A World At War (Again)

World War III has already begun, and not much can stop it. That is an unpopular statement, for several reasons. Chief among them is the denial people are afflicted with when it comes to considering uncomfortable truths. But no matter what, the coming years will change the face of the earth forever, and we need to stop denying the reality of it. Instead, we need to wake up to the changes and begin preparing physically and mentally for the collapse of the civilization that we have known for so long. For a post-collapse world that brings into question our place in on this planet.

We are already at war

It does not have to feel like there is a global conflict for there to be one. In fact, such a war could already be set for kinetic manifestation at a moment’s notice, only waiting for a single small spark to ignite an undeniable conflagration. Some crazy nationalist shot Archduke Ferdinand back in 1914 and started the First World War, at least on paper. In reality, that war was already being fought, but that spark was the shock that everyone notes as the beginning. In our uniquely American understanding of it, World War II kicked off after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but there were plenty of places in Europe at the time that would say confidently that the war was already raging before that. We Americans just hadn’t gotten involved officially yet, that’s all. The marks of tension and brewing conflict had been there all along, and in hindsight, we can plainly see the ‘world domination’ goal of the aggressors.

The difference between this new world war and the previous ones is a shift to proxy wars being fought between the global hegemony powers and those who seek to become such powers, like what we’re seeing in Ukraine. Rather than major nations directly engaging in old-fashioned interstate tank war, most conflict is being thrown into the laps of third-world nations to deal with. The already struggling Global South is facing a new type of colonialism in the unstoppable competition for influence. “Belt and Road?” Sounds like echoes of the Cold War. But this use of proxies allows people to comfortably sit back and deny the reality of conflict between the great powers. They can rest easy, not believing in any world war. It’s just a thing in Ukraine, and so far from here…

Take the newest front in the Middle East. We already know that Hamas and Iran are practically the same thing, having been allies for decades. They are the proxy of a proxy, and sponsorship rolls downhill. Iran sends plenty of rockets and money to them and many others, and also sends things up the proxy-chain as well, to its own sponsor. By this I mean all the drones and ballistic missiles sent to Russia. Many missiles in Ukraine also come from North Korea, the proxy-pet of China, which is itself the largest ally of Russia. North Korea, earning billions from these missile sales, also works with Pakistan and Hamas. Terrorist groups around the world support Hamas, like Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and they also collaborate with organized crime cartels across Latin America and other small sponsor nations such as Venezuela.

How can anyone look at a full-circle dynamic like that and deny the existence of a global alliance engaged in conflict?

telling it like it is

The power of words should never be underestimated: There is intense accountability that comes with throwing around the term ‘World War.’ Because a World War, in these new modern times of nuclear proliferation, inevitably leads to a nuclear war. And that means the collapse of all civilization and most of the people living as part of it.

But still, we do throw the words around. Kim Jong-un has been threatening to “thoroughly annihilate” us for quite some time now. Putin likes to remind us of Russia’s nuclear capabilities by yelling “Don’t they get that?” Such speeches are ominous but not shocking. Even the nation that sheltered Osama bin Laden has nukes, these things are becoming ubiquitous among the enemies of the West. 

No, the most alarming thing is the lack of a direct flight from Russia to the U.S. and the departure of American businesses from Russia in 2022, effectively ushering in a new Cold War and weakening the dollar. Those are actual acts that make clear communication much harder between the nations. Communication and understanding are required to avoid conflict and prevent accidents from spiraling out of control too quickly.

Still, would Russia, Iran, or North Korea really seek to challenge the Western-backed rules-based order in the world?

The elephant (or dragon) in the room is China. China is undoubtedly the most important, competitive, and strategically complicated relationship that the United States is facing today. Xi Jinping put it best when he said that US-China relations impact the “destiny of mankind.” And he has also said that “reunification” with Taiwan is happening whether the United States likes it or not.

You can literally see Taiwan from mainland China; its that close. Justin Yifu Lin, the Chief Economist of the World Bank from 2008 to 2012, defected by swimming from Taiwan to mainland China. And yet the United States is now setting new precedents by dangerously promising American military intervention in any war on behalf of Taiwan. The People’s Republic of China has repeatedly emphasized, without a shred of a doubt, that they intend to retake Taiwan. It’s an undisputed strategic fact that the best military window to annex Taiwan would be before 2030 and the U.S. Department of Defense agrees, citing multiple political and economic factors. China’s Navy is now the largest in the world, by America’s own estimates, but the U.S will catch up to their numbers by the 2030 deadline, so timing is critical. The Chinese invasion of Taiwan will be happening, but Xi must wait for things to be ready.

