I doubt it simply because there's still a massive power imbalance between western and non-western countries. A war with China and Russia would obviously be awful for the human race, but there's almost no way China and Russia would win such a war, nor would it make sense to fight it. I mean what does the "winner" of WWIII gain? You might win the war, but now the planet is a nuclear waste land.

I think China and Russia are likely to continue to make moves that economically hurt the West or amplify social divisions here, but I don't see WWIII-type conflict happening personally.

The Taiwan situation is interesting but ultimately China knows they won't be able to take Taiwan by force without extreme consequences - nor would it be easy. China's economy depends on being able to export to the West where as the West could, if needed, find other trading partners. For that reason I think there are limits in how far China will be willing to go with Taiwan. Even if it didn't escalate into direct conflict with the West it would still be economically devastating for China. Maintaining the status-quo is in everyone's best interest.

Then again geopolitical events are nearly impossible to predict. At the end of the day it's just a handful of people who get to decide these things and people can be irrational, emotional and have complex motivations. WWIII will probably happen at some point, I just doubt the probability of it happening soon is as high as some people think.

I would like that to be true.

Did Germany stand a chance to win WWII? Probably not, or at best a slim chance; it made huge, surprising victories against most of continental Europe, but it just picked on too many opponents. By the time the US was in, it was (slow and deadly) game over. They believed their own BS and went ahead with it regardless.

I guess the risk here is that Russia or China could also believe their own BS and do something stupid regardless. Russia clearly did in Ukraine.

As far as I can tell, WWI started kind of because everyone wanted a war. All the belligerents were convinced this is their moment to shine, 3 months and it will be all over, with [shiny new territory]. Alas it was not to be so.

Why not?

They "incorporated" what they could (Austra, Czechoslovakia), then quickly conquered Poland and France. Capturing Moskow seemed not off limits had they started earlier. I don't want to place bets if it was possible to hold the Soviet Union. Alternatively, if they hadn't attacked the Soviet Union at all.

It is plausible that they would have kept most of Continental Europe, ending with a stalemate with the UK (and no war with the US). Alternatively, not attacking the Soviet Union, and conquering the UK (still, I am not sure if it would work without getting the US to the war). I am happy it didn't work that way - especially as a Pole.

Indeed, I think people tend to forget that Germany declared war on the US - which I have seen described (in a fantastic bit of understatement) as "most puzzling":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_declaration_of_war_agai...

Germany didn't believe their own intelligence figures of US manufacturing output. They were laughed to scorn as impossible. Some hubris there, certainly.

Some level of hubris everybody has.

Go read any thread here about Russia-Ukraine, almost unanimously most comments read like Russia is destined to lose, no matter what they do. You will also read how China is absolutely a weak military power and will lose in case of a Taiwan invasion.

Patriotism like many other emotional attachments can make you blind to your biases. The common theme among most US citizens in this very forum is American exceptionalism - That is - USA will win no matter how many wrong moves it makes, its opponents will lose no matter how many right moves they make.

Its not hard to imagine Germany with its universities, industries, scientists, engineering prowess etc- To have similar illusions of grandeur.

China isn't weak, but for now they still lack the airborne and amphibious lift capacity to invade Taiwan. This has nothing to do with patriotism, it's a simple matter of geography and weather. There are only a few months per year when sea conditions make an invasion possible, and only a few ports or beaches where an invasion force could potentially put ashore. Look at a map. Those points are relatively easy for a smaller force to defend. In a few years China might build up the necessary capabilities, but that situation doesn't obtain today.

China could absolutely wreck Taiwan's civilian infrastructure with air and missile strikes. But that doesn't mean they can invade and conquer the main island.

You don’t need to bomb Taiwan. A blockade of 1-2 years would be plenty. They don’t need to fire a single missile at the mainland.

A blockade is an act of war. If China instituted a blockade then Taiwan would certainly respond kinetically. The situation would escalate from there, and the US would eventually be drawn into the conflict.

US doesn't go around bombing and invading every nation it wants to control either. Greyzone ops, color revolutions etc. There are many ways in which China could achieve its goals without a full fledged war.

> You will also read how China is absolutely a weak military power and will lose in case of a Taiwan invasion.

For some reason, my YouTube feed has been hijacked by low quality videos swearing up and down that China’s economy will collapse tomorrow.

Thank you for the interesting link! It seems to hold the key to why Germany declared war against the U.S. - essentially it was a condition of Japan’s first strike against the U.S.:

On 28 November 1941, Ribbentrop confirmed to Hiroshi Oshima, the Japanese ambassador to Germany, what Hitler himself had told Japanese foreign minister Yosuke Matsuoka: that if Japan got involved in a war with the US, Germany would enter the war on Japan's side. When the Japanese asked for written confirmation of this, Hitler provided it, along with Mussolini's consent.

Further down clarifies that the agreement only triggered for defense, not offense

> According to the terms of their agreements, Germany was obliged to come to the aid of Japan if a third country attacked Japan, but not if Japan attacked a third country. Ribbentrop reminded Hitler of this, and pointed out that to declare war against the US would add to the number of enemies Germany was fighting, but Hitler dismissed this concern as not being important,[3] and, almost entirely without consultation, chose to declare war against the US, wanting to do so before, he thought, American president Franklin D. Roosevelt would declare war on Germany.

I know this is a serious thread, but it reminds me of Norm’s bit: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uXdtafGdIVM

Nazi Germany stood a reasonable chance of winning WW2. They made many mistakes as well as underestimating the resistance that Britain would provide, but victory was certainly feasible through 1941 or 1942.

Did it really? It will always be hard to estimate, I read articles arguing either way.

But it seems, certainly, from the perspective of 1930s, WWII would mean for them attacking a coalition of Poland, France and UK, and attacking Russia and USA down the line (I understand this was always the plan). UK and France were the two dominant superpowers of the era, with US on the way up.

It's not, IMHO, incomparable to the current situation. Only a madman would attack the "West", be it NATO, EU, or its allies in Asia; the chances of victory are perhaps not negligible, but expected gain certainly very poor. But it seems there's something in human history to disregard such calculus and plough on regardless.

> Did it really? It will always be hard to estimate, I read articles arguing either way.

That's certainly fair, and a definite delta from your previous "probably not, or a slim chance" statement. Thanks for considering alternate views.

In retrospect all history seems like it followed the inevitable course. I think we can certainly say that Nazi Germany were confident enough in victory to start the war.

Off-topic - I highly recommend watching the show "The Man in the Highcastle" on Amazon. It depicts a future in which Germany and Japan won World War II.

And it’s a pretty meh show

Regarding defining the "winner" of a global war, I can't help thinking of the quote from General Thomas Power, head of US SAC in the late 1950s and early 1960s:

"Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_S._Power

> the West could, if needed, find other trading partners

Caveat: I'm not an expert, but I think this is too simplistic. If both sides completely divorced from each other, Western factories would probably struggle to manufacture a lot of things, because they rely on components from China, components you and I have probably never considered necessary.

E.g: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/24/russian-invasion-of-ukraine-...

It’ll be very very very painful, Great Depression and beyond levels of pain, but doable.

If it starts today, in 10-15 years the western world can be back to its current level.

Without globalization and huge trade volumes, the west would be far less influential in the world. I'm no fan of US imperialism, but abandoning the plan at this point seems foolish. The western public isn't in favor of the more overt military dominance that would be necessary to maintain supremacy while cutting out foreign manufacturing dependence.

There's no doubt that our current Western way of life would be hard or impossible to recreate without the goods and services provided outside of the West, but there's certainly a smaller experiment in the same vein going on since 2020. The amount of national security threats alone caused by not being able to reliably ship goods internationally has created an interesting drama to watch unfold.

> The Taiwan situation is interesting but ultimately China knows they won't be able to take Taiwan by force without extreme consequences - nor would it be easy.

Is there a reason to be sure they are this rational? Some people just get mad and kill others just for sake of "honour" as their weird philosophy defines it, no matter the consequences.

Indeed, I feel many are betting on rationality coming on top and that simply makes no sense to me.

For example, does it seem like the Russian public is rational in any way? There are many approving of the 'denazification' rhetoric in Ukraine. Since the CCP has been pushing the narrative that Taiwan is China, it's somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Meanwhile, believing what do politicians say is among the most absurdly irrational acts possible. It is a well known fact lying and manipulating is their everyday job. Historically this has been especially intense and well known in Russia. To me it seems really weird and fascinating there still are people trusting politicians in Russia.

> but there's almost no way China and Russia would win such a war

For any sensible definitions of 'win', there's also no way the US can win against China, or even Russia. Both China and Russia are impossible to successfully invade and they both have nuclear weapons (same applies to the US).

