World War Three

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fiby41
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World War Three

Post by fiby41 »

Let your imagination run wild...

Backdrop?
Socio-political upheaval?
Triggers?
Causes?
Countries and sides they would?
Destruction?
Outcome?

Causes:
Scarcity: Water, food, land, oil, other resource?
Ideological: War on terror, anti-communism?

enigmaT120
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Re: World War Three

Post by enigmaT120 »

I sucked at predicting the first two world wars, I don't imagine I'll be any better at the next one.

DSKla
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Re: World War Three

Post by DSKla »

Ooh, fun. Lots of scenarios spring to mind, but I'll stick to one trend that I think will mark a big difference from the last two world wars and many of the smaller ones America has gotten involved in.

Wars of the past century were globalizing. Either nations expanding and gobbling up other territories, or forging alliances both military and economic. Forces coming together. Allies, NATO, EU, Commies, whatever.

World war three will be deglobalizing, or fracturing. Instead of massive alliances duking it out, we will get more clusterf***s like Syria, in which no one really knows who is on whose side or to what ends. I think large things will break into smaller things. More civil wars, revolutions, in-fighting between former allies, and the result will be a larger number of smaller powers with less global influence, probably shifting alliances more often as it benefits them instead of building larger, long-term associations.

Trade agreements will be more between individual nations than huge swaths of countries, and the EUs, BRICs, and American empires will see their influence contract, if not their physical territories as well.

I am imagining this as more of a series of smaller explosions instead of one big one.

bryan
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Re: World War Three

Post by bryan »

Sidings of countries is interesting. Here is a top 15 of countries with the highest GDP (List by the United Nations - 2014):
  • 1 United States 17,348,072
    2 China 10,430,590
    3 Japan 4,602,419
    4 Germany 3,868,291
    5 United Kingdom 2,988,893
    6 France 2,829,192
    7 Brazil 2,346,523
    8 Italy 2,141,161
    9 India 2,054,941
    10 Russia 1,849,940
    11 Canada 1,785,387
    12 Australia 1,471,439
    13 South Korea 1,410,383
    14 Spain 1,381,342
    15 Mexico 1,294,695
So who are the odd ducks out? Countries with nuclear capabilities not on the list (Pakistan, Israel)? Who stands to gain by making some unpopular aggravations?

I doubt we would see any sort of world war that looks anything like the previous two (with infantry, air, sea) unless there are some major, unpredicted (like US falling apart and power void being created) changes to circumstances in the list above.

Dragline
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Re: World War Three

Post by Dragline »

Somebody blows up something the US really cares about. Maybe several things The US military goes ape-shit and decimates them and anyone vaguely associated with them.

KInd of like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_DqV1xdf-Y

The world remains safe for the Empire.

Or maybe its just like Twelve Monkeys . . .

chenda
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Re: World War Three

Post by chenda »

More importantly, how do we profiter ? ;)

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fiby41
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Re: World War Three

Post by fiby41 »

Triggers:

Two democracies are unlikely to go to war with each other. We need at least one country with theocracy (Saudi Arabia)/monarchy/one party rule (China)/dictatorship (N Korea)/or military dictatorship (Pakistan).

An Indo-Pakistan war can trigger it.

So far Pakistan has lost all wars with India. It won't start another war unless it has China or USA backing it thus making it a world war.
Both USA and China have showed they are most eager to take sides in previous wars.

Pakistan has only had democratic transfer of power from one party to another, once, otherwise it is only a series of military dictatorship, coups and Martial Law. Democracy exists as long as the military wants it to. Presently, Pakistan cannot become a stable democracy either.

India used

coercion- large scale mass-movements like Bhoodan movement (Land grant) after independence
and force- forced confiscation of land when the owner had picked up other non-agricultural occupation and inherited the land

To meticulously dismantle the feudal structure British had setup after The First War of Independence, 1857.

Nothing has been done about it Pakistan. This is why all politicians there are also the largest landowners. The elite are the one's who can afford to stand for elections, and have the most to lose if someone from other than their class comes to power.

About half the population is agrarian and directly dependent on the Indus river system. All of the population (97%) is Muslim and half the population is illiterate. This makes them susceptible to military propaganda and radicalization. Consequently, all famines, droughts and floods are always blamed on India.

Both countries have upward of 100+ nuclear warheads. India has No First Use Policy. Pakistan does not.

Cause: Kashmir

Chad
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Re: World War Three

Post by Chad »

Here is a good book to begin the thought process on everything leading to world war. It is called "The End of Globalization." It discusses what happened during the Great Depression and current similar events.
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B002OEBNR4/ ... 0FJIOXUHES

And, of course, we already see the fracturing of Europe, with Brexit and the beginning of the hardline response from the countries still in the EU.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... e-yourself

Then if you have something like a hard landing in China happen or President Trump, or both :shock: :
https://gfs.eiu.com/Article.aspx?articl ... cleId=2908 (courtesy of Jacob's link in the Trump thread)
https://gfs.eiu.com/Article.aspx?articl ... cleId=2910 (courtesy of Jacob's link in the Trump thread)

You then have a giant pile of very dry kindling.

IlliniDave
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Re: World War Three

Post by IlliniDave »

I think the main play will be peoples of overpopulated lower latitudes trying to wrest the higher latitudes away from their current occupants. It's likely to be asymmetric, ideologies on one side versus national governments on the other.

jacob
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Re: World War Three

Post by jacob »

It seems that world wars are either about selecting a new leader of the current ideology (e.g. WWI) or replacing the current ideology with a new one (e.g. WWII---which in that sense continued until the end of the Cold War).

