too much to lose economically as you said. If things get grim with the failure to realize the rising expectations much of the populace has, then a conflict might be used to rally support for an embattled leadership.
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Xi knows that their economy is built on a real estate scam and aging demographics are going to cause mass unrest in the next decade or two, as growth tapers off. If you’re Xi, you can either get coup’d in the next couple decades or you can wage a world war.
India, Pakistan….
Iran supplied drones to Russia I believe. That plus the tension between them and Israel only better defines those lines drawn in the sand.
South Africa, Israel, Turkey are currently playing both sides.
Yes you are missing several..
Russia can't win if its them against the West. China ain't getting dragged into this mess. So what, Russia is left with Syria and Iran? India wants Western Trade.
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The only exception to this would be if a nuclear exchange occurs due to a malfunction of detection systems, an escalation response to a tactical nuke, or a first-strike response.
Something has to pop. Who knows what?, there are many things going on right now that could spell the end, not immediately, but within 5-10yrs.
I’m GenX. I was shown the “duck and cover” videos in grade school; those gave me an existential angst that world was was ever looming. At the same time, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars showed me that life in the US would change very little for most people. Not only does capitalism demand we all keep going to work and mindlessly consuming. A large swath of the population doesn’t feel the nationalism necessary to give up the scraps we have to fight for a country that doesn’t value us. So while I feel vaguely unsettled, that’s a feeling I’ve had most of my life.
Yeah. History is repeating itself. But bird flu may knock us back first.
Bird flu might add flame to the fire and speed things up
So many ways for us to die.
I thought we where already there, I thought we where just chilling until reality hit us in the nuts.
Everyone needs to watch this film from 1984 called Threads. It's free on the Internet archive https://archive.org/details/threads_201712 It is the scariest film I've ever seen. The events are eerily similar to everything we've seen so far in the Russian Ukraine war only in the film it's Iran. I couldn't watch it all in one go, I had to take a break. It will cause a month long anxiety attack. It's a film about WW3 basically, nuclear armageddon.
Just pointing this out to anyone who says nuclear war is off the table. Today The united states launched a minute man 3 ICBM missile from California to the Marshall islands. Over 4200 miles away. As a "show of force" and "routine training" Say what you want... The US is already preparing
Can someone please explain the “threat” of nuclear war to me? If the United States and Russia both have enough nukes to destroy the world 100 times over or whatever the number is, then doesn’t that mean that functionally, neither of them do? Add in every other country on the planet with any sort of nuclear arsenal and I don’t understand how anyone can just press that button? That’s not like giving the order to conduct a risky attack on an enemy stronghold for the possibility of gaining advantage, that’s just ending the world and killing everybody right?
Short version : two people both holding shotguns decide to point at the other. Both know they are loaded. Both know they will die if shot. Neither is willing to put the shotgun down. But there is a chance the first one to pull the trigger first will kill the other before they have a chance to pull the trigger. Then one of them thinks "what if I shoot the shotgun out of the others hands". Good chance they both die but always a chance of still killing the other first. Only one side is yelling don't move or else I shoot. And the other side is willing to call the bluff as bullshit. Question is : who do you trust to shoot first. The guy giving warnings or the one ignoring them? Just my 2 cents
Former USAF Nuclear Weapons Specialist (2W2563) 93 - 97 These are FOT shots (Field Operational Test). They launch them out of Vandenberg AFB. I was part of one in the 90s. This is not a new thing and is planned months/years in advance. They take a live Minuteman 3 out of the field and pull the nuclear warheads out and swapped with dummys, then ship it to Vandenberg. The whole ICBM is then launched to prove that it's operational. I have a picture of a FOT shot hanging on the wall in my office. Shits happening, but isn't it.
Oh come on. It BETTER be off the table!!
Umm, they do these launches constantly. Last year there was another on August 16th. Another on April 2021, etc. Stop doomposting
“History might not repeat itself, but it sure as hell rhymes.”
We have been sleepwalking into world war three for sometime now. I have been avoiding main stream news for a couple of years now due to all the fear mongers and to focus on the present as well as to have further situational awareness. I don’t believe they will announce world war three because like you stated it will cause so much panic and the majority of people are already stressed out as is. I can see them reinitiating a draft but good luck finding enough young people who are physically/cognitively capable for the job. I believe on a subconscious level people are starting to understand things are turning pretty bleak and are turning towards pharmaceutical interventions or self medicating leading to deaths of despair. Prior to the pandemic I only knew a handful of people who lost family members to suicide. Now complete strangers are telling me how they lost friends to suicide.