These 3 countries do not want to go to war against each others and they won't. As the WOPR once wisely concluded, the only winning move is not to play.

So every time the US 'flex their muscles' over Ukraine or Taiwan we pretty much know that this is rhetorics and that they won't actually intervene directly.

Edit: I'm bowing in shame and have corrected WOPR (not Whopper). Thanks @jgrahamc.

I can’t leave “Whopper” uncorrected. It’s WOPR and stands for War Operation Plan Response.

The problem with war is that you lose control of the situation extremely fast.

Whether the countries want to go to war doesn’t matter when a bluff that isn’t a bluff is called.

Being sure that nobody else would intervene directly in Ukraine is why the Russians could do on a nationwide scale what nobody thought they would do: bombing every building civilian homes, malls, schools and hospitals is unheard of, at least when done on purpose and on a such large scale. What i find disgusting is that we're slowly adapting to it, and the Russians know that. However, it is possible that if China invades Taiwan, that event could trigger also an intervention against Russia, at least if one takes for granted that in a direct US vs China conflict, they would quickly escalate to nuclear and Russia would be sucked in as well.

> bombing every building civilian homes, malls, schools and hospitals is unheard of...

I have read that this exact strategy was used successfully and quite recently by Russia in most of its previous conflicts, most notably the complete destruction of Grozny in the 1990's[1], not to mention the bombings in WWII with were completely indiscriminate from both sides, so I think you're just uninformed, with all due respect.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grozny_(1994%E2%80%9...

I knew about the bombings of Dresden (Berlin, Hamburg etc.) in WWII and Grozny; what I meant was the extension of the bombings in Ukraine: the Russians bombed pretty much every city in the center, south and west regions, including lots of villages of no or little military importance.

The firebombing of Dresden was done on purpose.

So instead we see endless proxy wars where these three powers use other countries as battlegrounds killing other people.

My half Ukrainian wife says that the US is willing to fight the war in Ukraine until the last Ukrainian.

The fact that USA is doing anything for Ukraine is astounding all in itself.

Russia is not even a remote threat to USA, besides nuclear weapons.

Russia is a threat to Europe - Ukraine, Georgia, Baltics, Poland, Finland, Kazahstan.

And still Germany and France would be happy to give up Ukraine whole to Russia if not for USA.

Germany was happily making itself dependent on Russia and paying Russia to modernize their army. Germany was even bypassing their own sanctions after 2014 to deliver weapons components to Russia that are now being found in wrecks in Ukraine. All while Germany is deeply relaying on USA for defense from Russia. It's crazy that USA was so chill about it until Trump.

As a Pole born and raised 40km from Kaliningrad oblast it's really weird that I trust USA more than I do Germany, France, Italy etc.

Yeah, completely agree. European countries are almost helpless without USA's weapons to defend them... they just thought they were too civilized to go to war again anytime soon, I guess, letting the USA bear the burden of actually investing in the military while they just did the bare minimum. But the situation between Russia and Germany is more complicated than that... Germany did not see Russia as the enemy as far as I see it even after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The large dependencies on Russian gas/oil/coal/etc that Germany incurred make sense when you consider that... they had a weird kind of debt to Russia for helping remove the Nazis from power and were working under the assumption that the only way to keep a big neighbour from trying to destroy you is to keep friendly relations with them, which I find is the right approach even when sometimes that doesn't work too well. The alternative of always seeing the big neighbour as a threat and with utmost suspicion (I guess that's Poland the and the Baltic states approach, as well as most of Ukraine after the Orange Revolution) is bound to lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy as that's obviously going to lead to hostilities with enough time (just try that with your suburban neighbours).

When a country is trying very hard to delete you from existence for hundreds of years it's very hard to not be suspicious of that country. Poland lost 20% of population in WWII started by Germany and Soviet Russia. Every fifth person dead.

You may also notice that Poland and Ukraine are on perfectly friendly terms with Germany. Because Germany came to terms with Nazism and Holocaust.

But Russia never gave up on their imperialism. It wasn't even until 2011 that Russia admitted that Stalin ordered Katyń Massacre despite clear and direct orders in Russian archives.

It's really hundreds of years of Russia trying to subjugate us. Russia partitioned Poland in 1795. We've been subject to forced russification. Despite many brutally crashed uprisings and revolutions we did not regain independence for 123 years. Then after WWI we got almost immediately plunged in war with Soviet Union due to unsettled borders and them wanting to spread communist revolution to the west. Then we got attacked by both Germans and Soviets in 1939. Last Russian soldiers left Poland in 1993.

Behavior of Russian soldiers did not change from WWII till this day. What my grandmother lived trough during WWII is happening now in Ukraine. Senseless killing of civilians and mass rapes of women and children. That's exactly what my grandmother remembers.

It's not a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's like telling a women beaten by a husband that she did not make enough attempt at appeasing him.

Even damn Pushkin "To the Slanderers of Russia" from 1831 describes Russian attitude today very well.

  Why rave ye, babblers, so — ye lords of popular wonder?
  Why such anathemas ‘gainst Russia do you thunder?
  What moves your idle rage? Is’t Poland’s fallen pride?
  ‘T is but Slavonic kin among themselves contending,
  An ancient household strife, oft judged but still unending,
  A question which, be sure, you never can decide.

  Which shall stand fast in such commotion
  The haughty Liakh, or faithful Russ?
  And shall Slavonic streams meet in a Russian ocean? –
  Or il’t dry up? This is point for us.

  Leave us!: Your eyes are all unable
  To read our history’s bloody table;

  Ye’re bold of tongue — but hark, would ye in deed but try it
  Or is the hero, now reclined in laurelled quiet,
  Too weak to fix once more, Izmail’s red bayonet?
  Or hath the Russian Tsar ever, in vain commanded?
  Or must we meet all Europe banded?
  Have we forgot to conquer yet?

https://russianuniverse.org/2014/09/24/slanderers-of-russia/

Even what you read in poems like Reduta Ordona from 1832 after November Uprising could very well describe today. Just replace Polish references with Ukrainian:

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/my-tribute-to-adam-mickiewic...

  When Turks beyond the Balkans are threatened by your bronze,
  When the Paris legation lick the feet of yours, -
  Warsaw alone your power hurls abuse at,
  Raises its hand on you and takes off the ‘hat',
  The crown of Kazimierz, Chrobry Dynasty of your head,
  Because you son of Wasil, have stolen it and with blood stained!

  The tsar is surprised - the Petersburg men shiver in fear,
  The tsar gets angry - out of fear die his courtiers;
  But the armies pour, who's God and faith
  The tsar is - angry tsar: we die, we'll amuse him.

> Poland lost 20% of population in WWII started by Germany and Soviet Russia. Every fifth person dead.

Germany started the war. The Soviet Union was forced into it much later by Germany declaring war on them.

> Poland lost 20% of population in WWII

No country lost more people in WWII than the Soviet Union, as I'm sure you're aware. Your feelings of huge loss are shared by the Russians.

> You may also notice that Poland and Ukraine are on perfectly friendly terms with Germany.

It's just because Germany left Polan much longer than the Soviet Union did. With time, you'll also "forgive" the Soviet Union, their crimes pale in comparison with the Germans.

> It's really hundreds of years of Russia trying to subjugate us.

Poland has been occupied by many other countries[1]. It was Prussia and the Autro-Hungray Empires that occupied it for the longest, not Russia... that's how European politics always played out, a big struggle for smaller states living between the bigger ones... why single out Russia? Probably only because it was the latest invader and memroy from previous occupations is fading.

Do you really believe being hostile to Russia will somehow be benefitial to Poland in the longer term?... if history is anything to go by, you should watch both West and East of your border while trying to stay "friendly", or at least neutral, in relations with both.

[1] https://brilliantmaps.com/invaded-poland/

Soviet Russia STARTED WWII together with Germany. They agreed it with Germans.

Soviets attacked Poland on 17th September 1939. Their army and tanks crossed Polish border.

Then they shook hands with Germans and proceeded to annex Poland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland

Then NKVD proceeded to exterminate Polish military officers and intelligentsia during the Katyń Massacre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

The goal was to destroy Polish state.

> Do you really believe being hostile to Russia will somehow be benefitial to Poland in the longer term?

We deal with the Russia the way it is. Not the way we would want it to be.

Russia is hostile towards us first and foremost.

And personally, I wouldn't be more happy if Russians had the balls to clean up their mess.

Kick Putin and his siloviki out and start normal productive participation in the world.

> why single out Russia?

Because Russia is waging a freaking war with Ukraine right now and threatening nuclear holocaust to Poland?!

