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Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’

• dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  How is it possible to write this article without mentioning MAD? The presence of nuclear self defense is what keeps nuclear armed nations from engaging in aggressive wars with other nuclear armed nations.
  • mmastrac 8y ago
    IMO mutually-assured destruction only really guarantees that powers won't use nukes against each other.
    • MichaelMoser123 8y ago
      the fear of MAD also implies that a big power spends a lot of effort to avoid running into a direct military confrontation against another great power; direct confrontations run the risk of escalating into all out war. That's why you have so many proxy conflicts - these ugly little conflicts add some layers of indirection so to speak.
  • smacktoward 8y ago
    MAD is not necessarily a silver bullet preventative here. If two nuclear-armed states are fighting, for either of them to bring out the nukes would be a huge, difficult decision. It's entirely possible to imagine them settling into an unspoken "gentleman's agreement" to stick to conventional weapons only, as long as the conflict stays within certain parameters (i.e. the war doesn't pose an existential threat to either). India and Pakistan fought a war in 1999, despite both having sizable nuclear arsenals (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War). The risk of escalation kept the scale of the fighting limited, but it didn't prevent the war altogether.
    • learc83 8y ago
      The article is specifically talking about another "Great War", not limited conventional conflicts. All out, generation crippling war is a far cry from anything we've seen large industrialized countries engage in since World War II. I can't see how anything like another "Great War" could be possible without going nuclear.
      • AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        Nobody brought out chemical weapons in World War II, though both sides had them. (Granted, chemical weapon defenses were practical in WWII, whereas nuclear weapon defenses are not today. Still, even in great wars, there have been weapons that were not used.)
        • dsfyu404ed 8y ago
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare#World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare#World_War_II Not exactly.
          • AnimalMuppet 8y ago
            All right, not exactly, but close. Close enough that I think the point still stands - they had these weapons, but they were mostly not used, because of the fear of retaliation with the same weapon, even in the heat of a great war.
        • learc83 8y ago
          That's a very good point. They weren't widely used. But Japan did use both chemical and biological weapons against the Chinese. We don't really know why Hitler didn't use them, but it's likely that his experience in WWI gave him a unique hatred of chemical warfare. Regardless by the time Germany accepted that they were facing an existential threat, they couldn't have used Chemical weapons to completely decimate their enemy the way a losing country could with ICBMS (both land based and on submarines). They had no way to reach America, or even Britain at the end of the war (with enough munitions), so chemical attacks would have been pointless by that time. If Hitler could have pressed a button completely destroy America, Britain, and Russia when he was in his bunker in Berlin, I'm willing to bet he would have. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Changde#Use_of_chemical_weapon_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Changde#Use_of_chemi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_and_weapons_of_mass_dest...
  • bryanlarsen 8y ago
    Given how many close calls we had when their were only 2 relatively well-balanced superpowers and how the nuclear balance of power is becoming more unstable these days, I think the chance of nuclear war is a lot higher than most people think it is. IMO, the chance of a nuclear war in any given year is about 1-2%. That's not very much for any particular year, but over a few decades...
    • noir_lord 8y ago
      Yes but while horrible India and Pakistan lobbing nukes at each other would be on a different order of magnitude to the US and Russia launching a global thermonuclear war. The graph of warheads per country is basically the US, Russia and everyone else combined is a distant third. The UK had ~200 warheads about a quarter of which are deployed at anyone time, two US ballistic missile subs fields more than that (they have 18) and then the missile silos, the cruise missiles, the gravity bombs and on and on it goes...
      • acqq 8y ago
        > The graph of warheads per country is basically the US, Russia and everyone else combined is a distant third. Once just one single nuclear bomb destroys something significant, all bets are almost surely off. So counting doesn't help, the whole domino-effect constellation is simply too dangerous. The only sustainable solution is to reduce the arsenals the orders of magnitude, if we want to increase the chances for the humanity to survive. The right perspective is exactly the WW I: Austrian Empire just wanted its own teeny-weeny local war (just as an perspective, as late as four years ago, some Austrian historians still claimed: "Austria didn't start the WW I -- we just started the war with Serbia -- everything else was done by everybody else"). But the domino effect ensued. The result was the whole world erupting, so badly that even WW II was a kind of an effect of WW I, as the article also recognizes.
        • noir_lord 8y ago
          Obviously I'm in favour of reducing warhead counts. That said I don't think your analogy holds with pre and post nuclear powers. The escalation in WW1 was complex but from the british side we just expected it to be a short war, we'd nip over there achieve our objectives and be home for Christmas (that was actually said at the time iirc). Escalation between states with large nuclear arsenals would likely follow a very different path. I mean the UK is a minor nuclear power but if everyone went collectively insane we could wreck most of western Europe and the US, I mean we'd all be dead minutes later but when you have that kind of capability on the table and more crucially when the people you are firing on have that kind of capability then the "it'll all be over by Christmas" line takes on a much more macabre undertone to those giving the orders.
  • zaru27 8y ago
    I don't really see MAD as being a given, especially depending on if China or the US develops rapid technological advancements over the next few decades. I think it's a really unlikely idea to assume the nuke will be the great deterrent or equalizer for the rest of this century. China could easily conquer the planet if they pull sufficiently ahead in China, which is a fair possibility, looking at the current state of the US and Europe
    • learc83 8y ago
      >if they pull sufficiently ahead in China, which is a fair possibility, looking at the current state of the US and Europe Be careful with extrapolation. People said the same thing about the USSR, Japan, and the EU. Sure the US won't be as dominant as they are now forever, but extrapolating China's growth from a very poor developing country to their current level and assuming that means that they might make some kind of leap that allows them to take over the world is going too far.