For your entertainment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hsDn2kNriI

I'll cast my vote with the ongoing anti vs globalization low-level conflict---although I could also see a new religious war breaking out, a rerun of the Thirty Year's war. These kinda go hand in hand. One could become the other, etc.

I suspect there will be a lot more cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure compared to just dropping ordinance. I also suspect that nationality won't be nearly as important in terms of picking sides as it was in the past.

enigmaT120
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Re: World War Three

Post by enigmaT120 »

At least India/Pakistan could get global warming off our plates for a while. Scientific American wasn't advocating they have a nuclear war, it was just an example of a human activity that could mitigate the effects for a while.

Dragline
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Re: World War Three

Post by Dragline »

Things that may cause the next dark ages -- or not:

https://youtu.be/wnqS7G3LmMo?t=3494

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jennypenny
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Re: World War Three

Post by jennypenny »

The image in that Morris video reminded me of this photo I saw in the new Cold War museum in SD last week.

Image


re: OP
I think cyberattacks and bioweapons (used on people and environments) will probably be the WMD of WWIII. What scares me most is that given the nature of those kind of attacks, we might not even know who we're at war with.

Kriegsspiel
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Re: World War Three

Post by Kriegsspiel »

The classic argument for nuclear war.

Dragline
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Re: World War Three

Post by Dragline »

jennypenny wrote:The image in that Morris video reminded me of this photo I saw in the new Cold War museum in SD last week.

Image

The funny thing is, I think we will be seeing such celebrations of new technology (destructive or not) again by 2030. I wonder what the "Singularity Cake" will look like?

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jennypenny
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Re: World War Three

Post by jennypenny »

Dragline wrote:I wonder what the "Singularity Cake" will look like?
We'll never know ... we'll be inside the cake trying to cut our way out. ;)

tylerrr
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Re: World War Three

Post by tylerrr »

As soon as a jihadi terrorist incident causes mass casualties(thousands) in a European or North American country, I could see a WWIII breaking out...

This is obviously not beyond the realm of possibility. It will be ugly with aerial campaigns comparable to WWII.

Oil and other treasure would be taken mercilessly from Middle Eastern countries throughout the engagement by USA and its allies.

Hell, Trump has repeatedly said if he's President he'll "take the oil" from countries in the Middle East. So this is no surprise....

I'm not sure it would solve much in the long run, but I think a massive engagement would ensue around the world.

vexed87
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Re: World War Three

Post by vexed87 »

tylerrr wrote:As soon as a jihadi terrorist incident causes mass casualties(thousands) in a European or North American country, I could see a WWIII breaking out...

This is obviously not beyond the realm of possibility. It will be ugly with aerial campaigns comparable to WWII.

Oil and other treasure would be taken mercilessly from Middle Eastern countries throughout the engagement by USA and its allies.
The west has had its war on terror since 9/11. How do you go to war with an idea/de-centralized enemy when all you have is high tech weaponry and conventional military? The war is un-winnable because the only way to win is to demonstrate the ideological high ground, which is hard to do when your foreign policy is destabilise the ME in order to have easy access to their resources at the expense of the local citizenry, which is exactly what we have seen in Afghanistan, Iraq and now in Syria, this has been going on since 2001.

Of course, there was never any intention to win the war, but to prolong the status quo, i.e. keep the oil flowing to the developed nations.

+1 to Jacob's point, it definitely makes sense that wars are fought over ideologies. I dare to predict that the next world war will be due to begin as the the West's social order starts to crumble as a result of the super debt cycle closes and/or the realities of peak oil starts to hit home. The world will be ripe for a new ideology. Pinpointing that exact moment in time is impossible however!

tylerrr
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Re: World War Three

Post by tylerrr »

vexed87 wrote:
tylerrr wrote:As soon as a jihadi terrorist incident causes mass casualties(thousands) in a European or North American country, I could see a WWIII breaking out...

This is obviously not beyond the realm of possibility. It will be ugly with aerial campaigns comparable to WWII.

Oil and other treasure would be taken mercilessly from Middle Eastern countries throughout the engagement by USA and its allies.
The west has had its war on terror since 9/11. How do you go to war with an idea/de-centralized enemy when all you have is high tech weaponry and conventional military? The war is un-winnable because the only way to win is to demonstrate the ideological high ground, which is hard to do when your foreign policy is destabilise the ME in order to have easy access to their resources at the expense of the local citizenry, which is exactly what we have seen in Afghanistan, Iraq and now in Syria, this has been going on since 2001.

Of course, there was never any intention to win the war, but to prolong the status quo, i.e. keep the oil flowing to the developed nations.

+1 to Jacob's point, it definitely makes sense that wars are fought over ideologies. I dare to predict that the next world war will be due to begin as the the West's social order starts to crumble as a result of the super debt cycle closes and/or the realities of peak oil starts to hit home. The world will be ripe for a new ideology. Pinpointing that exact moment in time is impossible however!
Totally agree with you the "war on terror" can't be won like a traditional war of the past....

I'm just saying that I do believe you will see a huge military campaign killing A LOT of people in the Middle East if there's a major jihadi attack in the West. I think that will be the response...In addition to pilfering massive amounts of Middle East monetary treasure in the process.

I'm not arguing for the morality of it, just arguing for the reality of what will happen. That's all I'm saying.

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fiby41
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Re: World War Three

Post by fiby41 »

Could this be a trigger?

India strikes back, carries out surgical strikes on terror launch pads at LoC

This was in retaliation to suicide fidayeen attacks from across the border on army base at Uri near the line of control.

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