Like WTF?!

> The goal was to destroy Polish state.

Are you sure? From your link:

"The reason for the massacre, according to the historian Gerhard Weinberg, was that Stalin wanted to deprive a potential future Polish military of a large portion of its talent".

Also, if they wanted to destroy the Polish state, they probably would have then as Poland had no way to defend itself at the time.

> Because Russia is waging a freaking war with Ukraine right now and threatening nuclear holocaust to Poland?!

> Like WTF?!

Exactly. If you believe Russia is threatening nuclear holocaust and has an agenda to destroy all Poles for whatever reason, I can see how you would be prepared to do anything in your power to destroy them, perhaps kill off every one in their country, because that would be justified if your aprehensions are true.

That makes me scared for the future of Europe because this sort of hatred is bound to, one day, blow up again, sooner than most think (as it's doing now in Ukraine).

Yes of course. And why not? As long as the Ukrainians are willing to fight then it makes total sense to support them. It doesn't cost very much relative to our defense budget. The losses Russia is suffering will take them many years to rebuild, and will temporarily eliminate them as a conventional threat to our allies in the region. We get to see whether our weapons actually work or need improvements. And we are partially rebuilding our reputation as a reliable international partner after the debacle in Afghanistan.

If the Ukrainians don't want to fight the war then they can surrender at any time.

And Russia is willing to fight it to the last Dagestani, Ossetian etc.

Where’s China proxywarring?

Wars in Vietnam, Korea, Central America, Syria, just to name a few.

>There was absolutely zero talk of the US/NATO directly intervening militarily in Ukraine.

NPR hosted the former commander of NATO who called for the US to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine, to include shooting down Russian jets. Numerous Senators and Congressmen backed one as well.

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/03/1084310587/former-nato-comman...

Yeah but the U.S. didn't do that, did they?

The assertion was "zero talk" of such intervention, my point is that there quite a lot of public and private discussion on the matter. Yes, Biden ultimately shot down the idea (thankfully). Unsettling to me that it picked up enough steam where he felt he had to make a statement on it.

> Biden has clearly and repeatedly stated that the US would defend Taiwan

And he was rebutted by the White House when it looked like he meant that the US would intervene militarily

No-one doubts that the US would help, e.g. by supplying intelligence, weapons, etc. as they do now. But they would not send troops and they would not engage (nice word to mean 'attack') the Chinese.

No, we have a good idea of what will happen and the US have always given clues in their actions (which have been to help but to never commit to intervene because, well, they know they won't...)

> Most likely the US would intervene militarily at some level with sea and air attacks

That's extremely unlikely to inconceivable because, again, the USA are not going to start a war with China because there's no path to winning, only to nuclear annihilation.

Both sides know that. Both sides will not attack each other whatever happens.

Exactly limited warfare maybe to keep each other behind red lines. It’s bad though because sometimes there are mistakes and escalation

> China's economy depends on being able to export to the West

China's import is far more important for now.

It imports vast amounts of food and fuel by boat. It would be trivial to stop those.

China is unlikely to directly invade Taiwan in the next few years because they know they lack the airborne and amphibious lift capacity to make it stick. The greater risk is some sort of minor incident or miscalculation which then escalates out of control. They might try to land forces on one of the small outlying islands claimed by Taiwan. Or there could be an accidental collision at sea involving significant loss of life.

"At the end of the day it's just a handful of people who get to decide these things" I disagree, there are far more factors playing at hand. A government is made of many people. Or as example, general A decided to attack, but the army couldn't progress due to bad weather. He did his decision but it didn't matter.

Sometimes one thing leads to another. WWIII-type conflict could be started by states that are not superpowers.

> When I look at the world unfold in the 2020's, it seems very few people accounted for how much corruption, economics, social media, propaganda, etc. would factor into geopolitics.

While I agree that propaganda has never quite been as hyper-targeted to specific micro-populations as it is today, you can't forget the larger role propaganda has played since, say, the printing press. Especially propaganda tied to the same concerns as today: economic insecurity, racial and cultural in-groups and out-groups, etc. Ask a Southern male US citizen in the 1850s what he thought about the island of Cuba — although he likely never would have any interaction whatsoever with the island, its inhabitants or its politics, he would've encountered (and probably adopted) talking points given to him by propaganda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostend_Manifesto

> China preparing to invade Taiwan ...

There is, as of now, no evidence China is preparing to invade anything. There's always sable rattling, hasn't happened yet.

> Wars happen when two or nation's drive for self-preservation collide

That's a naive view of war, which ignores individual a-holes. There's no self-preservation in Russia invading Ukraine...

I understand it's easy to despair and fear seeing some of the things happening in the world. I am much more optimistic.

>That's a naive view of war, which ignores individual a-holes. There's no self-preservation in Russia invading Ukraine...

Russia was massively clear during the pre-invasion buildup that it was about Ukrainian NATO aspirations. They offered to deescalate and remove troops from the boarder if US declared opposition to Ukrainian admission. They publicly stated they saw it as an existential threat and were willing to invade over it.

It sounds like it is possible to justify the invasion, if you have a good enough story...

It is still not clear if the threat was real or imagined, I'd the "deescalation" proposition had real things or was just a very unrealistic set of terms and essentially an excuse to proceed. NATO was less ready to accept any new members half a year ago than it is now.

>NATO was less ready to accept any new members half a year ago than it is now.

That's probably the case for many of the nordics but not Ukraine.

In 2021 NATO declared verbatim that Ukraine would become part of NATO and its process would proceed. Now it is on hold because NATO doesn't admit Nations with active conflicts and territorial disputes.

Of course russia doesnt get a formal vote in who NATO admits, but they have a de facto vote via the invasion. The US and NATO are scaling back military exercises in the Black Sea this year[1], which historically threatened Russia.

https://gcaptain.com/us-navy-ships-stay-home-nato-flexes-bla...

I agree to it being an existential threat - to Moscow and the Kremlin.

(Which is what matters.)

A prospering, west-oriented, large and largely Russophone country on their borders would be a terrible reminder for both populations what a massive failure the Russian state is.

I was mainly thinking of the geopolitical ramifications, but that's a very good point as well with interesting similarities to China. The mere existence of Prosperous Chinese "Rogue States" like Hong Kong and Taiwan undermine the legitimacy of the CCP

It's mostly self-preservation of the regimes in that country, Fidel Castro taught the worlds' dictators that they can stay in charge for life as long as there is a big external enemy so people naturally rally around a strong leader. It triggers a deeply instinctive group behavior where it's not the right time for "change".

If the world becomes more unsafe it's because autocratic leaders are feeling the pressure of their citizens, mainly due to the internet and free access to information.

You can see this in the Arab world where the enemy is always "israel and the zionist world order", the US in Cuba and Venezuela, NATO in Russia, the "western humiliation" in China, Colonization in Zimbabwe, ...

It somehow always winds up that organizations that promote democracy are agents of the west and should be suppressed. Formenting domestic problems in democracies only serves to make their regime look better in comparison.

Will this lead to a world war? I don't think so, but there will definitely be a lot of manufactured conflict designed for their own internal consumption.

In Russia's case, the Belarus and Kazakhstan revolutions apparently triggered the regime sufficiently to into an unprovoked invasion with a "kill list" of Russian speakers that were critical of the kremlin and the resolve to drag the only russian-speaking area under democratic rule into poverty.

China doesn't have a pressing need to invade anybody at the moment but I do believe that they will blockade Taiwan in the next decade.

I have a quite different (and most likely biased) opinion than most people (here or in Western countries).

WWIII is already happening. The US is closing up on Russia now for more than a decade. China is growing economically but they are still far away militarily and except for Russia there isn't really another contender for the US militarily speaking.

Before 2010 the world was quite multi-polar with the US being the leader. Now, we are moving to a uni-polar world and this is of course triggering reactions both from China, Russia and countries that want to remain sovereign (ie: India, Brazil, ASEAN, etc...)

Countries not in the western sphere are already aware of this. The EU is quite aware of this too and it's going to be a loser in this new order but it doesn't seem to be able to build a politically independent force to have its own policy. Russia is the main target and they know this, that's why they are freaking out. China probably doesn't like Russia much but certainly would prefer a multi-polar world (at least until they are able to become the leader); so they'll help the Russians to slow down the West. Major other countries like India do not like China or Russia but they are concerned about the accumulation of power and inflation in the West/US hands. Smaller countries are trying to survive in this environment and feed their people either by selling their young labor for pennies, or opening their borders for rich people from the West to sun bathe.

That's the world for you, in a nutshell.

If I am to predict the future:

- Russia gets drawn in a long war with Ukraine. The US is playing the long game of starving them financially and technologically.

