Thankfully, that's one of the good parts of globalization. Another world war is nothing that anybody wants, what with our economies being so intricately connected and dependent on one another.
Will there ever be another World War?
- Thread starter Liv's Runaway Snail
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Will there be inevitable future conflicts between nations and other countries will find themselves picking sides and supporting one country over the other? Most definitely; humans tend to be stupid and cause wars over very trivial and idiotic reasons.
Will there be a huge, full-blown conflict ala World Wars 1 or 2? No. Our technology has advanced to the point where anything on that scale would utterly ruin a country on the losing end, not to mention break the entire economy of the military globally. Nukes are also an issue, since the dehumanization of enemy countries, coupled with the insane desire to win conflicts due to patriotism or just simply not losing to the other country, would mean that people would not hesitate turning the two keys and pushing the red button. Even with how stupid we are, everyone knows we've made our weapons too deadly for us to squabble them over each other, and nothing short of, say, Kim Jong-un completely losing it and somehow firing a nuclear warhead at South Korea would cause us to go out and curbstomp a country that hard.
Will there be a huge, full-blown conflict ala World Wars 1 or 2? No. Our technology has advanced to the point where anything on that scale would utterly ruin a country on the losing end, not to mention break the entire economy of the military globally. Nukes are also an issue, since the dehumanization of enemy countries, coupled with the insane desire to win conflicts due to patriotism or just simply not losing to the other country, would mean that people would not hesitate turning the two keys and pushing the red button. Even with how stupid we are, everyone knows we've made our weapons too deadly for us to squabble them over each other, and nothing short of, say, Kim Jong-un completely losing it and somehow firing a nuclear warhead at South Korea would cause us to go out and curbstomp a country that hard.
If by World War you mean a conventional war fought between two large coalitions of nations, I would say it is highly unlikely. It has been said many times that no two countries with a McDonalds have ever gone to war. This is because globalization of economy makes the prospect of global war a pointless one. If the current paradigm changes, we might see a change in this, but as it stands now there is simply no good reason for major powers to fight a conventional war against one another. I'd also say that as technology progresses and prosperity becomes more and more common place, fewer and fewer people will even desire war. I'd go so far as to say that if we find a technological solution to scarcity, we will find the key to global peace.
Highly doubt it. The biggest threat of a world war sparking is Pakistan and India, and they're on a path to peace. The internet gives a lot of power to the people and unites us, regardless of nation. Sorry for being optimistic and not believing in the exciting fear-mongering of American media.
The thing that people forget when they're talking about World Wars is that there's a set of criteria that have to be met for it to even be a possibility and none of them are there right now (or likely will be within our lifetimes):
1) The world powers have to be divided into two neatly divided camps
This was something that existed for the entirety of the Cold War. But since the fall of the Soviet Union there really aren't neat and even divisions between the world powers. Everyone has started to be either in it for themselves or in it for the "global community" and that isn't the kind of environment that sparks a "World War".
2) A major world power has to feel that they want to eliminate or control the other major world powers.
We've kind of grown beyond the idea that military expansion will increase your power. While it's true that it's in human nature to pick a fight to make themselves more powerful, it's not so much true anymore that more land directly equates to more power. Really, we've evolved into a system where economic power is just as good, if not better. So we wouldn't risk destroying economic resources even if they're political rivals (China and USA are economically tied to each other more and more as time goes on, for instance)
3) A major world power has to think they CAN WIN
The reason the Cold War stayed cold is because both sides of the war realized that if it became a "hot" war, neither side was going to come out of it "victorious". That's not to say that we just rationally decided that we couldn't fight that war, either. The majority of wars that were fought during the Cold War were essentially Russia and the US feeling each other out to see if it was possible to push for a full scale invasion. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan (the first time) and a lot of others were all fought essentially to have the Capitalist and Communist powers of the world size each other up. In the end, both sides realized it would be an ugly fight with no real winner.
When the World Wars started, both of them began on the idea that someone could effectively fight all of the other powers in the world and WIN. You look at Germany's progress in WW2 and you can see pretty clearly that they had a fair reason to think they could. But could you imagine a country managing to do the same thing in today's climate? The greatest military power in the world right now, the United States, hasn't even been able to control the couple of fronts it's already dealing with. We're all too well equipped now for a simple and clean military expansion. Everything has became far too equal for us to just march over the guy next door.