      • zaru27 8y ago
        I don't think it's going far enough. There are several hundreds variables completely separating China and the USSR and Japan from a blanket comparison. I would like to hope that they hit the breaks in the same way that Japan did, and there's certainly plenty of evidence that it's possible. However, if their model remains viable and they continue growing at the same rate, they'll certainly eclipse us in political and economic influence in 10-20 years at most - potentially technologically as well. I'm not sure that's even a disputable claim - it should be self evident. The question is if we'll suddenly outperform or if they'll hit a stumbling block, which remains to be seen.
        • learc83 8y ago
          >and they continue growing at the same rate, That's what I mean by the problem with extrapolation. There is absolutely no reason to think that they will continue growing at the same rate. The likely scenario based on all the historical evidence we have is that they won't. Their GDP growth rate has been declining since 2010, there's no reason to assume that they'll be able to stop it. The most likely scenario is that it flattens out to a more reasonable rate. Also this is the state reported GDP, which no one believes is accurate. And this is without taking into account China's demographic problems and potential hidden debt issues. And even if China's economy does overtake the US, it took decades and a World War for the US to eclipse the rest of the world politically and militarily after it's economy became the largest.
  • sehugg 8y ago
    The U.S. and Russia have been signaling to each other recently that they would be willing to deploy low-yield nukes in a limited regional engagement. Anyway, MAD has very nearly failed on several occasions -- Cuban Missile Crisis, false alarms, etc.
    • dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      The Cuban missile crisis is an example of MAD working as intended. If it weren't for the threat of nuclear war the Cuban missile crisis would have turned into the "Russian tanks in Paris and Marines in Havana crisis"
      • vharuck 8y ago
        We came really close to war between two nuclear powers at the Cuban blockade[0]. A Russian submarine didn't torpedo a US ship only because 1 of 3 officers on the sub voted against it. Rising nationalism and games of "chicken" don't mix well. [0]: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a23074/cuban-missile-crisis-video/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a23074/cuban-missi...
      • mikeash 8y ago
        There wasn’t MAD during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The US had the ability to completely destroy the USSR but the reverse was not true, which is why they wanted to put missiles in Cuba in the first place. If a war had occurred, the US would have suffered enormously, but it would have come out of the conflict largely intact. Think the “get our hair mussed” bit from Dr. Strangelove. The Crisis just shows that war can be avoided even when one side has a huge advantage, if neither side really wants it.
        • jbay 8y ago
          Actually, the US only thought that there wasn't MAD. As mentioned in the documentary "The Fog of War", only decades later did the US discover that there were already nuclear missiles with warheads in Cuba when they began the blockade. And Castro was willing to use them! That made the situation even more dangerous than they realized at the time. The US would not have come out intact. It's very lucky for everyone that the Soviets decided not to escalate the situation. Of course, I suppose MAD isn't MAD if there isn't also mutual knowledge of mutually assured destruction. It's something even worse when both sides think they have the advantage.
  • mschuster91 8y ago
    The presence of nuclear self defense is what keeps nuclear armed nations from engaging in aggressive wars with other nuclear armed nations. The US and Russia are already in the midst of several proxy wars: Ukraine, Syria and Libya. In addition, Russia is directly destabilizing Europe by funding alt-right parties financially (AfD/DE, FrontNational/FR, FPÖ/Austria, Jobbik/HU, Lega Nord/IT) and by promoting their crap on Twitter and Facebook, as well as their "media outlets" that historically have spread alt-right propaganda (Sputnik, RT), but now have expanded to liberal/leftie propaganda (Inthenow, Ruptly, Redfish). The Chinese seem to be playing the long game by strategically investing in infrastructure like roads and rail across Africa, probably both for strategic advantages (given Africa's large reserves of anything from rhino horns over diamonds and uranium to rare-earth metals) and economic advantages (the US and EU markets are saturated, South America is going down rapidly, but Africa can only grow and buy Chinese products in return - basically the Marshall Plan just without the war). Also, both China and Russia engage in cyber warfare - the Chinese right now mostly for economic espionage, the Russians at the moment for destabilizing democracy. What worries me is the shit some Arab countries are trying to play with Israel (esp. Turkey!) and the skirmishes between India and Pakistan, as well as Pakistan's problems with terrorism. Both countries are highly volatile and hell I don't want to experience the Taliban getting hands on Pakistani nukes. So, there are LOTS of possibilities for nuclear-armed powers to go to war, and some not even violent. The key is that no power ever actively uses nuclear weapons, but there's nothing that prevents them from using conventional ammo. There's enough of that alone to blow the planet to pieces.