- China will probably collapse in a spectacular fashion. They are far from being a united country. The outcome won't be easy to predict and China is huge. It is possible this will happen without much disruption to trading lines.

- Europe/Euro/Schengen will end sometime in the next 10 years. Some European countries will be back to third-world status.

- With the fall of the Euro, the US dollar will become the ultimate currency. The US will be able to yield enormous influence all over the world.

This take is based on alternative realities.

The western conspiracy over Russia is the Russian narrative and doesn't make any sense whatsoever because if you look closely won't be able to explain why Europe opted to depend on energy from Russia when conspiring to start a conflict with Russia. In reality, the west was simply naive to believe that what worked for EU would work with Russia too and that is the peace model through inter-dependence. Why would you start a conflict with your neighbours when you depend on their wellbeing? It turns out, when the neighbours leaders don't stay in power by providing prosperity for its people the model doesn't work.

For the West, Russia is relevant as a petrol station. Russia has turned into a petrostate and unlike Norway they chose to live off it and not do much more. Russia is no contender to the west in any form. Some might blame this too on the west but it's not west that has chosen Putin.

The EU is only weak in the Energy department(that's why they actually wanted this Russia thing to work). EU has a well educated and healthy society that is going through demographics crisis, which means there will be problems related to it but it's in much much better shape than China or any other place in the world with exception to the USA.

EU/Schengen etc might end at its current form but this is not a video game and those who fail don't simply disappear. Whatever replaces EU will be like EU in different configuration because it doesn't make any sense whatsoever to have 30 smallish countries trying to do their thing without cooperating. EU might fail and become an EU sans social security and human rights.

China, on the other hand, isn't going away and will be the primary contenders to the west because during the de-industrialisation of the west they build up huge production capacity and know how on industrial production and technology and west almost completely lost it. The main problem with China is that now they are actually very close to the west to catch up on science, technology and culture and design too which would mean complete Chinese dominence. Their primary disadvantage is that they have very serious demographics issues and they are poor on energy like EU.

I think they have a really interesting point that is contrary to many scholars about relative power. The decline of Russia and strength of the US was a prerequisite to the Ukrainian situation. If there were more power parody like the US and USSR, I think the US would have been much more cautious about building relationship and influence in Ukraine. Knowing that the US would be free from reprisal enables it to take the route it did before and during the conflict

Exactly. A hypothetical of Russia sending weapons to Cuba. How would you think the US will react? I wonder what the mass population opinion will be. American people will be freaking out and asking for immediate military intervention. Wait, we did see that scenario didn't we?

> Where is the war happening? It's happening at Putin's border. This is a defense war that Putin is leading.

This is an unprovoked war of aggression. The mental gymnastics in this paragraph is astonishing. By this logic, Hitler's invasion of Bohemia and Moravia were also defense wars, because it happened right at Hitler's border.

There is/was no conspiracy or threat to the existence of the Russian state. Nobody truly gives a fuck about Russia, as long as they keep the gas lines open and they don't use nerve agents to kill their dissidents abroad. Nobody wants to invade or nuke Russia, most westerners don't even think about Russia.

> Where is the war happening? It's happening at Putin's border. This is a defense war that Putin is leading.

So if Turkey attacks Greece it would be Erdogan's defence war because it would happen at Turkey's borders?

Hard to follow that logic. Do you say that the invasions are actually defensive moves when they happen at the invaders borders(which is always the case when you invade a neighbour).

EU has a healthy society with ageing population. That's the crisis, it's not like middle east or Africa but like early stages of Japan. The USA doesn't have that problem, China has it much more severely.

> Before 2010 the world was quite multi-polar with the US being the leader. Now, we are moving to a uni-polar world

Don't you mean the opposite? It was unipolar since the end of WW2, with US being the top superpower. Now other countries want, and can get, a piece of the pie. To be fair that means pretty much only China.

Sorry, I still don't get it. Forget WW2, you said the US became the leader in 2010. I argue it has been the only superpower with worldwide economic and military reach before that date, if not since the end of WW2. Also, why 2010? If you're referring to the economic crisis, I can't see the US position in the world stage being affected post-2008.

You also say EU was another leader, but Europe is a superpower that has always been under the American wing since the end of the war. If US said "jump", Europe has been asking "how high" since 1945. They're best pals, but only one of them actually calls the shot.

But the point isn't Europe. It's that US has been the big boss for the entire post-war era, Soviet Russia tried to establish itself but failed and declined, now China has been having much more success than USSR ever did, but they are not looking to play second fiddle, hence this talk about WW3.

Okay, I'll try to explain. Let's say you have 10 armadas with nuclear weapons and shit. Cool stuff and you do have power, at least on paper.

Now country A is speaking French, they are trading with country B; and they are importing their shit from France. They use the Swiss banking System. And they rely on German for cars. Most importantly, if you ask them for passage they say "No". They don't seem keen to please you despite your military superiority. Worse, Country "C" just straight out hate you and will undermine your companies and efforts. They also don't seem to be afraid and willing to go on a losing war with you.

See?

The US had military power coming from WW2. But they didn't have the equivalent financial or political power. Other countries did. They have been working on establishing puppets all over the place with varying success. But it's not as easy as having the military; and some military interventions went really badly.

I disagree vehemently with your last paragraph. Who are these countries that were stronger than the US and creating puppets after the war?

It's the US that has created puppets all over the world. Meddling with South American governments, the Taliban during the Russian invasion of Afganistan, the Gulf War, etc.

And yes, the US has lost some wars, but it's pretty much the only one able to pay for an army to invade and fight abroad pretty much every decade! In what kind of a reverso world is a country with 10 armada and nuclear weapons not the top dog?

Sorry, I really can't agree with your argument of the US ever having been weak, without saying outright who was/is stronger. If by "other countries" you mean Europe, let me remind you that it is a continent, and even EU is as not united as USA nor creating puppets anywhere.

The economic angle doesn't make sense either. US and the dollar has been the world top currency and macroeconomic baseline since the 70s.

I don't see the EU running a Gladio like operation on US territory. What I do see is the lack of repercussion after it was revealed that the was executing these operations in Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

This is a very interesting and unusual take, pretty much the exact opposite of what I usually see.

It's just the Russian narrative. A popular take in the countries where the Russian influence is strong. AKA the sneaky West cornered Russia and was about to strike Moscow and that's why Putin had to start a special operation in Ukraine and push NATO away from its borders.

The thing I've never understood about that propaganda is: What does Russia have that the USA wants? More land? USA has plenty of land, much of it totally unused and unpopulated. Oil? USA now exports it. More rivers? Ports? Developed cities? No, no, and no. The USA has nothing to gain by invading and occupying Russia. Sorry to my Russian friends, but the country is kind of small-potatoes economically, as well. What does the propaganda say that the USA wants?

There are obviously misaligned goals.

No the US does not want to invade Russia. No Russia does not want to invade the US. But that doesn't stop them from fighting over conflicting interest. It is all about who has the bigger knife at the other's throat and the ability to limit the others actions.

What did the US and Russia want in Syria? The US wanted ot overthrow Assad and Russia wanted to keep Assad.

The most credible Russian claim is that they didn't want the US and NATO in Ukraine. Why does that matter even if the US doesn't want to invade Russia? Because it gives the us more leverage in Russia less. It's easier to shut down airspace, ports, Pipelines, and obviously makes Russia less threatening to Europe then they would be with a Russian aligned Ukraine.

Similarly, there is no credible scenario where China or Russia invades the US. However, the US would feel very strongly about either of them having a strong military presence in Cuba and the Caribbean.

The US wants Russia (and the entire rest of the world) to adopt its way of life and liberal-democratic/neoliberal/globalist values.

Most countries try to feed their population what makes them feel proud, calm and ready (got a war to fight? Time for nationalism and that BS).

Of course, if you are living in a country where the war is happening, you tend to see things differently. Many people in the West haven't seen a war in a long time and would happily believe what the general media is telling them; or the other side of the media (the alternative media).

Very thought provoking take. But I think Russia will splinter long before China. Specifically the eastern and some of the central asian parts of Russia have no upside to staying in the federation. They are being sucked dry and if Moscow loses its grip from the attrition of a war, things will crack.

I don't have much knowledge of China, it just appears from the outside to me that the State is in much more control.

Russia is way more advanced and united than China. Don't look at GDP figures, these are inflated and a bad measure of how advanced an economy is.

Look at this last coronavirus crisis: Russia was able to procure a more advanced vaccine than China. You'd think the second most powerful and planned economy in the world should have done better but it didn't.

