World War III, When Is It Coming?

[vurt]

Originally Posted by chaos

It was about oil once you got the the Russia and China part. And totally unfeasable.

Okay, first of all, doesn't your browser come with a built-in spell checker?

China and Russia getting involved isn't so much about oil as it is about asserting their position on the world stage. Yes, they want the oil, we want the oil, and everybody wants the oil, because we all need oil. So it necessarily has to do with oil, but it isn't about oil.

I'm mostly concerned about China. They want to overtake the States, and if an opportunity presents itself for them taking the reigns of world power, you bet your ass they'll take it.

Let me ask you this: if Hitler managed to build the nuke, do you think he'd have a lot of trouble using it? Towards the end of the war, he blamed the surviving Germans for much of his failure, and I don't think he'd lose too much sleep over their sacrifice.

There will, without any doubt, be madmen in positions of great power. These psychos have a way of climbing the ranks. Basically, the only argument you have against people nuking each other is that everyone with nukes is sensible enough to understand the concept of MAD. I dare say that there will be people with the capacity to kill lots of people who are perfectly willing to sacrifice (martyr?) a few people for their Just Cause.

[Tuco]

OneofOne, do you have any documentation talking about those land disputes?

[ChewieTobbacca]

You brought up Hitler. Thread over.

Listen, crazy psychos in the reigns of large powers do NOT want to reign over parking lots. The Soviet Union, by all accounts, could have ended the world by confronting the US in open nuclear war but in the end still packed off (see: Cuban Missile Crisis, also Khrushchev). What leaders often want is POWER. You don't get power by ruling over nothing.

The bigger thing we have to worry about is psychos. Fortunately for us, most countries that have psychos in power are not major world powers by any means. Hence, we have the Iran crisis with nukes because they have a probably psycho leader and government trying to get nuclear power. Same with N. Korea. Hence those are BIG reasons why they're major issues in the world - because they're trying to upset the status quo!

Today's countries are so intertwined with one another in economics that I don't see China and the U.S. trading actual blows in all-out war for at least 10-20 years. China knows most of its money is coming from the US market and US companies know that the opposite is true for them. They'd be stupid to let it happen and both sides would lobby their governments to make sure it doesn't happen (why do you think we've been so friendly towards China with this administration despite all the things we hear about? big $$ is the reason).

Does this mean there will never be a major war in the future? Of course not. But, i'm going to say its more likely the next major war on the scale of WW2 is going to involve space, and at least 40 years off.

[OneofOne]

It's not land disputes. It's Russia afraid that China is going to simply annex some of their land, because Chinese citizens keep coming over and setting up shop.

Goggle this, I just came up with a shit-ton of links I'm not going to bother to link.

[Tuco]

I haven't been able to find anything credible. If you do, let me know, OneofOne.

[Algol Devilstar]

Damn you said Hitler, guess it's over =(

[Taloo]

A "World War" Would be over in under an hour.

[OneofOne]

Originally Posted by Tuco

I haven't been able to find anything credible. If you do, let me know, OneofOne.

Chinese reoccupying Russia | The Japan Times Online

The first 3 minutes of this is just filler=
BBC News Player - Siberia's Chinese immigrants

I wasn't even aware of this problem myself until my girlfriend came back from her 6 month trip in the old soviet block and Russia. Apparently the people there care about it and are a tad worried.

[chaos]

Originally Posted by vurt

Okay, first of all, doesn't your browser come with a built-in spell checker?

China and Russia getting involved isn't so much about oil as it is about asserting their position on the world stage. Yes, they want the oil, we want the oil, and everybody wants the oil, because we all need oil. So it necessarily has to do with oil, but it isn't about oil.

I'm mostly concerned about China. They want to overtake the States, and if an opportunity presents itself for them taking the reigns of world power, you bet your ass they'll take it.

Let me ask you this: if Hitler managed to build the nuke, do you think he'd have a lot of trouble using it? Towards the end of the war, he blamed the surviving Germans for much of his failure, and I don't think he'd lose too much sleep over their sacrifice.

There will, without any doubt, be madmen in positions of great power. These psychos have a way of climbing the ranks. Basically, the only argument you have against people nuking each other is that everyone with nukes is sensible enough to understand the concept of MAD. I dare say that there will be people with the capacity to kill lots of people who are perfectly willing to sacrifice (martyr?) a few people for their Just Cause.

No, I'm at work, using the army version of IE 6 or something, and don't really care about a passing conversation enough to hit up the dictionary and thesaurus.

I guess we disagree, China wants to overtake us economically, we would stomp the shit out of them in a war and they know it, and it would be entirely counter to their object of economic superiority.

It's an overly alarmist viewpoint to take, that this is possible. It's a different time now than it was in 1940. There will certainly be conflict, maybe even conflict between large countries such as the US, Russia, and China. But again, such a horrendous chain of events would have to unfold to turn that into a world war (whatever that even means) that's it's extrmely far fetched to believe that it will ever happen.

[vurt]

The horrendous chain of events that led to those wars weren't coincidences but consequences of each other. If anything, the fact that these were events that started out relatively benign and slowly began to ferment until culminating in the wars they produced is a testament to the fact that the 'chain of events' leading to the next world war could already be in motion and we don't even know it.

This idea that MAD will somehow stay the hand of pissed off nations reminds me of a particularly similar fallacy. Arguably a huge contributor to what made the Great War (and consequently Part II) possible was the notion of the "Balance of Power". As long as all the powers were pitted against each other, no one nation would be stupid enough to drag the entire world into such a terrible conflagration... right. But, admittedly, there are many reasons why this isn't a perfect analogy, but they do share the same naive sentiment.

You know what else this rhetoric reminds me of? Borne of the same era, Fukuyama's The End of History. At the end of the Cold War, people honestly believed that Democracy won. It was over, we did it. The world would be policed by a benevolent superpower (i.e. America) and it'd all be gravy from there. It's short-sighted and naive. We don't know what the future has in store, but there are a few things we can be certain of; namely, people will always find reasons to kill other people, and when they congregate in large enough numbers, they can kill a lot of other people.

[Algol Devilstar]

hmm we would stomp China in a war? Eh I don't think it would be that lopsided, a billion chinese men can't be taken lightly.

[Millie]

At best, the outcome of a full-scale war between China and the United States would result in both countries' being damaged beyond recognition and the possibility of repair. This is why it is in both countries' best interest not to fight each other militarily. It doesn't matter who emerges "victorious" in a military conflict between the two, because that victory would be about as Pyrrhic as you can get.

And pretty much the only way to beat China decisively and not sustain catastrophic losses in the process would be to blanket the entire Chinese coast with ICBMs. I doubt the rest of the world would be thrilled about that...

[Ninjarr]

we would stomp the shit out of them in a war and they know it

As far as I know, this is wrong on both accounts. Not only would we not stomp them, but they know that we wouldn't. You overestimate the power of our declining nation, and far underestimate the power of the zerg-rush.

[Clericnon2boxed]

How would a civil war in the USA play out ? California the winner ?

[Bladefury]

World War III will be judgement day. Anything less will not really be a World War, in this day and age.