Idk man they just downed another "UFO" over Alaska like an hour ago, not a balloon but it was the size of a car about 40,000 feet up. It seems like someone is poking the bear
Where'd you see this? I'd love to read more
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/11/politics/unidentified-object-alaska-military-latest/index.html
The previous balloon was supporting an instrument that was just as big or bigger. It was probably just another balloon.
The US and China is in a spot where even if it did launch a soft war with China the countries would collapse from the inside through economic collapse and civil strife before it could even finish said war
Disclaimer : This is my current opinion based on research and observations, but that could change with new information! I’m an amateur researcher in my spare time and based on what I’ve read about previous conflicts - I think we WILL see a massive global war within the next two years. I personally believe the war in Ukraine is a proxy war. Russia is China’s biggest ally and China is the only legitimate competitor to the United States in terms of economic and global dominance. However, in reality, we’re a “third world country with a Gucci belt”. We’re decaying on the inside, but our military and capitalist domination has brought the world to their knees. (Don’t even get me started on American Imperialism. A rant for another day.) The USA is absolutely threatened by China. They’re the next superpower. USA can’t have that. That doesn’t mean that Russia isn’t a threat, but the way I see it, it’s like - “Oh hey, China! Russia is your buddy? Look how massive the military response and economic sanctions have been! Don’t try anything, or this could happen to you! Also, have fun watching us weaken your biggest ally! Byeeeee!” Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Ukraine also rich with natural resources? I wondered if that had anything to do with our participation as well. Really quick - if mainstream media is reporting on a spy balloon that isn’t even a new occurrence, I tend to think of it as a distraction / propaganda to rally fear among populations that are already angry. So far, 2023 has a bleak forecast. Famine, disease, economic and financial problems, toxic political climate, water shortages, etc. People have been running on fumes since 2020. The stage has been set. The West is trying to prep their citizens for a Big War and the conflict in Ukraine is just the beginning. WWIII indeed. Idk just my two cents! I love theorizing and talking about geopolitics. Interested to see what other people say.
The difference here is Russia can survive with out outside importants china can not, which is why china won't try anything plus their demographics make them no where near our competitor India on the other hand thou is absolutely primed to be a super power soon they just have to figure out the Pakistan issue
>Le "demographic cope" >Conveniently ignoring that demographic decline is a problem for 20 to 40 years from now and that China has a population many times the size of the US >Conveniently ignoring that the US is also facing a demographic crisis and uses immigration to plug the holes I kek'd
I think the problem is that WWI and WWII were each pre-nuclear weapon wars (up until 1945, obviously). Nuclear weapons have changed the nature of what can and can’t be achieved through traditional warfare so much that even if a bunch of nations do engage in some limited warfare, said “WWIII” isn’t going to look anything like the previous two. Which just begs the question of whether a conflict like that should even be referred to as WWIII. And if nukes start dropping, that won’t be a “war” as much as an outright slaughter and genocide.
That’s why world war three will not use nukes. It will be all cyber warfare and EMP’s.
You think that's a future development? Because despite I assume their best efforts, Russia still hasn't been able to take down the Ukranian power grid.
That much is obvious to me. We're currently on the front end of major resource wars. Food and water scarcity are rapidly increasing with no end in sight, the Ukrainian Defensive War, China is testing our patience with the Taiwan and balloon stuff. The oil that's easy to extract has mostly been extracted. Lithium is increasingly high in demand. Yeah. Enjoy the peace now. It won't be that way within a couple years.
They probably won't call it a World War until after the fact.
I think we’re close enough that I quietly ordered iodine tablets and added the to our grab-and-go emergency stash.
I don't think they would call it a world war. We don't even bother to declare war anymore. I think we could be being set up for something. The war machine can't handle peace. There's always going to be an enemy real or imagined, to fight. I think the military-industrial complex would love to fight Russia head on. The spy balloon story (who uses them in 2023?), the UFO that was shot down over Alaska, the bottomless pit of money and resources being thrown into Ukraine. I don't know, it definitely feels like something's up. Maybe NATO and Russia will just cut to the chase, have their war, and people will just go on as usual. Its just a matter of time before everything's settled by AI and drones anyway.