Edit: Another measure to look at it. Look how many countries of the world were affected by this last war with Russia. (either for food, rockets, raw materials, etc...)

On my side I think its inevitable. The only question is "when", my 2c on why "inevitable" and some thoughts on where we are.

Inevitable because thats history. Pax Americana has effectively come to an end with the Taliban giveaway. The official end will be if/when they abandon Taiwan; and thats why people care so much. If US can't intervene to save its allies then their word means shit. US has become complacent, self-absorbed in its own problems and as every "empire" crumbling from within. The signs are pretty visible both economically and socially and I won't expand because it would take a whole essay. Point is, when an empire stumbles, others run to take its place (or a piece of it). Of course, there is the asterisk of nuclear weapons that ensure MAD but I bet that millions or billions of man hours are spent on finding ways to avoid MAD on both sides. If that will result in MAD in the end , I don't know; but I don't think its a deterrent which is as real as it was in the 60s.

How close are we? I would put a timeframe of 10-15 years if no other major event comes up. Because US is not what it used to be 10years ago even. The fuckup in north africa was the start, the absolute plunder in Afghanistan was next. People in US are tired of wars as inequality grows and the political system offers no exit. Couple this with a societal swift towards postmodernity thanks to the arrogance of the "elites" and you have a great mix of angered populace with no regards to rationality. Now the war in UKR creates a fundamentally unstable system in the heart of Europe. This system will have to stabilize one way or the other, Russia cannot remain a pariah for a long time or it will risk making it even more aggresive. China is asking for "lebenraum" in southeast sea which US doesn't want to give (but IMO they will be forced to). If China decides to take Taiwan the option is either war with china in their backyard, or backing out and accelerate the US downfall. Either way, it won't go out without a boom, it never does.

Newer generations in advanced countries (including me) view war as something extraterrestrial but reality is that its an everyday phenomenon for the biggest part of the world and for the most time in history. So its easy to think/hope that it will be like this forever and "war is finished", but Ukraine showed to most Europeans that its not (and IMO thats what shocked them the most)

> Inevitable because thats history. Pax Americana has effectively come to an end with the Taliban giveaway.

From the Euro POV, Pax Americana ended with the second invasion of Iraq. This was a complete misuse of the post-war common pact system based on lies. Since Europe was on the receiving end of those lies, it has not been forgotten.

This is a common view throughout Europe across many political boundaries. The reason that this is important is that the opinion of the rest of the world is what gives Pax Americana its power.

My 2c, I still don't think it's over.

I find hard to believe that the ruling class in Europe thinks Pax Americana is over since Iraq. Especially considering how spineless they are in geopolitics terms. I(have) to believe that they still dream about americans coming to the rescue

I was speaking of the general population.

Henry Kissinger in the Wall Street Journal last week:

> “We are at the edge of war with Russia and China on issues which we partly created, without any concept of how this is going to end or what it’s supposed to lead to,” he says. Could the U.S. manage the two adversaries by triangulating between them, as during the Nixon years? He offers no simple prescription. “You can’t just now say we’re going to split them off and turn them against each other. All you can do is not to accelerate the tensions and to create options, and for that you have to have some purpose.”

> https://www.wsj.com/articles/henry-kissinger-is-worried-abou...

He had something to say already in May about Ukraine at Davos: “Kissinger vs. Soros on Russia and Ukraine” https://www.wsj.com/articles/dueling-approaches-to-world-ord... (on a lighter note, this URL sounds like a conspiracy theory bingo card)

The most amazing part of this article is that Kissinger is still alive.

And still doing interviews about geopolitics at 99 years old.

Nah. The difficulty that Russia has had with taking any significant portion of Ukraine has, if anything, shown the folly of military adventurism in the post-modern era. Remember that in WW2 Poland and France lasted for about a month before capitulation.

I think the opposite. It is a new high water mark for proxy wars since Vietnam, surpassing Syria in many ways.

The Ukrainian invasion was a lose lose situation for Russia and will damage Russia massively. That doesnt mean it is worse than the alternative of not invading for them.

If I were playing risk and not with human lives, I would do the same

Yes. For more about the actual plan - I recommend looking into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare - the Chinese plan to take over the world.

The have recruited Russia in this effort (Russia doesn't mind getting their hands dirty - China likes to avoid physical wars, when possible see Sun Tzu - "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."). They plan to divide the spoils once the world moves on from a US Hegemony/Dollar based world.

And the Russian counterpart of that book: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

1) Russia is about to lose bigley to a backwater country called Ukraine.

2) China has a tin-pot military that has not really fought an external war since Korea.

No.

China and Russia have deployed hypersonic missiles - America has not.

Notice the investment from China in "Carrier Killers" https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2021/10/the-unusual-car... - both in boats and planes.

And if Russia could build half a million of them and another 2000 Mig-31s to fire them it might be a serious threat.

Russia can develop high tech weaponry, it just lacks the economy and industry to really build and field large amounts of it.

It should be firing thousand of cruise and ballistic missiles a day at Ukraine, instead you hear of a couple of missiles here and there.

Those hypersonic missiles are really turning the tide in Ukraine /s

Take a look at the Sino-Vietnamese War, 1979.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War

> With Russia invading Ukraine & China preparing to invade Taiwan, I can't help but wonder.

And before that the US invaded Iraq (twice), Afghanistan, various other countries (arguably including Vietnam and Korea). The USSR also invaded Afghanistan. Plus various other proxy conflicts.

WWIII, in the sense of an all out war, won't happen because the opponents all have nuclear weapons and are too big in any case.

The West is careful not to directly attack Russia in Ukraine. Russia will be careful not to attack any NATO countries. If mainland China at one point launches an invasion of Taiwan the same will happen: China will be careful not to attack the US and allies, and the US and allies will be careful not to attack China.

Really, the same that has been happening since 1945 between US and Russia, and since the end of the Korean War between China and US (when the US understood that China was off-limit as well).

It's just that since the fall of the USSR people in the US and the West have become used to run the show unopposed. This is no longer the case and we are 'simply' going back to a situation where several opposing major powers (really, that means the US and China) match each other (or at least are strong enough relative to each other to be assertive).

Thank you for your reply. I learned a lot here and it does give me some peace of mind.

I've deactivated social media and barely check the news but things still seep through on my phone, on reddit, here.

I'm trying to just build my happy life in Maui at the age of 32, try to become free in every sense while I have the energy and drive.

> I'm trying to just build my happy life in Maui at the age of 32

Sounds like a good plan. Take it easy!

I don't believe NATO will work in case of direct attack from Russia, e.g. if Russia decided to "denationalise" Poland or Litva. They'll send weapons and may be some limited help, but they won't engage into a full scale war, I don't believe it. There's no point for US soldier to die for Poland territory, especially knowing that it'll cause nuclear response killing his family. NATO is good as long as nobody powerful challenges it. It won't last forever.

The big players and medium players will continue to play out their proxy conflicts where they can. Some fighting might happen, but I don't think we will see an other global war. There is just too little to play for even without nukes.

Africa and Middle East might be riskiest areas. Also Pakistan and India might escalate. Not sure about South America if something would go on there.

I think China will limit their territorial ambitions to opportunities to project power and areas they have history or claim with.

Nuclear weapons are deterrents, they have a very limited use against actual military targets, only against civilians. Going nuclear means that there will be no more prize worth taking, and one’s own survival is jeopardized.

Which means that conventional wars are still very much possible when the implicitly agreed rules of engagement are formulated and accepted by the warring parties.

You are assuming rational actors. Look around at politicians and CEOs everywhere and tell me where is your confidence coming from?

> In the 2010's, many people told me 'WWIII will never happen, the world is too interdependent'.

That's because it happens this way - not as immediately global and not as intense as one would expect from a world war - because the world has became more dense and viscous so processes like that happen this way like processes in molten glass compared to processes in a gas.

> China preparing to invade Taiwan

They have been preparing for a long time, but Taiwan is preparing extremely well, too. If China decides to strike, they will take enormous damage and if they succeed, they will just get some barren land with toxic waste which is an unreasonably high price to pay and completely unnecessary - it's not like they lack land like Bangladesh.

>They have been preparing for a long time, but Taiwan is preparing extremely well, too.

Are they? My coworker doesn't speak highly of his time in Taiwan's armed forces. Government ministers have begun to speak frankly on this issue, too. Apparently they overinvested in expensive, flashy systems like tanks and jets while underinvesting in training, drones, defensive weapons and personnel.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/15/china-threat-invasion-c...

Very unlikely. Posturing regarding China is much cheaper than any action, the US was barely willing to take any action regarding Russia, and that's at least an order of magnitude cheaper. Consider that in any outright war, a company like Apple would no longer own anything beyond a trademark, and would have zero manufacturing ability. The costs would be massive - and for what? A small island in the Pacific?

