Is a war between the great powers imaginable?

[Julie4]

[nightdrot]

This is another quick answer - you are making it easy lately.

Absolutely war between the great powers is imaginable. After all, there is historical precedent. See also a global catastrophe that ended the ascendency of the West forever that began via the assassination of an Archduke in a provincial city in the Balkans.

Recall that all the literature of that time was sure that major war was impossible. The West had attained a standard of living unheard of in human history. Science and technology had achieved "miracles." The West was triumphant and man was beyond the barbarism of war.

Then down went the ninepins. As the 19th century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli had put it earlier, “The European talks of progress because by the aid of a few scientific discoveries he has established a society which has mistaken comfort for civilization.”

Catastrophe to follow.

To be sure, statesman are apt to be more cautious because of the risk of thermonuclear holocaust. However, that in itself has bred a complacency that could, under the right conditions, lead to disaster.

Thus did Russia invade Ukraine. It seems a risk worth taking because, strictly speaking, Ukraine is more essential to Russia than to any other great power. Yet, even Mr. Putin failed to grasp that the other Western powers, in the interests of their Balkan and other Eastern European allies, would indirectly intervene and thus has Mr. Putin paid a higher price than anticipated. Nuclear saber rattling to follow.

What the world - and the West in particular - has always failed to learn is that peace is not simply a condition. Rather, it is the result of continuous efforts and striving. Thus did the American President Theodore Roosevelt write, "World peace comes not from human kindness or moral restraint, but from balanced power; equilibriums of force restraining the selfish aims of nation-states."

That is a continuous and never ending balancing and the risks of complacency or miscalculation by imperfect and imperfectible human beings are enormous. Thus making war between the great powers, at the very least, imaginable. The problem being that it is hard to imagine, at any given moment, the specifics that might lead to war.

P. S. Somewhat related: See also my answer to your question - Do you agree with Macron that we should also provide "guarantees for its own security to Russia"?

[Julie4]

There is a part of your text that I'm not sure I understand, I don't know if it's because of my bad English lol

You write this "See also a global catastrophe that ended the ascendency of the West forever that began via the assassination of an Archduke in a provincial city in the Balkans. "

Does this mean that for you the USA is not part of the West and that the West is above all Europe?

Haha yes I will have to raise the quality of my questions?

[nightdrot]

No, the USA is part of the West, but as the rise of Communism, Fascism and National Socialism all illustrated - and as the domestic social upheavals that began in the 1960s and 70s to a lesser extent also illustrated - the dominance of classical liberals Western values came to an end with WWI.

After that war, the West no longer had the confidence in the inevitability of its' own progress. It no longer was unopposed by values and a moral structure that competed with its' own.

A small example. Think of it. Japan was opened to the West in the late 19th century and began to adapt to Western social structures, science and the like. Hence, the Meiji Restoration which was, to be sure, not fully Western in its orientation but was famous for aping Western cultural structures.

Then comes WWI and the Bolshevik Revolution and after that other competing ideologies. Thus China turns toward Communism in 1949. The West was no longer the sole social-cultural-economic model and China turned toward a system seemingly antagonistic to those values.

To be sure, the West has defeated Communism, Fascism and National Socialism. Yet even then, the West's confidence in itself has not been fully restored. Hence, "wokeism" and the various other "isms" in the Third World. The truth being that at the moment there is a vacuum.

The West is alone, for the most part, but it no longer fills the cultural vacuum. Please note, by the way, this has nothing to do with specific countries per se. Rather I refer to the broad spectrum of Western cultural values and morals.

[Julie4]

Ah ok I understand now, thanks for the explanation

[nightdrot]

Not at all. Always a pleasure and hope you are well - and all the best for the Holidays too!

[Julie4]

Thank you very much and I also wish you and your family a happy holiday.

But it seems that it was a bit too early to wish you happy holidays, maybe in the US you wish it as soon as December has started? I usually wish it only from the 24th of December lol, if I didn't wish you happy holidays before it's only because of that, but not by rudeness or forgetfulness 😊

[nightdrot]

Actually, I am in total agreement with you. With having kids, obviously, Christmas is big. However, it starts way too early for me. We appreciate things like holidays because they come only briefly and are special. The instant we drag them out, they lose that and just become background noise.

Besides, Easter Sunday is my favorite holiday anyhow. Not to mention that I am an emphatic April to August/Spring and Summer guy. I can take a pass on Fall and Winter.

That all said, since I was not sure when we might chat again, I wanted to make sure I wished you and yours' all the very best for Christmas and New Year's Day. You are, as I have said, before, a real pleasure to chat and debate with and as far as I am concerned one of the bright spots on this site.

Hence, my early Holiday greetings.

[MrOracle]

It's actually less likely now - though a significant part of the US government would love such a war. Unfortunately, Ukraine has actually backfired in that respect.

Ukraine has revealed how militarily weak the Russians are. The Russians deployed virtually every available combat troop they had, and has expended a huge percentage of their weapons stockpiles, and that only won them some relatively small gains, which they are now losing. It's been a disaster for Russia militarily.

But it hasn't been great for the west either. Quite a lot of western weapons stockpiles have been expended in the Ukraine war, and those weapons aren't quickly replaced. "Dumb" bombs aren't difficult to make fairly quickly and in quantity, but "smart" munitions are much slower to replenish, and the west relies heavily on those to minimize collateral damage.

The other problem for Russia has been manpower. They don't have nearly enough to take Ukraine, much less fight a war directly against a major power, and the birthrate is so low that even without a war, they were in big trouble population-wise.