For anyone who thinks differently about the balance of power right now, I leave you with this: I've been told by a couple people in the military (on both sides) that in the 90s we actually managed to lose a couple of war games against Canada - CANADA of all places. Think about that the next time you picture someone trying to rule the world.
1) The world powers have to be divided into two neatly divided camps
This was something that existed for the entirety of the Cold War. But since the fall of the Soviet Union there really aren't neat and even divisions between the world powers. Everyone has started to be either in it for themselves or in it for the "global community" and that isn't the kind of environment that sparks a "World War".
2) A major world power has to feel that they want to eliminate or control the other major world powers.
We've kind of grown beyond the idea that military expansion will increase your power. While it's true that it's in human nature to pick a fight to make themselves more powerful, it's not so much true anymore that more land directly equates to more power. Really, we've evolved into a system where economic power is just as good, if not better. So we wouldn't risk destroying economic resources even if they're political rivals (China and USA are economically tied to each other more and more as time goes on, for instance)
3) A major world power has to think they CAN WIN
The reason the Cold War stayed cold is because both sides of the war realized that if it became a "hot" war, neither side was going to come out of it "victorious". That's not to say that we just rationally decided that we couldn't fight that war, either. The majority of wars that were fought during the Cold War were essentially Russia and the US feeling each other out to see if it was possible to push for a full scale invasion. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan (the first time) and a lot of others were all fought essentially to have the Capitalist and Communist powers of the world size each other up. In the end, both sides realized it would be an ugly fight with no real winner.
When the World Wars started, both of them began on the idea that someone could effectively fight all of the other powers in the world and WIN. You look at Germany's progress in WW2 and you can see pretty clearly that they had a fair reason to think they could. But could you imagine a country managing to do the same thing in today's climate? The greatest military power in the world right now, the United States, hasn't even been able to control the couple of fronts it's already dealing with. We're all too well equipped now for a simple and clean military expansion. Everything has became far too equal for us to just march over the guy next door.
For anyone who thinks differently about the balance of power right now, I leave you with this: I've been told by a couple people in the military (on both sides) that in the 90s we actually managed to lose a couple of war games against Canada - CANADA of all places. Think about that the next time you picture someone trying to rule the world.
Common sense says no: war on that massive a scale seems completely without justification to most people in today's day and age. Hell, were living in the first time in human history where diplomacy is used more than war.
History says yes: People have never been able to believe in their own capacity for evil, and unfortunately for the globalism/diplomacy argument the historical trend is usually towards collapse, not continued stability.
Personally, I don't think so. Nations tend to be rather careful about sparking wars anymore, and to the "History says yes" part - the Cold war also happened and we didn't blow the earth to smithereens, so theres some hope yet.
History says yes: People have never been able to believe in their own capacity for evil, and unfortunately for the globalism/diplomacy argument the historical trend is usually towards collapse, not continued stability.
Personally, I don't think so. Nations tend to be rather careful about sparking wars anymore, and to the "History says yes" part - the Cold war also happened and we didn't blow the earth to smithereens, so theres some hope yet.
Killing some time while a patcher runs.Liv said:
The depressing answer is that we either face another World War and come out of it with a clear victor and single world government, or humanity dies. Albert Einstein was a product of his time, and while very smart with math and physics, he was very much blind to a lot of other things.
A lot of people will not like this and doubtlessly try and (incorrectly) argue points with me, but the bottom line is that humanity is overpopulated. As environmentalists will point out (and correctly) humanity is pretty much wrecking the world with it's numbers. Resources we need to maintain a relatively comfortable lifestyle like wood, metal, oil, coal, etc... are being depleted faster than they can replentish , more and more demanding "modern" lifestyles in developing nations which of course increases that pressure. There is a general, false, belief among the "peace at any price" movement that we cannot destroy the planet's ability to sustain us, and that the key to peace is to provide a high standard of living for everyone. At the end of the day though your eventually going to strip mine all of the minerals out of the ground and cut down all the trees faster than they can regrow and then be left with nothing, and quite possibly land that is incapable of ever recovering itself in anything like a timely manner. It's a problem pretty much everyone knows exists, but nobody wants to face. Understand also that the human population is already too large and continues to grow exponentially, making the problem worse.
On top of this we have the whole issue that for all of the "diversity is strength" arguments out there, at the end of the day diversity in nations and cultures ultimately means that very different groups of people are always going to be at odds with each other, compete, and be concerned about what each other has. This means that research gets duplicated as one development by a nation is not shared, and mental-resources among the best and the brightest in other nations are instead spent trying to play catch-up instead of developing new things and moving technology forward.