As long as China doesn't launch missiles at the Pacific second island chain or carriers, an escalation to a world war even in a situation where they launch a military attack on Taiwan is unlikely.

Look beyond the rhetoric and I think even the ~ 20% odds on prediction sites is much too high, mostly clouded by recency bias.

Sure, why not. Wars happen. World wars happen. Peace was never supposed to be eternal.

I started pivoting my software engineering skills to be more useful at wartime since 2018 (GIS, simulations, network analysis etc.)

World war 3? No probably not in the traditional sense of war like world war 2. But could this be the ground work for a devastating nuclear war? Absolutely.

WW3 will not happen. Countries are not stupid to destroy the Earth.

Local wars here and there happened and will happen in the future. There's nothing special about Ukraine or Taiwan in that regard.

World will move from US-centric model to multi-polar model. One pole is China, one pole is Russia, one pole is EU, one pole is US, one pole is Iran. Confused about India but probably it'll be a separate pole as well. Probably there will be African pole and South-American pole. Economy, Internet, Science will be divided among those poles. Some poles will cooperate, some poles will not. Countries will join some pole or dive into anarchy. That's the script for next 50-100 years, then another country will rise as a world hegemon. I expect it to be China, but I might be wrong.

“WW3 will not happen. Countries are not stupid to destroy the Earth.”

That’s pretty optimistic. I wish I was less pessimistic. I think it’s just a matter of time.

I think that the world is now more unipolar than ever before. Russia is repeatedly proving that it worth nearly nothing both in military and political sense, the Chinese military power is also very much overestimated. EU is nearly defenseless on their own too.

Only the US has the military power to win any existential war (small wars of course can still be “lost”, as the adversary can become the prize not worth taking).

I don't agree to your judgement about Russia. Chinese army might lack some real fight experience, but they got numbers and they got budgets. EU increases their military budgets as well, so things will change in the future.

US has powerful army but that costs a lot. Once US economy will stagnate, and at this point that's pretty obvious, military budgets will be cut. US run from Afghanistan not because they achieved something but because they can't afford it anymore. It'll happen with other places.

Nuclear weapons. That's all it comes down to. If Russia didn't have them then (rightly or wrongly) Putin would have been bombed months ago. An existential war would involve large scale use of nuclear weapons, and the US cannot win that. Neither can Russia or China, mind you.

Nuclear weapons are deterrents, they have a very limited military use. Their only useful targets are cities (and sometimes other nuclear weapons), and they leave no prize. They can be used to end the war, but not to win the war.

I must make the assumption that you’re young. China today has set its path to carry out an action in 5-10 years when it’s ready. You never engage when you’re not prepared. You build up, plan, prepare, then act. That takes time. Remember, revenge is best served cold. China has stepped down today, but I can reassure you, in 5-10 years it will act militarily to avenge its current embarrasment. Just like Russia prepared for the last 8.

Russia won the war in the first 72 hours, now its grinding Ukraine and its supporters, they’re too stubborn to back away. Russia has also only committed 10% of their resources, the rest are on standby in case NATO intervenes.

> Russia won the war in the first 72 hours. Russia has also only committed 10% of their resources, the rest are on standby in case NATO intervenes.

Imagine the mental gymnastics you have to do to believe this.

Some sources:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-14/russia-tu...

> There are indications the Kremlin is running out of troops for its war with Ukraine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62496905

> the nation has been "forced into a greater reliance on old Soviet-era equipment, such as personnel carriers offering limited protection, and tanks last produced in 1973." > Kremlin is increasingly using "older, less-precise missiles for strikes, killing and injuring innocent people." > "These outdated tactics are a sign of Russia's desperation amid its equipment shortages and tactical deficiencies,"

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-running-out-steam-growing-de...

> Russia won the war in the first 72 hours,

This is a hilariously bad take considering they attempted to take Kyiv in the first 72 hours and now they're grinding for minimal gains in the south while losing most of their modern equipment and taking heavy losses.

> I must make the assumption that you’re young.

I am 39.

> "Russia won the war in the first 72 hours".

In which universe?

Russia is absolutely humiliated, their tanks are rusting in Ukrainian fields by hundreds, there are no new human reserves, morale on the front is all-time low, and Ukrainians are now bombing Crimean targets without any retaliation.

Which is a good thing, of course.

Sorry to burst your bubble but so far Ukrainian army did 0 wins and only suffers losses. They don't bomb Crimean targets, they do sabotages (or terroristic acts, depending on your side) which sometimes work. I will not carry on this conversation because this is US website and US fight for Ukraine, so it's pretty pointless, but you can't deny the big picture. I'll agree that Russia is not winning when Russia would lose any big city it captured. Like this mystical attack on Herson which is promised for months but not happening.

There’s 0 chance a South American pole forms so long as the US is around.

> Countries are not stupid to destroy the Earth.

Except for the climate change.

First assumption is faulty. That a nuclear war would "destroy the earth". It would not destroy the planet nor render it significantly uninhabitable. Which leads you to poor conclusions.

It does have significant consequences, will render some limited land area as radio active for a limited period of time (weeks to months). Survivors of the infrastructure destruction, chaos, and troop invasions will need to be careful of their sources of food and water for a while.

But it is very much a survivable event for most of the population if basic preparations are in place.

> It would not destroy the planet nor render it significantly uninhabitable.

And you are 100 percent sure that your assumption is correct? For if it is not, the potential cost of error for your hypothesis (total destruction) are infinitely higher than that of OP's (no nuclear war even though we could survive it). And that is independent of which assumption is more likely to be true. I wonder which conclusions are poor then.

What about nuclear winter?

Additionally, the idea that we could kill everyone on earth or kill everyone x times over is based on the idea that we are rounding up people and putting them in perfect concentric circles based on optimum detonation height and having everyone in the kill circle.

I mean, yeah, we could do that with the gun ammunition and kill everyone too, but it's ultimately a meaningless number.

Nukes are very very expensive to build and maintain. They are very destructive. But there is a lot of emotional arguments tied up in this that makes rational discussion about what actually happens almost impossible.

Radiation is either hot and thus has a very short half life or is long and also not particularly dangerous. The only element that straddles this line is cobalt. Hot enough to be dangerous, long lived enough to seriously impede life returning. To date it isn't known if anyone really has cobalt bombs, Russia might if anyone does.

But that's the closest thing I've ever seen that's a potential long term mass area denial weapon.

I've read a lot of the source material for nuclear winter. My conclusions are that it's very unrealistic. The assumptions it depends on are extremely slanted and have not been observed anywhere I can find. It's pretty baseless.

There is a lot of ignorance and emotion clouding reality and reason in this space.

Yes. Let's just remember that 49% of the population dying is most of the population surviving.

If the CCP invades the ROC it has to win fast, before Taiwan’s nuclear weapons program can spin back up. Losing to Beijing means death and organ harvesting for every member of the government of Taiwan, so I wouldn’t blame them for chosing death by nuclear exchange over defeat.

All agree that world war brings far more destruction than benefit. It is therefore irrational. Why would it happen nonetheless? One clue can be the mental flexibility of the leadership. Unfortunately, there is little reason for optimism here. China’s extreme lockdowns seem to have more to do with CCP prestige than epidemiology. Western policies regarding inflation, budgets, internal cohesion also indicate lack of ability. Russia also made grave miscalculation in its invasion. So, all major leadership is sorely lacking. This was a significant factor in the breakout of the First World War.

If so it will be a very short war. Russia is getting beaten by some of nato weapons, and no actual nato soldiers trained for years on them, and with the handicap that they can’t be used on Russian territory.

If the west didn’t hold back so much, Russia it’s might end. That’s how far back they are.

Sure they could all launch nukes, but that get’s you nothing. And the nukes are exactly the weapons you pocket the maintenance money for first, since if they are found out to not work, well nobody will be around to prosecute you for it.

It's a very difficult question.

War between nations has mostly gone out of style. From Putin's stated point of view, the war in Ukraine is a police action in a province (more or less) of Russia. Old school Russians think of Belarus, Ukraine, and Georgia as property.

It's similar with Taiwan. Mainland China thinks of the island as part of the country, so they would not really see it as going to war with another country.

I think it would be interesting to think about the groundwork for WWI, like the Franco-Prussian war in 1870.

China won't invade Taiwan.

The CCP is sabre rattling and blustering to look good to a domestic audience because it has lost huge face when Pelosi visited.