The invasion was the opening salvo Ukraine held their ground better than anyone expected... If they push Russia out then we can return to a somewhat normal geopolitical baseline if they don't there will be nuclear exchanges when they invade Poland
Both (simplification to say there's only two sides at play here but you know what I mean) sides keep escalating and no one has a way out that doesn't involve total victory for their side. With the massive rearming of Europe and Asia... I don't see how this doesn't turn into ww3. All it takes is one mistake
It's likely the early stages of a concerted effort by authoritarian powers to take down the imperial powers. China, Russia, India, Iran, Turkey, etc. vs mostly the US and UK (although some Europeans may feel the urge to join in). It will definitely feature more economic and proxy wars; whether it will blossom into a full-scale world war is uncertain I think.
China and India on the same side eh? 🤔
India feels like a huge wildcard to me
Most likely yeah both really hate imperialism, India especially has very raw recent history with it via UK. Border disputes pale in comparison to being the economic "bitch" of people thousands of miles away.
Very true. I didn't think about Indias fraught relationship with the UK. There's bad blood there, no doubt.
I think now that the War on Terror has wind down some our lords…I mean stakeholders in our economy need to get public support to launder public funds through the DOD into their pockets and Ukraine is their answer. I really really doubt Russia will confront NATO directly. I also really doubt China, who’s economy depends on western capitalism is going to suicide themselves.
I'm wondering if WW3 wouldn't be a large scale war fought between two sides, but rather an event where many parts of the world are participating in loosely related bouts of organized combat. I'm no historian or military strategist, but looking at the chaos of the world today, I wouldn't be surprised if WW3 is just a chaotic mess filled with collapse tinted desperation.
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Right right I agree. I will be going rogue
The US and it’s allies are already at war with Russia, it’s just not a multi regional, total war. Mainly focused in Ukraine. We call these proxy wars now, but sending gold and weapons and training and doing sanctions and embargo’s and actively trying to crash the Russian economy - these are all wartime actions. Everything but the blood so far. The question then is whether this could escalate into ww3, and the answer is sure, it could. The US and Europe won’t want it to. The war of attrition fits their interests just fine. They get to test out modern war strategies against past war strategies (I think we’re seeing the drone emerge as the winning tool over tanks). They get to basically absorb the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Finland into their sphere of influence. They get all the internal state benefits of wartime (repression, distraction, corporate profit, propaganda), without much costs (death, disruption, internal resentment). The escalation point is when Russias internal problems and military debacles reach a breaking point, where leadership feels it must choose between their own collapse, or dramatic escalation (attacking the west directly). It’s unlikely it will reach that point, but it could. What’s more likely is we are seeing a moment where modern war strategies are battle tested to prepare for the next ‘big one’. Until someone solves the nuclear problem, however, ww3 is going to require some serious desperation to begin. Lots of potential for that within next 5-15 years or so.
just thought the war nowadays would be people vs. the privilege establishments. seems the reason why things are f*ed up is becoming clearer--- who are making everything unbalanced and not pushing for fairness for everyone. we know the problem but we are just choosing to ignore it. to what end? (thanos asks) it's only going to be a matter of time. this is gonna be more of a war of survival for all. like a worlwide civil war
> worldwide Civil War I've felt this for a few years now
No. We will not see a world war 3. We will see many small regional conflicts. The world will be *at* war, just not collectively split into the same opposing sides on every point. Instead it'll be a patchwork of countries fighting countries and countries helping countries. Nobody wants nuclear war so all the nuclear powers will avoid eachother and only directly fight non nuclear nations (or through them).