    • jcranmer 8y ago
      > The Chinese seem to be playing the long game by strategically investing in infrastructure like roads and rail across Africa, probably both for strategic advantages (given Africa's large reserves of anything from rhino horns over diamonds and uranium to rare-earth metals) and economic advantages (the US and EU markets are saturated, South America is going down rapidly, but Africa can only grow and buy Chinese products in return - basically the Marshall Plan just without the war). There is a key difference between the Marshall Plan and China's modern African investment. The Marshall Plan was pretty emphatically a plan to help coerce Western Europe into supporting what effectively became the West, and combined vigorous restoration efforts with criterion for supporting certain kinds of economic reforms. In particular, it was very much meant to build up Europe not so that it served as a market for American goods but rather so that Europe could be useful junior partners in a coalition. China's current investment hews much closer to neocolonialism: it's building African infrastructure, but managed by Chinese, owned by Chinese, and even built by Chinese imported for the labor. It is not engendering local goodwill for China, and unlike the Marshall Plan, it isn't helping move these countries into China's camp in a putative global war.
  • herewulf 8y ago
    Consider what happens when effective ballistic missile defense is developed. This still leaves the threat of tactical nuclear weapons (artillery) and short range missiles from submarines. It will also spur the development of improved ballistic missile delivery systems. However, if technology brings MAD into question and causes a shift in thinking to acceptable risk/losses, we may find ourselves in a destructive situation very reminiscent of 100 years ago.
• AcerbicZero 8y ago
  A modern "great war" would require countries of relatively equal military industrial power, so either it would be a great war without the US involved, i.e. China/India, Russia/China (with caveats), etc. In those situations the countries may temporarily forgo the use of nuclear weapons, at least until one side is pressed beyond the point of rational response. I'd also suggest the last time countries were so dominant in certain military areas, they didn't overlap as much as they do today, so open conflict was easier to maintain. In the early 1800's France was the undisputed world leader when it came to land based combat, while the British maintained a serious advantage at sea. Today, the US is undisputed in all 3 categories, land, air, sea, and a 4th if you count space. If another country were able to take a commanding lead in at least 1 of those areas, perhaps we could see a high intensity conflict involving the US, however until that happens, there isn't much of a point. Minor Edit: This isn't intended as support of the current situation.
  • aqme28 8y ago
    I wonder if cybersecurity could be counted as a 5th area, and if so, how far behind the US is.
    • VikingCoder 8y ago
      No, is not for you the worrying. US is best in all the cybers. Da, is good, comrade, is good.
      • dang 8y ago
        Please don't do this here.
    • jcranmer 8y ago
      The answer to the last part is "the US is probably in the lead or at least competitive to the lead." Keep in mind that Stuxnet is generally figured to be a joint American/Israeli cyberweapon.
      • 8y ago
• 49531 8y ago
  Without the US's involvement in global trade Europe & Asia will likely erupt in war again. The US would be immune to most of the violence though.
  • norswap 8y ago
    Seems like a reasonable analysis based on a careful study of the facts. Keep going.
    • 49531 8y ago
      Much of global trade is facilitated by the US military. If that support and protection is withdrawn, people will be more likely to dive into war over resources. I'm not saying the US is _good_ because they prop up free trade. It's just empire 2.0, not some altruistic quest on the US's part.
      • norswap 8y ago
        I was being ironic.
  • sevensor 8y ago
    What is it about trade that you suppose would protect us, this time around? In the run-up to the Great War all of the European powers, as well as the U.S., were engaged in vigorous trade with each other. That did nothing to prevent the onset of war.
    • 49531 8y ago
      It's not trade, it's US facilitated trade via the Bretton Woods system which has enabled free trade between countries that previously went to war over resources (among other things). Much of global trade is facilitated and protected by US empire. I'm not being jingoistic, and am very cynical about US intentions, practices and policies, but the reality is that without US military hegemony, countries that fought for resources, like on the NEP, might again.
• pteredactyl 8y ago
  The media would love another war. They'd make so much money. They've already made so much from Trump.
  • Koshkin 8y ago
    It's not the media who makes money off wars, it's the arms industry.
    • chewz 8y ago
      It is actually every industry. Steel, oil, textile, food, healthcare, pharmaceuticals etc..
    • pteredactyl 8y ago
      Of course they would. They profit off conflict. In their current iteration, at least.
• stareatgoats 8y ago
  > This is why the U.S. chose to stay so deeply engaged in the affairs of Europe Aside from this rather endearing naivete, the gist of the article is fine: we need to fear another 'Great War'. Modern warfare grants (perceived) first-strike capability to almost any state, rendering the power of MAD and military alliances close to negligible. We live in the 21st century now, things are different than before, and highly dangerous as long as states put their self-interest above our common global destiny, as is the attitude du jour. People behave as if nothing bad can happen, it's highly frustrating to watch.
  • jcranmer 8y ago
    > Modern warfare grants (perceived) first-strike capability to almost any state, rendering the power of MAD and military alliances close to negligible. That is folly. The idea of MAD is that you have second-strike capabilities that are sufficiently hardened that no first-strike attack is capable of preventing the second-strike retaliation from occurring. In essence, the idea is that the calculus becomes "if we go to war, the only outcome is that we both lose."
  • 21 8y ago
    > Modern warfare grants (perceived) first-strike capability to almost any state What are you talking about? Only 9 states have nuclear weapons. Of them, only 5 have any significant number.
    • claytoneast 8y ago
      Do the others really matter, then, in this context?
  • umvi 8y ago
    > rendering the power of MAD and military alliances close to negligible Are you implying you can destroy the enemy's nuclear arsenal in your first strike? If so, you don't understand MAD. Any submarine arsenal will be nearly impossible to destroy. If you first strike North Dakota (for example) to destroy all the missile silos, subs will simply eradicate your country.