What things are those? Well, the United States, along with the rest of NATO, is no enemy to challenge lightly. They are the strongest and most well-funded military on the planet. Too much for China to handle, obviously. And so, what are the traditional ways such an imbalance is handled?

Alliance is a big one of those ways.

The rise of a new era

Back on February 4th of 2021, less than three weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, Vladimir Putin got together with Xi Jinping, and together they put out a very public and plainly-worded statement. I suggest you read it yourself or consult one of the comprehensive breakdowns, but in essence, the statement said that Russia and China were entering into a “new era” of partnership that would be “stronger than any alliance.” The purpose of that new partnership would be to challenge Western domination of the world, disrupt the current “rules-based” international order, end the U.S. Dollar as the world reserve currency, and usher in a multi-polar world without the overriding authority of Western Hegemony and peacemaking interference.

Now, I don’t know how those words sound to you, but they sound like war to me, especially when you consider that the United States would certainly resist such efforts.

At any rate, a few days after that announcement, Russia moved to invade Ukraine, beginning the largest war Europe has seen since World War II. Immediately, the United States and NATO stepped in with arms and cash for their new Ukrainian proxy, and the fighting began in earnest. Sanctions were levied, political and economic games were played, and we can all see the results so far. It is no coincidence that the invasion came right after the release of the statement from China and Russia. It was meant to be a clear message to the West about Eastern intentions going forward.

An important thing to keep in mind is the answer to the question that was on everyone’s lips. Why? Why did Putin invade Ukraine? What does he hope to gain? People had trouble seeing the move as anything other than ridiculous… but that is because they were thinking that the goal was something other than what it really was. Putin may have been attacking Ukraine, but he was targeting the West and the world as a whole. The “why” people couldn’t see was a direct action to begin crashing the global economy and that of Western Europe, along with draining the NATO nations of funds and resources. And so far, that is working handsomely.

China backs up its new partner from the sidelines. Publicly looking sideways at the whole thing, neither condemning the invasion nor condoning it, but privately they are keeping the Russian economy actually growing despite Western sanctions, mostly by purchasing oil and gas which they get at a great discount. For anyone who has ever played a co-op video game, these roles can be defined as the “tank” and the “healer.” Russia ‘tanks’ the damage while dealing blows to the enemy and China ‘heals’ the damage coming in at its ally without ever getting its own hands dirty, thus saving its resources for the real fight later against a weakened opponent. And now we can see the results, as Western nations sought to try and punish Russia with economic sanctions, they have learned that such rules of order only work if everyone respects the rules. But when national economies the size of China and India decide to resist and back another horse in the race, well, just look how the Russian economy is now expected to grow faster than its western counterparts now. Tough pill to swallow for the West, for certain.

It really shouldn’t be that hard to see. This is a very simplified description, obviously, but looking at it in-depth will bear it out.

a big bloc of BRICS

One of the Keys to understanding the basis of this new alliance is to look at an older one: BRICS. The acronym BRICS represents the bloc of nations led by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The bloc was founded as an informal alliance in 2009 to provide a platform for its members to challenge a world order dominated by the United States and its Western allies.

Surprise, surprise, its creation was initiated by Russia.

Very recently, all of a sudden actually, following the COVID pandemic and the war in Ukraine, a large number of nations petitioned to join BRICS. This list includes, but is not limited to, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Algeria, Bolivia, Indonesia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Cuba, and Venezuela. If you noticed how most of the world’s largest petroleum-exporting nations were on that list, good for you. The interest wasn’t random, it is the beginning of the choosing of sides. National leaders know what is coming. They may not want to alarm their citizens with that truth, but they know it. Of course, in the case of the NATO nations on the very front lines of what is coming, the alarms they have sounded have been very public indeed. And the drums of war are once again sounding in Europe.