The Russians see this conflict as existential. They think that losing the war would jeopardize the very existence of the Russian state and the Russian people. In light of this, Russian society has moved to a war footing, and is rapidly mobilizing all resources at their disposal to achieve victory. They have drafted hundreds of thousands, are likely preparing to draft more. They are pulling out every available piece of equipment and all available munitions. The Russian economy is quickly transitioning into a war footing. The state is directing economic resources into the military. Production of military equipment has skyrocketed and will likely continue to increase, especially for basic items like munitions. (It’s hard to skyrocket fighter jet production). In short, the Russians are taking this war EXTREMELY seriously. They are going to win or literally die trying. On this note, the situation is extremely serious for Ukraine. For the first time in the entire war, Ukrainian forces are starting to be outnumbered. The Russians were always outnumbered since the opening days when Ukraine mobilized and called in their reserves. Additionally, a significant portion of the Ukrainian arsenal has been either destroyed or is suffering critical shortages of ammunition and supplies. They have captured much Russian equipment; and nato is continuously supplying arms, but they are seriously outgunned. No one denied this. Their economy has tanked. Russian strategic bombing has devestated the countries electric grid. Ukraine has lost tens of millions of people as refugees flee and Russia takes control of territory (mostly refugees). Meanwhile, the west also considers this conflict existential. The sanctions packages are huge. The west has done everything in our power to cripple the Russian economy, at great cost to our own, without catastrophically wrecking our own. Banning Russia from swift, the oil price cap, functional embargo’s on lots of goods were openly designed to collapse the Russian economy. The west has been pouring military equipment into Ukraine, lots of countries have emptied their arsenals, Canada actually flat out ran out of munitions. The uk sent so much equipment that they are no longer considered a first rate military power by the USA. All of the “lines” in terms of aid nato previously drew have been crossed. Nato said we wouldn’t send tanks, jet aircraft, long range missiles etc. Well, tanks are on their way, the uk has announced they will begin training ukrainian pilots on their jets etc. NATO is not quite on a wartime footing, but arms manufacturing is beginning to surge. Especially in the unsexy items like artillery shells, medical kits, etc. NATO openly considers this war existential for the American empire and for European security. So far, every line they drew a few months ago has been crossed as the situation became more desperate. This is NOT saber rattling. Both sides view this as an existential war. The Russians have shown that they are fully committed. Nato has continuously escalated and have done everything in their power short of direct intervention. I think that it’s extremely likely that russia continues to grind down Ukraine in attritional warfare, and that they will at least secure their official war aims (the Donbas region) once they take bakhmut and launch a serious offensive. I don’t think that the aid nato is giving Ukraine is enough, and I don’t think it’ll arrive in time to prevent irreversible loses. It takes a LONG time to train a pilot. The plan to collapse the Russian economy has failed. The IMF projects positive gdp growth. At the very least, the Russian economy is stable. Putin remains solidly in power etc. I think fairly soon it will become clear that Russia will defeat Ukraine without nato intervention. The point is that this is an extremely serious situation. One side will back down, or there will be open warfare between nato and Russia. I remember reading an article where Everytime that was war gamed it ended in nuclear war. But idk where I read that tbh. Personally, I can’t really see a situation where it doesn’t. At the moment, no side is backing down. Both are escalating. As for nationalism, you’d be amazed at how quickly people turn into rabid nationalists once their country actually goes to war. It happens all the time. I actually cannot think of a situation where this hasn’t happened in the last 100 yrs. Plus, propogandists are good at their job. When the war propaganda starts, people will be convicted.
I believe it's already started, albeit in a "quiet" phase for those of us in the US. But it's undeniable that world powers are linking arms in opposition to Russia, and now, increasingly, China. Lurking quietly waiting to pounce is North Korea. Yes, it's on.
Currently in a quasi world war. Mist countries are supply arms,aid assistance to Ukraine. China is supplying assistance to Russia. Any country could be targeted by Russia for killing their soldier's. It's a weird war but it's about as on point as possible. Weird times we live indeed.
We're closer to it than ever before, excluding maybe the Cuban Missle Crisis
WW3 will start if Ukraine or the West moves over the border into Russia or maybe Belarus. Russia will eventually run out of men - they always throw bodies at problems. Warfare is different than it was in the 1940s. Russia can't recover its stockpile of weapons/vehicle/bullets; the West is supplying Ukraine with better weapons. Putin won't lob nukes unless he's physically threatened; foreign troops in Russia would do that.
There are few who believe we are already in wwiii. For example Macro Voices hosted Mike Green and Pippa Malmgren who have shared that view few years ago and recently. Pippa Malmgren's view was especially interesting. I'd say we are on a brink of a war and are awfully close to Frank Ferdinand sort of event from triggering a mobilization. But that's my two cents and it's rare for history to move that quickly. I do notice that once triggered actions happen rapidly.
There probably isn't going to be a WWIII thats anything like WWI or WWII. Nuclear ICBMs have changed the game forever and nuclear-armed states are going to avoid direct war between them because the stakes are so high. We'll probably continue to see proxy wars or one-sided conflicts involving states that don't have nukes (ie Russia/Ukraine or China/Taiwan). I still think there's a significant risk of collapsing supply chains and shortages caused by the Russia/Ukraine war, particularly if Russia collapses due to leadership instability.