What's more the problems that come from competition and trying to fight the symptoms of dwindling resources means that there is resistance among short sighted people and leaders who are dependant on those people who care only for what benefits them right now to any of the potential solutions. We should already be investing most of our planet's resources towards space exploration and colonization, and be at least dealing with some of the mineral problems by mining the asteroid belts in our own solar system, instead we continue to invest all of our resources and energy squabbling over diminishing resources, trade competition, and trying to strive for the goal of diverse groups of people co-existing when at the end of the day things like rationally run societies and spiritually run ones cannot co-exist (you either run your society by religions law, or you don't). Right now we've got China priming to invade it's neighbors while pretending to be nice guys (they just built an Aircraft Carrier, an offensive weapon), Russia being as psychopathic as usual under Putin, Africa roiling in constant civil wars and bloodshed, which spills over to annoy the rest of the world through piracy and such, and The Middle East pretty much engaged in theocratic warfare to try and force the acceptance of Islamic law on the rest of the world, this is not to say much about the US where we bicker about the lack of homosexuals in sitcoms, bankrpupt our own country, and then argue about social entitlement programs while the government slap fights itself into a shut down... this is from a society that should at least have a functioning Lunar base (to use as a springboard into the rest of the solar system) by now, the really important things that can lead to overall solutions like that aren't even on the table while we watch people argue over "Obamacare" which in the big picture of humanity (which affects us) is pretty much irrelevant.
The need for control also means that private industry isn't going to be able to step up like a lot of people think. At the end of the day if any company actually starts getting spacecraft off the ground, they are going to either be shut down or regulated into a stupor since no government is going to let anyone have that much power if they don't control it. After all Bob's "Space Tours" (like some people are planning) could always decide to start placing missile
platforms in orbit or whatever if not kept tightly controlled. In short it's going to take a major country like the US, Russia, or China, to ever change the world with a serious space program.
Where all this goes with world wars is that it's inevitable, at the end of the day there is no way for certain groups like the US, China, Middle Eastern Theocracies, etc... to all co-exist. The current climate has actually been maintained by those weapons Einstein feared, and the threat of MAD. Despite what some people might want to think "ultimate" power does not remain "ultimate" for long and with this thread over their head most major countries have been striving for solutions. The USA seriously slotted off Russia not too long ago due to it's missile defense technologies violating agreements made with the now-defunct USSR. Obama has been under pressure to share this technology (and one of the reasons I think he's a clown is that he's seemed favorable towards the idea). China has had ground-based laser systems since around 2006 which can blind targeting satellites, something people tend to forget, and which paints a scary picture in light of them building a force capable of projecting their military into the rest of the world. At the end of the day the USA might fail a lot in practice but has somewhat utopian *ideals* about cohabitation and democracy under it's ageis, China believes pretty much in Chinese superiority and ruling over lesser races (people like to cry about the KKK, but really China is more racist than the US ever was), Russia would likewise like to see a global state run by Slavic rulers, and of course The Middle Eastern nations would like to see a global theocracy headed by Arabs who are Allah's chosen people. Take the Arabic ideal and replace it with blacks and a ton of insanity (look up Yakub on Wikipedia) and you have Nation Of Thisslam (Black Muslims) which is one of the dominant cultural forces through Africa.
Overall the "fun" is likely going to start when someone realizes that there isn't much chance of any major player delivering WMD against another at any great range anymore. We've gotten to the point where you can make a missile to intercept pretty much any other missile someone created to deliver something, not to mention all kinds of garbage for disrupting control systems, targeting, etc. Many people prefer not to believe this, but it's the truth, and why a lot of countries like China are building up huge amounts of conventional forces and the ability to deliver them, with Navies being seen as increasingly relevant again to those who are paying attention. Right now the big question is more or less who is going to win, I've argued for a while that right now the odds favor the US (which is not perfect, but at least idealistically is probably best for humanity as a whole if it wins in the end), which is why "we" should pre-emptively start the war before enemies can build up any further, more nations catch up with our defensive technologies, etc. As things are now the US is too moral, and it's more likely we're going to see the war come about gradually when economic conditions spiral out of control, which is also likely to see the US in a far weaker position with the odds less in
it's favor.