Anyway, back to BRICS. Iran was accepted rather quickly. And that becomes a key point to remember when they suddenly begin sending a ton of military aid to the Russian war effort in Ukraine. That aid wasn’t simple support either, it came in the form of thousands of combat drones and ballistic missile systems. Those are the actions of a military ally, not just an economic one. Vladimir Putin of Russia was accepting those BRICS applications after assuming the rotating chairmanship of the group this year – and will be the first member to oversee the body since it significantly expanded its global footprint at the start of the year, when Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Ethiopia, and Egypt formally joined. That is a lot of stuff Russia is now leader of… And Russia plans to use its new leadership role in the alliance to advance the goals it shares with China, to usher in that “New Era” of world dominance. Many people like to mention that BRICS is simply an economic alliance, not a military one, but in reality that is just a matter of semantics. Like how Russia calls its invasion of Ukraine a “special military operation,” not a war. Call it what you want, but BRICS is the new challenge to NATO. And NATO knows it.

So, we had a war kick-off in Europe, and it was doing splendidly at hampering the European economy and even helping sow more chaos across the world with the disruptions to food supplies and such. Upsetting the gameboard, as it were. Then the next stage began.

A second front opens

Out of the blue, at least for those not paying attention, Hamas suddenly commits to a massive attack against Israel, sparking up that age old conflict in a big way. This provokes Israel into an invasion of Gaza, backed of course by its own Western handlers among the big boys, namely the United States. And boy was ol’ Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, eager for the action! So eager in fact that he has turned it into something that is starting to resemble a genocidal act of ethnic cleansing. Just as Hamas knew it would, having been told by their handlers in Iran, who were informed by their handlers in Russia, which was given the word by its handler, the BRICS alliance. 

Israel, now pushing a humanitarian crisis and getting the Islamic world all fired up along those old religious lines, was starting to feel some pressure from a very embarrassed Western world. But did they bow to that pressure? Nope, they instead struck out at Iran by attacking one of their consulates in Syria. Syria, another long-time staunch ally of Russia… but more on that later. Israel hit Iran, as was expected, and Iran, for the very first time, responded by directly attacking Israel back with an “unprecedented” barrage of ballistic missiles and drones. Similar to the tactic used by Russia in the opening days of the Ukraine war, Iran spent mostly old and obsolete munitions that were put to good use expending themselves against the very costly and limited numbers of high-tech Western defense systems protecting Israel.

Another drain on Western resources… and an action that Iran would never have taken on its own before having the backing of BRICS. Israel has attacked Iran many times in the past, both more directly and more significantly than this new consulate attack. And yet, they never got a direct response in return. What changed? BRICS, that’s what.

And now, Israel contemplates its own response to that reponse, and the escalatory ladder of this new front begins to be ascended. The escalatory ladder of warfare only goes one way, and that is up. When it comes to the European front in Ukraine, we are already in the low region of the “intense crises” phase. But the Middle East is catching up quickly. And again, the mistake being made by most people is the belief that these are somehow separate wars, or isolated crises. The real truth is that they are both simply the opening phases and first battles of a single larger war, the Third World War.

Upsetting the board

There is a lot to it, more than I can write here, and I have already written about it all previously, as have others in news and media outlets around the world. The short of it is this: The major powers of Russia and China have come to the conclusion that they cannot defeat the West through solely economic means. Nor can they defeat them alone through military means. And so, they have come together with a large number of other nations who are fed up with Western rules and world dominance, and they are engaging in a multi-faceted campaign designed to “upset the gameboard” that geopolitics are played on, and throw the world into enough chaos that they can try and come out on top in the resulting scuffle. The name of the game is world domination, after all, and neither Russia nor China were ever going to achieve that in the lifetimes of their leaders… so what is there to lose?

Start a world war, and maybe get to redraw some lines afterward.

Ukraine and Israel were the first two dominos to fall, and they alone have changed everything. When we reach the point of recognition, where we can openly declare that we’ve dawned upon a new world war, the pivot point in public awareness and mentality will undoubtedly be related to Taiwan. When the United States and China end up in direct confrontation, the reality of a world at war will become too obvious to deny. And yes, that is “when,” not “if.” With Ukraine now losing the war with Russia, a fact even the Western media is finally admitting, one wonders where the next front will open…

War never changes…

I write this with a plea to those of you who read it, to open your eyes and see what I sincerely believe is inevitable. Maybe you can’t feel it yet, because you are too far removed, or simply uninterested in events so far from your own struggles, but soon this will become everyones struggle. There will always be those who continue to thrive, even in hard times, but such thriving doesn’t mean times aren’t hard. It’s just like the mass denial of climate change. People are already starving, already dying, and already having their lives destroyed by climate chaos, and it is growing worse by the second, but many people will continue to live unfazed. Until it effects them, some people just won’t pay any attention, and so they won’t understand until it is too late. I can promise you, those same college students who consistently protest the inequality in our world will most certainly take advantage of it the moment a military draft becomes a reality in America again. 