• abraae 8y ago
  I believe that the likeliest cause of another Great War is not to save the planet from dictators, but from environmental destruction. At some stage, a consensus must build for stopping our destruction of the climate. (Well perhaps it won't, but in that case we're doomed, so there's little point in evaluating that path). At that point, some countries (presumably rich ones) will have cleaned their own houses emissions-wise and be signed up to assist poorer nations. It will then become unacceptable to them that their efforts are in vain and at risk, because other countries are free riding and doing nothing, and continuing to pump emissions into the atmosphere. Their mindset will move from pride at their own achievements to anger and frustration at others. Soon after that will come enforcement. After all, it cannot be unreasonable to stop other countries from destroying the environment that we all share - even if those countries have to be destroyed to save the planet.
  • kobrad 8y ago
    I expect some incredibly stupid reason. Post-brexit UK tries to nuke somewhere in the EU, or the USA decides we need to get Jesus here faster, or actually anything on this spectrum of insanity. Right now it seems like science fiction that anybody will try doing anything about the climate. So, in reality we'll probably see a failing ecosystem and the strongest military killing the rest of us.
    • 21 8y ago
      > Post-brexit UK tries to nuke somewhere in the EU What is stopping pre-brexit UK trying to nuke EU? The EU treaties?
      • elygre 8y ago
        A lack of anger. Anger comes with the brexit effects. (Probably not. But for the sake of argument.)
      • digianarchist 8y ago
        The Trident weapons system is in need of renewal.
• jeffdavis 8y ago
  What's the point of war in the modern world? Gain land/people? If there's a thriving economy there, war will probably change that quickly. If there's no thriving economy, what's the point? You could try to exploit the people/resources there, but the profits in that seem (at least compared to a world power) pretty thin. Unskilled labor and unimproved land are just not worth what they used to be. Specific resources might become dramatically more valuable. Seems not terribly likely with oil (more technology, more producers, more alternatives). Maybe water, but the obvious pressure for that would be population, which is somewhat leveling off (though maybe global warming would do it). I would think any modern war would be very different and less bloody than we're used to. Some kind of weird power play that results in a takeover but is not disruptive enough to damage what was taken. Something more like Russia taking Crimea and less like Germany invading Poland.
  • Erem 8y ago
    Your post reminds me of some pre-WW1 opinions shared by Dan Carlin in his great podcast on the topic. There were a number of intelligent observers that thought a pan European war could not happen at that time because the economies of the great powers were going so well.
    • wtfstatists 8y ago
      WW1 was monarchies (professional war-makers) still thinking war-making a major wealth gaining activity. 100 years ago they were proven horribly wrong, and ultimately triggered their extinction. After WW1, world learned that industrial activity had taken the crown from war-making. This brought WW2, socialism and democracy to world scene. But within next decade world would realize that democrats/socialists are temporary elites filling the vacuum created by the global transition from monarchy to technocracy. This is why there will not be a WW3. Because those who are competent enought to make big money, are making it in tech. There will also not be a global resource war because such mega needs are $$$ opportunity, you can bet there are future-$$$onaires working at this problem this very second.
      • Latteland 8y ago
• vvillena 8y ago
  At this point wars between powerful nations are almost impossible. Proxy wars are the current fashion, and those tend to be controlled in scale by the puppetmasters behind it. I'm more scared about a great civil war in a powerful nuclear nation. Civil wars are a savage affair where no rules apply.
  • acqq 8y ago
    > At this point wars between powerful nations are almost impossible. That is exactly what "everybody" assumed before 1914, as pointed by the article.
  • fossuser 8y ago
    I'd like to think this is true, but I think it's naive - there was similar sentiment before WWI too. Nationalism and hysteria can lead people do things that are bad for both individuals and the group. Increasing free trade between countries and globalism is a good way to try and prevent wars, but the current reversion to nationalism makes me nervous.
  • jbattle 8y ago
    This book was hugely influential in the years just before WW1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion Premise: the large nations of the world are far to intertwined by commerce and culture. Large scale war would be suicidal and the leadership of these countries would never do something so foolish.
    • jawilson2 8y ago
      > Large scale war would be suicidal They weren't wrong
    • eezurr 8y ago
      The book was right about it being suicidal, but before ww1 did we have any evidence for this?
      • 8y ago
• demosito666 8y ago
  What the article and the commenters here seem to forget is that it's not only the technological level/political situation has changed, but the way people think as well. There are several global trends that allow for optimistic predictions regarding big wars of the future. The global level of violence is dropping and overall tolerance of casualties is declining. Rising cost of human life shifts the perception of conflicts in the majority of countries. It's getting very hard to explain the necessity of even several dead bodies from local conflicts, let alone to justify a sacrifice of millions of lifes. Related to this is the shift of global power: throughout the history the ruling class is basically military. Thus the perception of war as of something possible, profitable under right circumstances and even desirable. This mindset was carried into the 20th century when it met technological progress which made possible the horror of World Wars. Likely, it seems that it has changed, at least to some extent. Current 'ruler of the world' is not the army, it's rather all sorts of special forces and agencies. It's hard to sell the idea of marching and dying for your king/motherland/god to the public today and thus get/take the funding required, but it's much easier to sell it the idea of security. Security is a good thing, right? So the agencies need more and more power to protect you better. Sadly, in a paradoxical way this is partly also a consequence of rising value of human life. However, 'special forces' elite is different from a military one and it's more bound to civil oversight in regards to casualties and the acceptable scale of violence. So we see that the conflicts of today are much less bloody than they could be given the weapons we have. Now one can argue that this only holds until the current order is not significantly destabilized, or that it can spiral into some perverted form of 'preemptive security' (like e.g. govt propaganda about the need to eliminate some threat completely and strike first and hard for the sake of 'security'). And yes, everything can happen. But thinking of probability it seems that the balance is shifting towards smaller local conflicts rather than global wars.