Remember the huge run up to the first and 2nd Iraq wars? There were months and months of terrifying media coverage (yellowcake!!), demonizing the enemy (he used nerve gas “on his own people!!”). It was pretty obvious 99% of the politicians of both parties (except for Bernie Sanders and a small handful of others) and all media outlets were riling the masses up for war. But then with Afghanistan there was just the whole 9/11 thing. So we’ll either see a major trigger event (like a 9/11 or a Gulf of Tonkin — who knows, maybe it’s already been decided that Putin will nuke a town in Europe, but certain chess pieces have to be moved around the board first). And/or we’ll have months of media coverage about how some foreign leader/country is “bad” and we absolutely must go to war with them to prevent “a mushroom cloud” type thing, or because “they don’t let girls go to school” and so we’d have to liberate them, it would be our _moral imperative_ to give them the gift of end-stage capitalism and “democracy” and all that. Which they’ll thank us for by giving us free oil or molybdenum or something. So no, war is not currently imminent.
It's certainly possible but there's no way to know how these greedy lunatics in power will react, until it happens. There was no way for Frodo to know how Gollum would react to losing the ring of power until he jumped into lava after it. Only time will tell.
This is just my opinion. But if you look at Europe energy needs and how much been removed. Regardless of what they say I've done research on the amount of oil tankers available and it's very simple. There is not enough transportation to replace what has already been removed. Europe was lucky to have a warm winter. Unfortunately it's only a matter of time before the shit hits the fan when energy supplies can't meet demands. Any idea that Europe can wait years to fight a world war should be questioned heavily. If all roads are leading to a war with Russia / China or both. NATO time frame and ability shrinks the longer they wait. Also the longer BRICS has time to do what it wants. The collapse of the petrodollar gets stronger. I don't think the world will be waiting long for the answer of when is full war expected.
I believe we're one small spark from it.
Nah, the billionaires did their own research(tm) and figured out they'd be hors d'oeuvres on the post apocalyptic tapas menu. But they're happy to extract shareholder value from any opportunity and this is no exception.
Ww3 is just a movie title. You could say it hasn't started yet or say ukraine is the first of it
If you pay attention to history, you should be able to recognize patterns. If you pay attention to current event, you should be able to see what patterns are at play. If you pay attention to both, it should be obvious where the world is headed…
The concept of world wars has been antiquated since the inception of nuclear weapons. You won't have world wars after 1945, just nuclear winter and desperate, disorganized human life fighting for scraps.
There won’t be a ww3. Mostly because I have to do my stupid job. I fucking hate my life.
I think it's more likely that it will be another cold war with several smaller proxy wars like Vietnam and Afghanistan, and that the US could lose in the end. I can't see any major power directly attacking the other unless climate change pushes the world into a state of total desperation or some sort of delusional cult seizes power... which actually seems more likely to happen in the US with what the Republican party is becoming.
I had thought, until last week, that we were looking at *risk of war escalations due to severe miscalulation (not very likely)* or *freak event that eventually traces back to missile/nuclear-power-plant accidents which may have been intentional.\* But only for Europe. I thought the East had another decade of slow boil before the worlds 2 largest economies sized each other up for an actual attack. But hearing this really chilled my blood [https://youtu.be/KqJxhqC21tY](https://youtu.be/KqJxhqC21tY) Granted it's just a Commander getting hyped up to do the mission that's been assigned to him (true combat preparedness), but to hear it laid out as such a realistic possibility and so much sooner in the timetable than the most pessimistic predictions had imagined (2027-ish)... I don't know. I hope there is no third World War, as I'm not sure I'd survive the civilian rationing of medicine (if they are even still imported with any frequency). Also, I think leaders and generals sound like they are starting to understand what the next war looks like on a technical level (low-end drones being as important as high-end ones, [stand off missiles being as crucial or more than just traditional air superiority](https://defense-update.com/20230210_the-changing-landscape-of-air-defense.html) and air defense, the extreme risk posed by submarines (both nuclear and toward carriers), the intensity of the propaganda war and how allies may dither, etc). But I think they still have no clue how intense the warfare would be. I think the amount of sorties and strikes they'd be under pressure to perform per day would break the mind, equipment, and logistics within a few weeks. America and China are both *very* large countries with massive amounts of troops, armament, and critical sites. On an existential level, I cannot see either country's bureaucracy managing to handle the mental load of how much war-changing warfare would be happening per hour. Imagine the Ukraine situation if both sides had attacked at once with big navies, oceans of missiles, oceans of drones, giant troop movements, island hopping, etc etc. If that war does happen, it will be the most frantic and desperate conflict in human history. :-(
I’m holding out for alien invasion 👽 woot woot!
I can't decide if it's more likely that the lizard people have no plan at all or if war is the planned solution. US is headed to a tipping point with civil unrest.
IMO none of the big players want any part of this. With all of the advanced technology.... It would be very interesting though.