Here's a great video to watch on the topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1sGjulgBBs

The CCP well knows that if it moves to take Taiwan then the outcome WILL be world war 3 and remember all those politicians are leading extremely comfortable lives with everything they could ever want - why risk it?

If China invades Taiwan - and I've read quite alot of stuff that says they don't even have the military capability to do so - then they'll be fighting everyone from Taiwan to USA to Japan and possibly India and who knows what other countries. They won't win, they know it.

+1 for the Laowhy86 link.

The paper tiger won’t be invading Taiwan anytime soon. The west will pull out even further. Not sure who they will make stuff for if manufacturing leaves. We already see it happening during Covid and especially the 0 Covid measures.

I dont think so.

I think that there will be some wars... to distract or reset from the mess the global economy is in. but nothing "World War" sized.

They said the same thing in the build up to WW1 and that is even considering that all the royal houses were cousins on top of it.

Yes, it's inevitable. Russia can't lose to Ukraine so they'll pick a fight with the West. China needs Taiwan and is betting that the West won't stop them. The West not directly intervening in Russia/Ukraine signals weakness and every dictatorial government is making moves right now...

In my opinion, the World War is ongoing, when every country sees the opportunity to enter a fray and exit in a better position.

"Perceived opportunity" here is the key and actual warfare is less relevant, because in normal situation entering a war has obviously negative outcome.

So, it looks like we're in already.

Everybody says that WWIII won't happen because nobody would dare to use nuclear weapons, but I think that there is a possibility for a world war without nuclear war. Russia didn't use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

This assumes WWIII wouldn't be Cyber Warfare.

As we have seen in Ukraine, NATO's adversaries seem to be rather overhyped in regards to cyber warfare

China is not preparing to invade Taiwan. That's simply US propaganda - who's interest would it serve?

War unlikely short term, too much mutual exposure (until 2028)

- Still lots of interdependancy in critical supply chains - USNavy decade of concern

- US reshoring semi

- PRC building out nuke deterence

- PRC catching up on semi, shifting energy mix, improving food security

- PRC improving other critical defense/deterrence capabilities

- ergo US not doing much but poking TW with diplomatic moves

- meanwhile PRC reciprocates by building up military, continuing defense modernization

War likely medium term (2028-2036)

- There maybe be a period of elevated concern when either sides retrenched enough, thinks they have upper hand and miscalculates.

- Both PRC and US domestic politics have made responding to TW likely.

- PRC's the only country to have fought/threaten to fight with every NPT nuclear state while she had no/marginal nuclear capability. US (and all of UN in Korea), USSR border wars, India Border skirmishes, threaten UK wanting to renege over HK handover, technically France in Vietnam war, all over sovereignty/security issues much less important than TW.

- US spend too much on defense to not use shiny toys, but so far has been smart enough to only fight opponents they can stomp, but still get dragged into decades of excess commitment.

- Ideally Sino-US war (likely sparked TW blockade) will likely be low casualty maritime event for US and PRC, but TW and maybe JP, SKR or other island nations in region willing to support US efforts will turn into a developing country with all their critical infra glassed. Worst case scenario is mainland/CONUS strikes that trigger nuclear response.

- PRC will be alright, it produces plenty domestically to hobble along.

- Only scenario where US maintains hegemony or PRC unseats US global primacy, overall just temping big stake gambles.

(World) War unlikely long term (2040+)

- there are some paradigm shift capabilities long term that will create credible mutual deterrence, specifically conventional prompt global strike that both US and PRC are pursuing.

- Ultimately works in PRC favor, as it opens CONUS to existential vunerability.

- Which will US deter from substantive intervention, PRC options to tackle TW opens up, including blockading it into Yemen until island capitulates.

Last scenario/timeline is tech dependent and might also occur short/medium term, but IMO long term inevitable. Many hints that PRC is pursuing meter level CEP conventional global strike capabiltiies, while official doctorine states rapid strikes are coming. This means every USN capital ship from CVNs to SSBNs, critical piece of infra like oil refineries, data centres, power generation are all vunerable, (or any US allies, or anyone for that matter). Personally what I'm keep eye out for to predict how things will play out. Note it doesn't mean no war, but it will dramatically circumbscribe how much war will escalate. Both US and PRC will direct confrontation away from home front will be mostly alright in this scenario. Though this might mean proxies/vassals gets wrecked.

>

The TikTok spying is probably irrelevant since most TikTok users are teenagers.

I was surprised when Putin went ahead and actually invaded Ukraine since I didn't see the cost/benefit justifying the invasion. Putin had a war chest of more than 600 billion dollars. Like half of that was on western banks and it's now frozen, so Putin can't use it. They're burning through the rest quickly as Russian economy is going to the toilet and sanctions are hitting hard. Russia started the war with an inflation of 10% and then it went to 15-17%. Basically all western corporations left Russia. Russian planes are banned to land on most western airports. Russia no longer has access to western technology and global supply chain, which means they can no longer manufacture many things, like cars etc. They're salvaging chips from microwaves and fridges, that desperate they are. Of course China can benefit from it by selling technology to Russia at exorbitant prices, and also by buying Gas and Oil cheaply, but since there's no infrastructure to sell Gas and Oil to China as there is for Europe (like NordStream), that means it takes a very long time for that Gas and Oil to reach China (like 30 days instead of 3 days). Now, Russian economy seems to be doing better than expected, the Ruble stronger than expected, but it's all for the show, in reality they can't hold that position indefinitely. Also if Russia starts opening fronts with other countries they will need to spread their army thin instead of focusing their efforts in one spot. In the months of war so far we've seen how Russian army has low morale and has been ineffective, with seemingly old weapons and tanks, and the territorial gains they won had an expensive cost in lives of russian soldiers and equipment. Theoretically Russia has air force superiority compared to Ukraine but they don't seem to use the full force of their air force. Russia also has a navy and submarines, but that is not very relevant on a land conflict like Ukraine. I thought that maybe they're using conscripted soldiers in Ukraine (cannon fodder) instead of their professional soldiers, to appear weaker, and save their pros for later if the conflict escalates with other countries... that is a possibility.

I think for now Putin will content himself with taking the Donbas and a corridor connecting with Crimea and getting access to the Black Sea, and would be very happy if they could connect that to Odesa and the Transnitria region in Moldova.

Now, Europe will suffer, with inflation now at an average of 10% and many countries relying on russian gas and oil, prices will go even higher and there might be energy shortages in winter (remember, winter is coming). But NATO is avoiding a direct conflict with Russia because that would put two nuclear superpowers on a face to face conflict. USA and Europe are providing hi-tech weapons to Ukraine instead, which has proved to be extremely effective. USA will suffer with inflation/stagflation but not as much as Europe.

Russia has some supporters. Belarus is like a puppet state, it allowed russian forces to use their territory to launch the invasion. Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Kyrgyzstan also support Russia. Other middle east countries have expressed their support for Russia, most likely because they don't like USA. Now, would any of these states get actively involved in a war to support Russia? I believe most would not, they're just cheering on the sides. India is also buying Oil and Gas from Russia, and helping Russia with their banking system to bypass sanctions, but I don't think they would get involved in a war against USA and Europe.

China is a special case. Before the Olympics Putin and Xi Jinping met, and allegedly they signed an extended collaboration treaty. China has been repeating russian propaganda and lies (that Ukraine was infested by Nazis and Russia is liberating it etc) and blocking western news about the conflict. China has also bought a lot of oil and gas from Russia. But they are playing a slow game and will play to their own interests. It's good for China that USA and Europe get weakened by the conflict, and it's good for China that Russia is depleting their money resources and get weaker every day.

China has been building a lot of infrastructure in Africa in what some people called Debt Trap Diplomacy. Providing a loan of millions of dollars to a poor African country to build infrastructure, and when they default on their loan, China takes control of the land, effectively having a military base. It is debatable if that is an ongoing strategy or if it just happened in some cases, but China has a lot of interests in Africa, which means they have probably bribed a lot of politicians which they could use in the future if needed. I still haven't figured out what role is this going to play on China Master Plan, but I'm sure there's something there.

Now, will China invade Taiwan? Well, they made a law a few years ago saying that it would be illegal for China not to use any means including violence, to "protect their territory and sovereignity" and recover control of Taiwan. They're violating Taiwan air space daily, they've done so hundreds of times, I suppose to create an opportunity of approaching to Taiwan with the guise of one of these flights when an invasion starts.

In isolation it seems simple, Taiwan army is no match to China army, but it's not so simple. Taiwan produces almost 70% of semiconductors, with TMSC producing most of it. All those fancy M1 and M2 from Apple with 5nm process? They rely on TMSC technology. It is said that in the event of a chinese invasion, Taiwan would destroy their semiconductor fabs. That would have a huge impact on the global economy and affect a lot of products, from computers and phones to cars, fridges, dishwashers... and also weapons. Biden said that the US would defend Taiwan against China at least twice, but his advisors made him backpedal that. Which probably means that it would but he can't say it out loud.