  • acqq 8y ago
    > But thinking of probability it seems that the balance is shifting towards smaller local conflicts rather than global wars. Only if you ignore "but you started first" nuclear war that can start even completely accidentally. https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/past-announcements/ https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/past-announcements/ If you think "but everybody in charge knows what they are doing" you probably never worked in any large enough organization. We should all actively work on forcing the politicians to significantly reduce the installed nuclear resources, simply to increase the chance for humanity to survive once an accident happen, because sooner or later it will. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accid... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis
• browsercoin 8y ago
  Back when countries near proximity had access to conventional military gear with equal level of power, all out war made sense, you simply had to destroy the other countries gear to deter them from ever trying that shit again. but after the development of nuclear weapons, this is no longer a realistic choice. Instead, look at the Russian model: 1) Infiltrate high society of an enemy country decades before saboteur activities. Helps if you have kompromat of sexual nature. Especially, if back home if the truth ever got out, you would be finished. Elites are used to doing whatever the fuck they want and getting away with it so there's little to suspect or take precaution. They are the perfect weak willed asset that can be easily persuaded to serve their own interests which is aligned with the foreign government's. 2) Use your newly acquired assets to spread misinformation through social media. Instigate separatist movements within the enemy country. 3) Wait for the enemy country to react and use it as an excuse to "protect ethnic minorities" or some other bullshit like pipelines. 4) Start arming the rebels, send professional soldiers and latest equipment to make the enemy hurt. 5) Occupy the rebel territory, sign ceasefire, and let UN sit on it's ass for decades until the rest of the world forgets. 6) Repeat. The American model is a bit different and rarely need to involve the military unless other escalation method fails: 1) Bribe the elite, give out monopolies, lucrative contracts to further American interests at the peril of the victim country's citizens in the name of "Freedom". Target country is cleaned bone dry of resources. If you had oil and lived in the same continent, chances are high that the US is directly responsible for narco-economies in South America. 2) Let human greed corrupt the government inside and out so they are more open to electing a leader serving their own self interests that are aligned with American interests. 3) If somebody doesn't take the silver, they get lead or crash and burn. Make it look like an accident. 4) If all your assets are gone thanks to annoying rebels that took up arms to protect their country from corrupt foreign interests, send in the military to crush them, install someone friendly to the US, and this time give them the latest hardware and weapons aimed at their own citizens. tldr: How poor and rich empires do empire things slightly differently in robbing the world blind.
• dandare 8y ago
  We need to take a MUCH harder stance against Russia poisoning the public discourse with conspiracy theories, fake news and alternative medicine/science/history/morality. We have to restore values and trust to the public affairs.
  • partycoder 8y ago
    The reason the world is in this state is the same reason your comment is the most upvoted.
  • peterlk 8y ago
    To me, there is a better word for those things, and I don't understand why we do not use it. That word is: propaganda. Is there a good argument that fake news etc. Is not propaganda? To me calling it propaganda paints a clearer picture, because new words make it easy to claim that something is unprecedented. The problem is that if our own government falls victim to propaganda, then we have propagandistic narratives being pushed by the government, and that, to me, is as bad as it sounds. But, I think it also gives us a broader perspective to pull from history with
    • aidenn0 8y ago
      The reach and effectiveness of Russia's propaganda is unprecedented. Also recent revelations make it clear that they were merely sowing dissent, rather than pushing any particular point of view. That's not new, but it's also not what comes to mind when one says "propaganda."
    • dandare 8y ago
      Propaganda may be the end goal but the global mind poisoning operation includes all kind of BS - from alternative medicine & anti-vax, the flat earth theory and chemtrails, to white supremacism and religious bigotry - all used to spread doubts, alienation and confusion.
  • jryan49 8y ago
    Pretty sure no one can disagree with that, but HOW do you do it? Even harder, how do you do it and respect free speech?
• thereare5lights 8y ago
  Nationalism. This has been rising up like a plague in recent years and it isn't going away any time soon. When ego and emotion come into play, the question of what is the point because a matter of pride and the point is just to win regardless of the costs.
  • kiliancs 8y ago
    Not only nationalism. Current conflicts are rooted in the same prejudices as a hundred years ago. The root cause (this idea that somehow my nation/religion/race/etc is superior) hasn't been resolved, only more or less patched, and thus these conflicts are bound to reappear and escalate sooner or later until we recognize that that despite the valuable diversity humanity is essentially one and align the political and economic structures of this world with this reality.
