Are we sleepwalking into World War III?

(ft.com)

12 points | by JumpCrisscross 10 hours ago ago

16 comments

  • throw310822 10 hours ago ago

    > The four countries of the axis are united by their discontent with the US-led world security order. Russia resents Nato expansion and wants to see the alliance pushed back. Iran has attacked US military bases across the Middle East.

    The countries are "discontent". Russia "resents". Iran has attacked US bases. This is the level of this article. Nowhere any mention of aggressive actions taken by the US.

    • sedan_baklazhan 9 hours ago ago

      Ah that treacherous Iran. It positioned itself nearby US bases and attacked them.

  • nmehner 8 hours ago ago

    It is always funny that long term strategy is seen as sleepwalking.

    Fossil fuels are the war driver of the past and present. Just by owning a plot of land you become insanely rich. Other parts of the economy have an interest in peace, because war is bad for business. But income from fossil fuels is too high for this to matter.

    With fossil fuels being phased out this will become less and less important. Many people understand it. But not some backwards grumpy old men like Putin, Trump and the Ajatollahs.

    For the rest of the world the best course of action is to try to pacify the involved parties as much as possible. Trump will loose power. Putin will die while Russia will become irrelevant by destroying it's own economy for this pointless war. And the Ajatollahs probably also will loose power without oil income, Teheran running out of water and large swaths of land becoming uninhabitable.

    There is just no active course of action to solve these crises. Just "sleepwalk" trying to minimize the impact of those conflicts, while waiting for the transition away from fossil fuels and preparing for the climate change impact.

    The big cause of conflicts in the future will be climate change. Large areas becoming uninhabitable and millions of people migrating between countries. This is what we have to prepare for. Stepping into some old mens petty games is pointless and will only cause more pain.

  • metalman 5 hours ago ago

    no.WW3 cant happen yet. Somebody forgot to formaly invite China, but China did say something about bieng busy building civilisational infrastucture and while they wont refuse a war, it's not there current priority.But ya, anyway, cant have ww3 without China.

    • sedan_baklazhan 2 hours ago ago

      China isn't really needed - they haven't got enough nuclear weapons.

  • ares623 10 hours ago ago

    This is just armchair posting, but there's just no other way "out".

    Millions upon millions of disenfranchised young people with no where to go. Before 2019 those millions at least had the hope of moving to one of the still wealthier countries, which alleviated some of the pressure and anger back home. Now that pathway is increasingly more difficult and harder to justify, plus the people in the wealthier countries themselves are starting to feel the same anger and pressure, but have nowhere else to go.

    All that pressure and anger will need to be directed somewhere, and I'm sure the leaders of such countries would prefer it goes outward than inward.

  • coffinbirth 9 hours ago ago

    [flagged]

    • csto12 9 hours ago ago

      Looks like there are still some Yandex server farms operational

    • OKRainbowKid 9 hours ago ago

      80% of the comments on your account are basically just regurgitating Russian propaganda verbatim.

      • coffinbirth 8 hours ago ago

        It's always 'Russian propaganda' and never 'US propaganda', isn't that interesting? The idea of Ukrainian membership in NATO was first formally formulated as an objective within the U.S. government in October 1994.

        Already in 1993 did Russian President Boris Yeltsin argue that any expansion of NATO into the former Warsaw Pact territory breached the "spirit" of oral assurances given during the 1990 German reunification talks.

        In February 2008, during a joint press conference in Moscow, Vladimir Putin issued a direct military threat. He warned that if Ukraine joined NATO and hosted foreign military infrastructure, Russia could be forced to target its missile systems at Ukrainian territory.

        These are historical FACTS, do you have any?

        • OKRainbowKid 8 hours ago ago

          And of course, your first reflex is deflecting to the US. If you check my account, I am quite critical of the US as well.

          What I see in yours is basically you trying to justify that Putin just had no other option than to commit all these war crimes, kill hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians on both sides, and in general cause immeasurable unnecessary suffering.

          There was simply no other way, these civilians had to be bombed.

          • coffinbirth 6 hours ago ago

            You can' really blame Putin for not trying to prevent an armed conflict (Minsk 1, Minsk 2, Instanbul talks) for many, many years. Internally, he is often heavily criticized for being 'too soft' when dealing with the Collective West. In fact, it was the US, EU and NATO that finally pushed the Zelensky regime into open warfare.

            Let's be honest, there are war crimes committed on both sides on a daily bases (killing of ethnic Russians by Ukrainian troops in eastern Ukraine that are waiting for the Russian army, killing of POWs), I regularly watch them on Ukrainian and Russian Telegram channels. But your claim that Russia 'commit all these war crimes' is just not a serious argument. If you think it is, please provide a list of 'all these war crimes'.

      • throw310822 8 hours ago ago

        Can you provide some examples of US/ NATO propaganda? Just to understand if you have such a sharp eye for that kind, too.

        • OKRainbowKid 7 hours ago ago

          Why should I? I am not doubting their existence, and as a European I do not consider the US an ally.

          Feel free to point it out yourself, if you see any in my comments.

          • throw310822 6 hours ago ago

            Yes, I saw one. You said "you're basically just regurgitating Russian propaganda verbatim". This- the idea that arguments that point out US and NATO responsibility in starting and fuelling this war are "Russian propaganda"- is itself US/ NATO propaganda.

            Think about it for a second- we keep hearing that Russia is meddling with our public opinion through our social media while the fact is that our social media are owned by US companies that are deeply involved with the US government, military and intelligence; despite the fact that our countries and governments are almost entirely dependent from the US; that many of our media just copy and paste whatever the NyT or the WP write the day before. We are members of a military alliance headed by the US, ffs.

            It's like the joke of the two fish asking each other "what is water?" You're swimming in it.