Some out there will no doubt call this all “fearmongering,” which is one of the current denier buzzwords. But, so what if this article is scary to some? The world is a scary place; it was always meant to be such, naturally. Civilization pushed back the scary natural world and filled our heads with visions of safety and security, but at the end of the day, when societal collapse comes, that fear will be a useful ally. Fear only comes when there is trouble to be felt, up close and personal, not distant and removed. That is why we sat dormant as the cancer of Nazism dominated Europe, refusing to notice until Japan attacked our own homeland. Again, the tension had been there long before. If Americans feared conflict more, perhaps we’d be more likely to find ways of avoiding it. Alas, such is not in human nature. When the threat is at a distance, we are warhawks all, and unafraid.

That human nature, along with tens of thousands of years of historical precedent, should already be enough to guarantee our descent into a world at war, but what if I said that this wasn’t even the half of it? You want to be frightened? Take a real look at some of the reasons why this final global war is an inevitability.

The global polycrisis

One of the biggest factors is climate change. That term is a catchall umbrella that includes a multitude of complex threats the world is facing, and it isn’t just an increase in the average temperatures. From chaotic weather patterns that disrupt the global food supply causing widespread famine and death, to the scarcity of energy and resources needed to keep society functioning, all of the environmental horrors you have ever heard about are all coming home to roost… at roughly the same time, and all acting as force-multipliers upon each other. Everything is speeding up out of control and, ahem, “Faster Than Expected.” The stresses caused by all of these ecological disasters are going to hit our complex and interdependent human systems like a ton of bricks, and those systems won’t be able to hold. You saw what the COVID pandemic did to those systems, and that was relatively minor, all things considered. Imagine ten or fifteen such crises, all happening at once and with much greater magnitude…

There is a term for such a collapse, coined originally based on complex computer networks. The term is “Cascading Failure,” and that is what is going to happen globally when a good enough shock hits the system. Even with many of the truly horrific ecological effects not coming for many years yet, just the initial pressures will be enough to fracture the stability we have become reliant on. And it is already starting…

Now think about what happens when humans have to deal with these problems. Do you really think all the world’s nations are going to come together and hold hands to help each other through the crisis? Just look at COVID again as an example. Or check out one of these current wars. Economics? Climate policy? Political differences? No, the truth is that no nation really cares beyond its own borders, or its own power structure. Each nation will act on its own to ensure the continuance of its own power, and that is a factor that is already driving us all to war. It is all well and good to believe in some enlightened evolution on our part in the brief window of the last 80 years or so, but that is just fantasy. When the going really gets tough, we will all be little more than monkeys throwing feces at one another.

Finally, there is one other tidbit to note. I talk of BRICS and NATO, and people everywhere talk about other groups and suchlike, but at the end of the day, there is no real directing power in the world. What is happening, and what is coming, is not some plan put into motion and being managed in secret somewhere by shadowy forces. Oh, there are plenty in power who think they are doing so, but that too is an illusion. The truth was said best by Terence McKenna:

 “The real truth that dare not speak itself, is that no one is in control, absolutely no one… Nobody is in control. This stuff is ruled by the equations of dynamics and chaos. Now, there may be entities seeking control – the World Bank, the Communist Party, the rich, the somebody-or-others – but to seek control is to take enormous aggravation upon yourself… It’s like trying to control a dream.”

The reality is that the events have already been set into motion. Climate change is inevitable, World War III is inevitable, and the final global collapse of civilization is completely inevitable. It is all already underway, and it cannot be changed. Not by you and I,and not by those who think they are “in control.”

We are in control of only one thing, and that is how we choose to respond to what is happening. That is all. We can deny and ignore the problem and live the blissful life of the ignorant… or we can take responsibility for our own lives and prepare to face the true scope of reality. There is no single crisis that we can try and fend off, no one threat that we can defeat to try and save the world. What we are facing is a global polycrisis, a perfect storm of events that will play out regardless of what we do. And so all we can do is be prepared for what comes after the fall, for whatever the post-collapse world ends up looking like.