Now, China economy depends a lot on exports to western countries and western economies also depend a lot on products and parts from China. If China invaded Taiwan, it would become an international pariah just like Russia, which would cripple its economy, but it would also collapse the economies of many western countries. That doesn't mean China won't do it, just like Russia did against all odds, and there's a law saying it would be illegal for China not to take any necessary steps to take back control of Taiwan, after all.

About the comment about the US invading Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam and Korea etc it's not that if a country invades any country that would become a world war... but Ukraine is different because it's in Europe and if they had let Putin take Ukraine without providing weapons and assistance, from Ukraine it could have tried to take other countries, like Poland, Moldova, some scandinavian countries... USA and Europe can't allow that. And also they can't allow China to take Taiwan for the reasons I mentioned about TMSC and the semiconductor industry.

So, it's not a simple answer... There will be a WWIII, most likely no, but it's not completely off the table.

> Providing a loan of millions of dollars to a poor African country to build infrastructure, and when they default on their loan, China takes control of the land, effectively having a military base.

Are there specific examples of such areas? Like where China has built infrastructure, and taken over and now has a military base there?

> The TikTok spying is probably irrelevant since most TikTok users are teenagers.

Guess what those teenagers will be in like 10 years.

> They're violating Taiwan air space daily

They are not, actually, and I don't think they ever did.

> it could have tried to take other countries, like Poland, Moldova, some scandinavian countries

Of course not. Russia is not going to attack or invade NATO countries, nor is it clear why they would invade a non-NATO Scandinavian country... And in practical terms they couldn't really pulled off invading a country like Poland because they are not that strong beyond their nuclear arsenal, as Ukraine has made rather clear. There is a lot of scaremongering about Russia.

Korea was the closest to a world war and was more significant than Ukraine as the US and China actually came face to face but the US stopped it because they knew they could not invade China (which was the proposed next step) on top of not faring that well against Chinese troops in Korea.

> They are not, actually, and I don't think they ever did.

Jan 2021 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3116557/pla... "Chinese air force entered island’s ADIZ on 91 days from January to November, according to Taipei-based think tank"

April 2021 https://www.sps-aviation.com/story/?id=2907&h=Frequent-Viola... "Violation of Taiwanese airspace by military aircraft of the PRC appears to have become a regular feature as it has been occurring frequently. Instances of incursion by aircraft of the China into the airspace of Taiwan has increased significantly, particularly so over the last two years."

Oct 2021 https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/world/why-did-145-chinese-...

Nov 2021 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4338555

Jan 2022 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/24/china-sends-la...

Feb 2022 https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-reports-ni...

May 2022 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-61642217

Jun 2022 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/21/taiwan-sends-jets-t...

August 2022 https://www.ft.com/content/50f56242-2bd7-44c6-8878-a755ad1e3...

> they are not that strong beyond their nuclear arsenal, as Ukraine has made rather clear.

Yes, they're not as strong as they're fighting like it's WWII, but Ukraine received billions of dollars worth of hi-tech weapons and that has tipped the scales in favor of Ukraine. My point is that, if USA and Europe did not provide all that assistance and weapons to Ukraine, Russia would probably have fared way better against Ukraine even with their dated weapons and tanks and their incompetent conscripted soldiers.

The ADIZ is not Taiwanese airspace. It's an arbitrary, unilaterally defined area that extends well into international airspace and even into continental China.

As far as I know mainland Chinese planes have always stayed in their air space or international air space.

This is reported in a way that is either misleading or plainly incorrect for 'propaganda' purposes. For instance, the second article you quote is plainly a pile of cr*p.

There is a map of Taiwan's ADIZ on Wikipedia from a slide by the Taiwanese military about a Chinese 'violation [1]. You can see that it extends well beyond national air space and that, in that slide, Chinese planes never came close to Taiwanese air space. This is fairly typical of what makes headlines as "Chinese incursion into Taiwan's air defence zone"...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:%E6%B0%91%E5%9C%8B109%E5%...

Reports of air space violations have to be taken with the large grain of salt which is Taiwan's ADIZ extending significantly into mainland China (which is what most reports tend to be about).

> The TikTok spying is probably irrelevant since most TikTok users are teenagers.

Repeating the exact same problems that Facebook has done years ago, interfering with elections and a tool for spreading disinformation for billions.

TikTok is essentially the same but worse, with the disinformation not only spread to billions but it can be targeted geographically and dictated algorithmically based on watch time alone and account information. [0] Even worse when the videos or the accounts are located in the front line of the whole scene.

The moment we will see them take the nastiness of these ideas [1] on to TikTok, it will only get worse for the users on the social network for the years ahead.

Soon, you will have no say and you will be very happy to keep on pleasing and working for the algorithm.

[0] https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/xl/tiktok-doesn_t-show-the-wa...

[1] https://2ndsmartestguyintheworld.substack.com/p/wefs-global-...

Yes, and by 2030 [0] between China and the US/NATO-aligned

To compete in the first half of the 21st century, China must solve two issues: 1) Oil 2) Semiconductors.

1) China's domestic supply is woeful and they already import nearly half their oil. They are then constrained by the Straits of Malacca and all the myriad other channels into the South China Sea. NATO-aligned countries border much of that area and have very good strategic situations already. NATO-aligned countries and the US can effectively close off these routes at a moment's notice. Their only other option is pipelines through Xiangang and the Uyghurs to the oilfields of the Caspian. Both areas are under heavy development by China currently.

2) 1.5nm chips are another form of constrained resources, especially in the 21st century. Nearly every one is made in Taiwan. And nearly every chip fab is intentionally near the best landing sites during a potential invasion[1]. If Taiwan and NATO-aligned countries want to shut off or decrease the supply of the latest generation of chips to China, they can do so at a moment's notice. Imagine the chip issues we currently have with Ford and GM, but over the entire economy of China. It would hurt China quite a lot and the foreign source of chips is an outstanding issue for China's security, as Javelins have proved in Ukraine.

China must solve these issues by 2030 at the latest. If they do not, then they allow for the NATO sphere to completely run away in capturing these two critical resources of the 21st century. Very recently, the US was allowed to produce to last generation 3nm chip fabs in Texas, a giant issue for China. The window for China to compete with the NATO-sphere is quickly closing [2]. If China does not act fast to secure the 1.5nm chip fabs in Taiwan and solve it's oil fragility, it will forever be at the mercy of the NATO-sphere.

[0] Dear God, I hope I'm wrong

[1] And, no, you can't just spin up a fab in a few years. They are extraordinarily tricky things to create and there are literal decades of closely kept trade/national-security secrets that the Taiwanese have.

[2] I would say it has already closed, as Ukraine has demonstrated with Russia

I will be downvoted to hell.

But Yes it has started.

The *actual* stage where you can see bombs, soldiers etc is the last stage of war.

Ukraine is right now the new "vietnam"

EU and US providing money and training for ukranian forces and Russia fighting with their allies (china,etc).

Sanctions are war.

I am not discussing if the war is "legit" or not. <--- Read it twice

What People is starting to realize is:

"you only own what you can defend".

This will trigger a lot of people because in their mind there is a Govt, council or "laws" that will prevent it.

But then, what about Iraq? Did we found Weapons of Mass Destruction? Are they better now? What the "laws" did to prevent one country from the other side of world to destruct Iraq?

What about Libya?

What will happen when 30% (Ukraine) wheat production will not reach countries that are not friend to Russia?

Before WW2 there was several actions/happennings as today.

But if everyone realize it what would they do?

Sell all stocks? Stock up food? Would be chaos...

...

>China preparing to invade Taiwan,

China is planning to invade themselves? Sounds to me like you've been reading propaganda that's pushing to start a war. Why would China invade themselves?

>In the 2010's, many people told me 'WWIII will never happen, the world is too interdependent'.

Interdependence isn't a factor at all. The only reason WW3 hasn't happened yet is weapons of mass destruction. All major players have wmds, if they admit to it or not. Or they could assemble/build their wmd within days. I couldn't even tell you which is more important.

>At this point, to me, another global conflict with massive consequences seems inevitable. There is just enough desperation, social unrest, government corruption, and resource depletion to trigger survival instincts on the largest scale.

What seems likely to me is USA has a civil war incoming. They've been at war for decades and their war exhaustion is maxed out. Trillions spent in the middle east killing innocent brown people and back at home? Busted roads.

USA seems to need a civil war.