    • mistermann 8y ago
      > Not only nationalism. Current conflicts are rooted in the same prejudices as a hundred years ago. The root cause (this idea that somehow my nation/religion/race/etc is superior) Honest question: is it possible in your opinion for someone to not believe "my nation/religion/race/etc is superior" yet still be opposed to globalism? To me, this is what nationalism means, international cooperation while unequivocally maintaining the right to national democratic self-determination.
      • GavinMcG 8y ago
        Not the person you asked the question of, but I think there are reasonable anti-globalist positions that don't have anything to do with superiority. A sort of Ludditism could do. And I actually do think people can be strongly attached to identity without a belief of superiority. Couldn't non-democratic societies be nationalist? Was nationalism off-limits to Imperial Japan, for example?
        • mistermann 8y ago
          > A sort of Ludditism could do. Is it necessary? Is primary Nationalism, but with a willingness to trade and cooperate internationally in a mutually beneficial manner, inherently worse than enthusiastic globalism with no regard for the well-being of one's own individual country? I hear most everyone talking this talk on the world stage, but I don't see a lot of people walking the walk (for example, everyone seems to bargain quite strongly in a self-beneficial way in trade talks, even though that is apparently considered immoral).
• helios893 8y ago
  Are we not in the midst of a great war now? While not massive like the previous world wars, the US has been in active military operations since 9/11. Russia has been involved in ground invasions. I'll admit these conflicts aren't huge, but they are constant and sustained.
  • herewulf 8y ago
    No, because no major country has its entire economy mobilized for the purpose of war. Outside of the countries where these conflicts are taking place, most people's lives are not being affected whatsoever. That is an enormous difference from WW I and II.
• ufmace 8y ago
  I kind of agree, but for different reasons. Part of the reason WWI came out the way that it did is that both technology and social organization had changed so much since the last big war that nobody really knew what would happen or what to do with it all. And we find ourselves in that situation again with nuclear weapons, modern air power, drones, and cyber war. I'm thinking that nuclear weapons will continue to preclude any large-scale direct war between the great powers. The downside is that cyber-war by both nation-states and small groups and individuals, along with civilian conflict amplified by modern social-media based divisions and filter bubbles have a lot of potential to spiral out of control, especially when further provoked by foreign interference. Particularly because nobody knows for sure how it will all work or what will happen when determined adversaries exploit all of these to the maximum potential. It's also entirely possible we'll see some new thing as equivalently stupid, bloody, and pointless as tightly massed soldiers in brightly colored uniforms with no protection doing foot-charges against dug-in machine guns behind barbed wire and artillery.
  • nostrademons 8y ago
    Nuclear weapons likely preclude large-scale direct conflict between great powers, but they raise the stakes a lot for civil wars, civil disorder, and anarchy within great powers. MAD works great up until a splinter group gains control of a launch facility and says "What, you're gonna nuke San Francisco if we nuke Beijing? Be my guest. We hate those hippie libtards anyway."
    • ufmace 8y ago
      Also a point, lots of tricky possibilities in there. I do wonder what would happen if a frustrated national government of one of the great powers tried to use nuclear weapons to subdue a rebellious province. If Russia nuked Ukraine or Poland to keep them in check, would we do anything? If California or Texas was openly defying the Feds and got nuked, would Russia or China do anything?
• tboyd47 8y ago
  Our world looks similar to 1914 in a lot of ways, but it looks different in a lot of ways too. 1) Mutually assured destruction. 2) No major empires dissolving. 3) Global news keeps everyone on the same page as crises unfold. 4) World powers separated by vast seas, neutral countries, and demilitarized zones. 5) The UN exists (not always effective, but at least it's there). 6) Less chauvinism. Kaiser Wilhelm II makes Trump look diplomatic and cordial in comparison.
  • IshKebab 8y ago
    > Global news keeps everyone on the same page as crises unfold Have you watched Russian news? Or Fox? > World powers separated by vast seas, neutral countries, and demilitarized zones. That's just not true. Where was the demilitarized zone or neutral country between Ukraine and Russia? > Less chauvinism. Kaiser Wilhelm II makes Trump look diplomatic and cordial in comparison. I somewhat doubt that. Again, you've heard of Putin?
    • mikeash 8y ago
      Ukraine is not a world power, but rather one of those neutral countries separating the world powers.
• jjtheblunt 8y ago
  The only thing I fear at the moment is how deluded Bloomberg is about the gullibility of their audience.
• kodisha 8y ago
  l
• tomohawk 8y ago
  The thing about war is that at some point, the conditions line up where it becomes seen as a solution (if not the only solution), and its not easy to see the point at which that will occur ahead of time. Will China's big sea grab start a war? So far, they've been able to smother any of their neighbor's push back, and have just ignored any international rulings against them. What about when they invade Taiwan, which they've said they will do? What about when they take over some of Japan's islands, which they said they would do? They seem to be going down this path where they think if they just push a calculated amount each time, it won't cause a big problem. It's exactly that kind of thinking that is the problem, though. And China's not the only aggressive, belligerent country out there. There's also Russia (Crimea/Ukraine, Syria) and Iran (Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon), for example. At what point do their aggressions spill over into a larger conflict?
  • chokolad 8y ago
    Can you please elaborate on Russia's aggression in Syria? Did they annex something there? Tried to depose a government maybe ?