Ideally such a world war should wipe out 90%+ of the global population much like happened in Star Trek, with one nation/culture pretty much absorbing all others for all intents and purposes and establishing a central government. From this position it then becomes possible to both control population growth (or re-growth rather), through draconian measures if need be, to ensure that every person has a pretty high standard of living. With only one government and set of overall interests, space travel can become a priority, and human reproduction can be increased as the planet restores itself and we expand to other colonies. Overall I do not think the population should ever exceed 15-20% of
what we have now on earth at least to maintain the most effective environment.
The thing is though that the cost of NOT doing this (which is horrifying) is simply that our maintained peace leads to the eventual depletion of all of the resources. With pretty much every bit of metal mined, every piece of wood logged, every fish devoured, etc... and trillions upon trillions of people stacked everywhere we'll see things collapse. With literally nothing left to sustain civilizations we'll collapse back into barbarity and eventually we'll be wiped out by nature, when our sun goes "boom" in a billion or so years if nothing else. It's hard for a lot of people to comprehend, but that is pretty much the fate of humanity if we continue down this path... and we kind of brought it upon ourselves, any kind of real improvement or future comes with a truly terrible cost we have to pay for our own species to survive and thrive.
While he differs from me in some of the details, a lot of this is why Steven Hawking has talked about how little time humanity has to get off the planet.
At any rate all of my militant discussion aside, if I was in control of a major power right now I'd throw the match on the powder keg to get it going, instead of hoping it will go off on it's own and leave me blameless. "We must save paradise by introducing the serpent" so to speak. It doubtlessly makes most people here terribly happy that I will likely never wield any real power. On the other hand in a generation or two... well you likely won't see the result of nobody like me being in a position to step up to the plate and save the world.
Now hold it. You can't go talking about international mech battles without mentioning the glorious anime, G Gundam!MetalDooley said:
So. Many. Stereotypes.
OT: To have a war on the grand scale of the two previous world wars...
Maybe. Hopefully it won't be nuclear like many predicted would happen during the cold war, or we could, ya know, not have a world war. Right?
Well, let's get all logical about this. Even if we define World War as something that per definition only counts when it happens on earth (so we don't have to count all that life in the universe), and take World War to mean that at least 2 continents with at least 2 superpowers have to go at it: it's pretty likely that it will happen. I mean, the only way for us NOT to have another world war at one point in the future would be for us to die of something else first.
I remember reading somewhere that humans are no less likely to start a war than we ever have been, but we no longer have large enough militaries to go to full scale war and lack the reserves in troops and equipment to support a war after it has started. North Korea, one of the most militarised places on the planet can wage total war for 100 days before running out of fuel and ammuniton. 100 DAYS!
Yep. Infact, what will soon be called World War 3 is probably being fought right now.
The snowball's been rolling down that hill for a long time. It's probably long due its time.
Or maybe we'll evade the whole thing because we'll learn from out mistakes. And then not take 10 billions dollars from the loser, 15% of their land and cripple their army afterwards... which, y'know, can only ensure good things will happen. But no, humans will never be intelligent enough to not murder each other, then put their hands up in the air and blame it on some other person. It's a fault of human nature that not even Mother Theresa could overcome.
The snowball's been rolling down that hill for a long time. It's probably long due its time.
Or maybe we'll evade the whole thing because we'll learn from out mistakes. And then not take 10 billions dollars from the loser, 15% of their land and cripple their army afterwards... which, y'know, can only ensure good things will happen. But no, humans will never be intelligent enough to not murder each other, then put their hands up in the air and blame it on some other person. It's a fault of human nature that not even Mother Theresa could overcome.
Having watched far too much Gundam, I'm pretty certain that war is an inevitable part of human nature... just as hating war is an inevitable part of human nature. The real question should be "What is left that is important enough to polarize nearly the entire population of the planet into fighting over it?" The only things I can think of are Life and Liberty. If freedom is downtrodden enough, men will band together and fight for it the same way that the world banded together to fight for their lives against the Nazi regime... which in itself was a byproduct of the life crushing sanctions put on Germany after the first world war.
As a Christian, I believe that everything wrong stems from Original Sin. Not just in some metaphysical bullshit sense. Like, one bad thing is literally the cause of the next bad thing and any other bad things after that. So we're currently just on the tips of the twigs on the branches on a tree of really shit decisions. Wars are just Shitfruit. And the problem is the tree.
As a Christian, I believe that everything wrong stems from Original Sin. Not just in some metaphysical bullshit sense. Like, one bad thing is literally the cause of the next bad thing and any other bad things after that. So we're currently just on the tips of the twigs on the branches on a tree of really shit decisions. Wars are just Shitfruit. And the problem is the tree.
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