That's also a huge problem in China - the Chinese population bomb has already gone off. China will soon have twice as many retired people as they have workers, and the birth rate there is ultra low, no where near replacement values, so they're going to have generations of population decline. The last thing they can afford to do is spend hundreds of thousands, much less millions, of YOUNG people's lives on a war. They need every young body they can get to be earning money, so they can have enough money to care for the elderly. I fully expect China to embrace and encourage euthanasia on the elderly (encouraging elder suicide) because they're simply going to have far too many old people and not enough young people to keep the economy going.

Obviously, there's always the possibility of a crazy, desperate dictator launching nukes at the west - especially if that dictator is near death himself. That's the big unknown. But, conventionally speaking, neither Russia nor China has a hope of success against even just the US on its own, much less a NATO coalition.

This is why Putin has switched gears, and is now trying to disrupt the west financially, and is trying to sign up countries who will use the ruble as their reserve currency, to undermine the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. Unfortunately, they picked a bad time to do that, because as screwed up as the US is, Russia and China are FAR worse off financially. Russia's economy has always been small, and the vast majority of it has been from petroleum sales, which have largely been cut off, leaving Russia with very little foreign income. China is much better off by comparison, but even though China has good ongoing income, they've ran up MASSIVE debt, and tons of it is on crappy, and often useless infrastructure that were more vanity projects and job programs than a real infrastructure plan. Many of the roads, bridges, and dams they built are falling apart, cost FAR more than budgeted, have HUGE ongoing maintenance costs, and are HEAVILY underutilized. China also still HEAVILY relies on the west for anything that's very advanced - for example, all of their auto manufacturing uses western-made equipment. They simply lack most of the necessary materials science and other advanced technical skills needed to compete on their own - but they are stealing things as fast as they can.

[bingbongbangbung]

Those are a lot of strong claims you're making without any evidence

[MrOracle]

@bingbongbangbung There's plenty of evidence - but there are also lots of variables and lots of humans that aren't always rational, so nothing is ever certain. If we had to wait for certainty to discuss things, there are whole swaths of things we could never talk about...

[DJB72]

Ultimately it's inevitable.

In 1914 Europe had been divided into two blocks, Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria on one side and the British Empire, France, Russia, Japan, USA, China, and some others on the other.

Amongst other things, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand triggered the war, but as noted by Captain E Blackadder in Blackadder goes Forth the idea of two "superpowers" whose sole purpose was to keep the other's military ambitions in check was complete bollocks. The war started because it was too much trouble not to have a war.

By 1939 there were again two major superpowers: Allies and Axis.

While Blackadder wasn't around, the same basic premise was the case. The Allied victory in 1918 had led to the Great Depression but had been intended to humiliate Germany in particular - thereby sowing the seeds of the next war.

It may be almost 80 years since armed conflict hit Europe, but the same mentality that created the environment for WW2 is being created in Ukraine between NATO and Russia. Only this time it's likely going to be fought with nukes between Russia and the USA primarily with Europe decimated as an incidental loss thanks to the arrogance of an infant nation facing off against one of the oldest. Hard to say which is the arrogant one.

Again, it's simply too much trouble not to go to war. It's just a matter of time.

[OddBeMe]

Trade wars, drone strikes, or proxy wars between smaller countries…. sure.


World War 3? Doubtful. Too many global corporate power players. Both world wars were still in a time when the countries were isolated. That’s what the Marshall Plan did.

[Anonymous]

Never say never. But most in the know realize a war between the great powers of the world is bad for EVERYONE. Missile technology was in infancy during the last world War. Any war that was fought for all the marbles today would take mere hrs. And all military leaders know once that is set in motion it's a question whether that genie COULD be put back in the bottle. Or at least we hope they do.

[jbasch]

Yes, a NATO-Russian war over Ukraine or a US-China war over Taiwan is very much conceivable. I think a US-China war is unlikely to occur in the near future, but a NATO-Russian escalation absolutely could happen.

[Sixgunsound]

It seems to be to the global cabal which hates humanity.

[USLegionary]

Absolutely but Russia and China are 30-40 years behind technologically.

[bingbongbangbung]

Lol doubt China is when they steal others'IP

[USLegionary]

@bingbongbangbung everything the steal is 30-40 years old.

[Googlemyahoo]

Easy fix. Stir up regime change in the so called great powers. They can’t do shit while dealing with domestic issues

[Anonymous]

We choose whether or not we are going to stop it from happening this time or not.

It may be our first and last opportunity.

[KostasKouvalis]

It seems inevitable at this point. Everyone aways said it would be either Russia or China

[BJP21]

With the last and now president we are on dangerous grounds.

[SpokenTruth]

It's more than imaginable Isaiah 13:12 - Revelation 18.

[bingbongbangbung]

The Bible is NOT an accurate source of information

[SpokenTruth]

@bingbongbangbung Oh yes, it is too.

[grega239]

Its inevitable. I mean we're kinda going gowards one right now

[Fuentes]

It can happen but Russia has a weak military and do does China.

[Tracker1958]

I can't wait for it to start. No more protection the women and children.

[jimmy2]

War is done by only a few elite and God bless the soldiers for they really don't know why they are dying and being lame the rest of their lives

[12Volt]

With Biden as president, yes.

[purplepoppy]

If something can happen, it will happen.

[LiamJHayden]

With the senile dolt in office, possible.

[Alex8736]

it's all rumors and unfounded information

[WhitneySnow]

It is

[Jennz6]

I think so