The grim Truth of a world at a tipping point

As an American looking out at the world today, I truly doubt the ability of my fellow humans to respond with the same fortitude as our ancestors. No one takes any personal responsibility anymore, not for anything. For protection and security, we rely on the police. To defend our rights we rely on the courts and the government and the rule of law. For our daily sustenance, we rely on the corporations and infrastructure of society, to feed us, clothe us, and make us well. We have no personal ability to do any of these things for ourselves anymore, nor any desire to. In some parts of the world, people are learning the hard way already that they shouldn’t have ignored all those things, but the tragedy of Ukraine hasn’t be replicated on American streets yet. Here, we can hardly go to the toilet without our iPhones, let alone get into a warplane headed for Europe carrying parachutes and pictures of our mommies. And therein lies the problem, perhaps the greatest problem facing us all in this world on the brink. Whether we live or die in the coming nuclear conflagration is irrelevant. All that matters is knowing what we will do if we survive it. Dying in a flash is one thing, but the true depth of fear comes from living through it only to face a post-apocalyptic world with no idea of how to even feed ourselves.

I don’t need to paint a picture of what a post-collapse world will look like. There is plenty of material out there for that, and really, even your own imagination can’t possibly produce a vision worse than the reality. Mad Max, The Road, Threads, take your pick of whatever doomsday future you want to think about, and then picture yourself there. in fact, if you want a little homework assignment, take a look at that movie Threads. watch the opening act, and pay attention not to the main action of the film but to the background. Look at the newspaper headlines, the news on the TV screens, and listen to the voices on the radio. How close do those bits of fictional news resemble the headlines of today? You might be shocked to see how close that “fiction” was to todays reality.

Those worlds depicted in these movies, that is what we have to look forward to. And that is what we need to be prepared for.

Maybe the scariest idea of all is a type of apathy where we just give up and give in to an unpleasant fate without even trying to get past it. A denial so comforting and so addicting that we just can’t let go, can’t cut the cord that ties us to this society like an anchor. Like a YouTube or TikTok algorithm in our heads that only shows us what we want to see, and only lets us think what we want to think…

Because that is where we are. Some of us, at least.

You there, reading this. The one that thinks it is all rubbish, yes, you. Ridiculousness, right? Societal collapse and nuclear war, just fearmongering! That couldn’t ever happen… right? “World War III, so silly, I refuse to even think it!”

That is civilizations algorithm, all right, rewiring the minds of people all across the world, even as collapse looms obvious to those who actually look. “Don’t Look Up” was a prophetic film in more ways than one. Denial has most of us firmly in its grip.

The truth and the perception of it have been turned upside down. The rampant misinformation fueling polarization has been especially felt in the wake of the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war. So much effort is being devoted to keeping the lid on the fact that it is all interconnected, One actually has to wonder if a tinfoil hat might not be a good idea. Conscious of the coming election in America, I’m worried about rising racial, cultural, and ideological tensions in light of our national polarization, and the other threats of an increasingly divided world. There is just so much going wrong and very little going right. 

I can’t begin to relay the nuance and entirety of my thoughts on this matter in one article. I believe that left- and right-wing American politics are a perfect mirror for the global East-West national relationship, and any amount of fighting doesn’t erase the dependence of both on each other for stability. No one seems to care enough to even want to survive any collapse of civilization, addicted as they are to the current dystopian reality. I think about the future of my home and the people that I love, and that makes me want to fight for their survival.  I just cannot grasp how others don’t feel the same.

With everything else facing the world, from climate change and resource scarcity to the ongoing mass extinction of biodiversity loss taking place as I write this, there are also the powerful forces wanting to flip the world order to a new paradigm. And they are going to succeed or kill us all trying. The World is under attack in the realm of resources, economics, military dominance and political influence, and neither side is in the right. There is no right. It’s all wrong. It’s fun to invent a villain, or an axis of evil, but the simple fact is that, given the state of the planet and its inability to carry civilization in its current form, it is really no one’s fault that we are facing such a world war. This entire civilization is based on growth and consumption, it was always doomed to fail, and now that societal model has ceased to be viable. The Limits to Growth have already been exceeded, and we are now in the grips of catastrophic overshoot. We have no choice but to fight over what is left as we cannibalize civilization. That is the human way of things. 

It cannot be stopped. No elected President, mass movement, or sweeping change can stop the greater network of interrelated forces that has put us in the current situation. We’re playing a game that humans have always played, and the obvious lessons have repeatedly been forgotten. There’s so much more and nothing more to say.

World War III, and the subsequent collapse of civilization, are coming, whether we admit that reality or not.