    • ImprovedSilence 8y ago
      >> Tried to depose a government maybe I think quite the opposite, I believe they wanted the current leadership to stay, consequences and means of enforcement and human rights be damned. (it's also contrary to the US's wishes, for right or wrong). They want the status quo, cuz it's their only navy base on the Mediterranean. source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_involvement_in_the_Syrian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_involvement_in_the_Syr...
  • NotAmazin 8y ago
    You forgot to mention Israel's aggression on adjacent countries Lebanon and Palestine. Would Israel's constant belligerence start a war?
    • azernik 8y ago
      I think Israel (and, unlike GP, also Iran) are too small-time to start real global war. They're more the potential Bosnias or Serbias - small, belligerent countries that could drag their patrons into conflict.
• Havoc 8y ago
  I subscribe to (Einstein's?) WW4 will be fought with sticks & stones sentiment. The world is way beyond what can be survived in terms of flat out war. It's not really something I worry about. People just want to eat McD and earn a high salary. Nobody in the powerful nations is eager to get shot (well US military complex aside).
• deleted 8y ago
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• wolfspider 8y ago
  This article does appear to conclude many points on the premise of nationalism and it’s varied outcomes. Nationalism has only existed for not much more than 200 years which is not very long at all compared to all of human history. In the USA we are given this notion that these ideas are a solid foundation but I tend to think that America is very young and most national concepts are still very experimental. It will take much more time to figure out what is really going on here, what the goal is, and how to cope with it all. That may be the cause of a great war just a worldwide upheaval of imposed thought much like the Napoleonic era where the concept of monarchies was challenged again and again. In the transition from Rome to the Byzantine empire it seems religious and cultural freedoms were challenged during that period. If we all woke up one day and realized something very ingrained in our world is wrong then change would take place hell or high water. Much of the intrinsic message of nationalism is a dissolution of multiculturalism refining it into a set of rules which cannot be argued with by literally drawing lines in the sand. The only thing that used to matter was the town a person was from (e.g. last names with the name of that town or region). Today we create so many large homogeneous groups based on borders the rationality of favoritism and hatred becomes absurd. Maybe we are at the end of this serving much of a purpose after all so it’s time for a much needed review complete with unresolved baggage from an earlier time. I would like to get off at the closest stop before things get too weird personally.
  • joey-bob 8y ago
    I can't read Greek or Latin so I don't have access to the primary sources, but it is my understanding that nationalism was a prevalent part of political life in antiquity, particularly from the death of Alexander through to the end of the Roman empire, and reemerged in Europe around the same time as absolutism. In many ways, the United States, and to a larger extent the West, has significantly more in common with the late roman republic than it does with any point in it's own modern history.
    • zanny 8y ago
      Almost all great empires to some degree planted the roots of their legitimacy of conquest in their own self superiority. Nationalism is as old as the first man who thought some other culture as "uncivilized". Like how, say, the Romans called all the European peoples that weren't Roman barbarians.
• AtHeartEngineer 8y ago
  We are so close, probably within 50 to 100 years, of having technology far beyond what we can comprehend now. We have the chance to be multi-planetary, automate pretty much all work, and fullfil everyone's basic needs...if we don't destroy everything first. I'm going to be real pissed off if we screw this up.
  • expectsomuch 8y ago
    ...said people 50 to 100 years ago.
    • bryanrasmussen 8y ago
      yes, the people 50-100 years ago - like H.G Wells - would probably think we screwed it up.
  • tcbawo 8y ago
    For hundreds of years, after every leap in productivity, people have proclaimed the 'end of work'. But that never happens. One theory is that cost of living rises to offset generated wealth (historically, see real estate).
    • AtHeartEngineer 8y ago
      Ya I totally get that, but if we are raising our standards of living...or at least bringing almost everyone up to a baseline, that would be awesome. You know, not having to work 60 hours a week to just keep going.
  • tspike 8y ago
    We already have the means to automate pretty much all work and fulfill everyone's basic needs. We choose not to. As for multi planetary, why? Earth is paradise.
    • zanny 8y ago
      You can make anywhere a habitable paradise with enough energy. You don't even really need specific resources since with sufficient energy can you synthesize elements. A lot of people underestimate what the current projected growth of solar potential will lead to this century given its current pace in how much work you can do when energy is cheap and abundant.
• vl 8y ago
  >authoritarian revisionist powers such as China and Russia "Revisionist" in what sense?
  • vl 8y ago
    I mean literally, what does it mean in this context?
• WhompingWindows 8y ago
  None of the top comments mention nuclear weapons. Are we really going to fight a huge war with multiple combatants when some of them could kill untold millions in metropolitan areas with a few rockets?
  • mywittyname 8y ago
    It's possible because a world power doesn't need to completely annihilate another to win. They just need to remove their ability to compete on the global stage. The supply chain of American (and most modern countries) isn't fortified against any sort of large-scale attack. It wouldn't take much to know out food, fuel, and power supplies for most Americans. Once that happens, a little bit of propaganda will incite major riots which require police intervention. There are enough "militias" in the country waiting patiently for their time to rise up. Should they decide to "protect" themselves from the "looters," the country's leadership will probably have to redirect their attention an resources homeward in order to stabilize their power. That alone is enough to set the country back several decades. Especially if the educated class seeks refuge in a more stable, foreign country. Like what happened in central Europe after WWII. The future of warfare is against world powers is probably a long-term sequence of small scale attacks of this nature. Disrupt supplies, push propaganda, and create power vacuums which need to be filled.
• Animats 8y ago
  I'm worried. A big war could easily start partly by accident. A confrontation in the South China Sea or a move by Russia against Estonia could set off a major war. Look what started WWI.
  • adtac 8y ago
    WW1 was not an accident.
• itry2develop 8y ago
  The US shouldn't have to do the job that Europe could share the burden in. They can't keep passing off the costs and responsibility to others.
• schaefer 8y ago
  In my opinion, Bloomberg has become a fear mongering tabloid. Have they resolved the calls to retract or strengthen the evidence supporting their apple/amazon hardware hack story? Now a story about "the next great war"?
• api 8y ago
  The reason I've been concerned about this for a while is our degree of economic imbalance. War is historically the solution when things get like this. It's a way of selling Keynesianism to conservatives as well as a way to redistribute wealth through high taxes to fund war production.
• fouc 8y ago
  Has anyone noticed there seems to be a common theme with the related articles on that page? A lot of fear mongering it seems. What is bloomberg's agenda in doing that?
  • turtlecloud 8y ago
    The elites are psychologically prepping people for it.
    • acqq 8y ago
      Almost. Actually the main message of that Bloomberg article is (quoting from the article): "As Americans consider how strongly — or even whether — to defend the international order their country created against the growing pressures exerted by authoritarian revisionist powers such as China and Russia, this lesson is worth keeping in mind." Basically, the author argues: "the Americans" should not stop to "to defend the international order" "against" "China and Russia" or... there can be a new World War. Note the problem: it is not clear how the author imagines that the very insisting on "defending" the "order" by the Americans can't provoke the bigger war than they imagine? Austrian leaders, at that moment of a huge empire, also just believed they "defended" the "order" when attacking Serbia, which they expected will be a small and easy war, but they actually started the WW I. In spite of the popular belief, also mentioned in the article that "what we would now call globalization had rendered great-power conflict obsolete."
    • fouc 8y ago
      Less prepping and more priming, trying to make war happen. For example all the noise about Russia's influence in US election, seemed to me the media was trying to ultimately instigate war.
• chaostheory 8y ago
  There will always be conflicts with developing nations but unless global ballistic nuclear missiles magically disappear one day, the chances of another “Great War” are low. MADD keeps the Great Peace
• discoball 8y ago
  First it was the Chinese motherboard implants and now visions of a great war. What's their agenda? Does Bloomberg news represent Michael Bloomberg's agenda/views/paranoia in any way?
• rhacker 8y ago
  We won't have another giant war because: the internet. i don't know about anyone else but I spent some of my childhood travelling distances. Every time I did there was a cultural identity associated with the places I went. Post internet culture has changed nearly every place I've been. Everywhere I go everyone is the same now. They are all connected. People are connected to people in other countries like never before. There is so much connectivity that any "warmongering" king/president can't nearly control the flow of information like they used to. That all being said, how do we explain things like Crimea, issues with North Korea, the middle east? Well, Crimea, I can't fully explain. But North Korea and the middle east definitely practice tight control over their internet. That all being said, I'm not saying it's impossible, but that we're so connected now that I just don't see a great war because too many of our soldiers will have brothers, sisters, best friends in the war we're going up against.
  • CobrastanJorji 8y ago
    Even if you're absolutely right that Internet access changed everything, all it would take for a Great War would be if there was a major world military power that tightly controls its Internet, and that's China.
  • fit2rule 8y ago
    >We won't have another giant war because: the internet. I used to think that, but then I realised that the Internet is mostly just a porn-delivery device. Plus, there's the 4-chan factor, as in: if there is going to be another world war, it'll start because of something someone posted on 4-chan ... I mean look how easily the Internet was usurped to provide the "but Russia!" narrative, eagerly embraced by many a hawk as a means to a violent end ..
  • david927 8y ago
    Wars don't happen because people don't get along; they don't happen because people are different and don't understand each other. Civil wars are both common and nasty. Wars happen because in a set of animals, one member or subset will want the control of, say, the resources of an area, mating rights within the group, etc. Its members will often think that it's acting this way as a form of public service. "Someone has to divide up the meat of the fallen antelope," for example, ignoring what happens with control which is that the spoils, the resources, etc. will start to divide unevenly. This continues to the point of extreme imbalance, such as just before the French Revolution where the wealthy paid less in tax than the poor, or the leader becomes too weak to maintain control. In all cases, control isn't maintained for long. Right now, America is the empire in control. The problem that I see is that its generals are preparing for the last war with battleships and big guns (as sort of an "innovator's dilemma", where what has been successful for a company maintains the limelight despite a growing new reality). You can see the control ebbing, weakening. The petrodollar, for example, once so strong and a big part of the country's economic power, is now being replaced with the Special Drawing Right (SDR) -- a diversified basket of currencies. And that's' the only solution: to diversify control. The peace that's found when an empire has control is temporary; it's the eye of the storm. Until there's world-wide democracy, we will have war.
• aestetix 8y ago
  Seems to me that, despite our best efforts, we have been unable to avoid falling into yet another Thucycides trap.
• baud147258 8y ago
  > dreadful innovations such as aerial bombing Aerial bombing was an Italian innovation, during their war in Lybia
• tabtab 8y ago
  Einstein alleged suggested there will be no WW4.