>You might have thought that, having so recently lost a small war, Americans would have no difficulty picturing the consequences of losing a large one. But the humiliating abandonment of Afghanistan in 2021 has been consigned with remarkable swiftness to the collective memory hole.
>Presumably a similar process would occur if at some future date the Ukrainian army, starved of ammunition, were overrun by its Russian adversaries. A year ago, US President Joe Biden traveled to Kyiv and told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy: “You remind us that freedom is priceless; it’s worth fighting for as long as it takes. And that’s how long we’re going to be with you, Mr. President: for as long as it takes.” That turned out to mean, “For as long as it takes House Republicans to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy and cut off aid to Ukraine.” (McCarthy was gone by early October.)
All of Democratic senators voted for this, in support of only a handful MAGA extremists.
“Wait; who thinks that WWIII is unimaginable?” – Gen-X, probably
Because Political Realism West traded with autocratic/authoritarian regimes, giving them money and technologies for evolution and start of globalization use in their own interests, most likely, WW3 already started.
It doesn’t seem as such only because it is very different from others two, much closer to Cold War characteristics, but now with too much and too unstable actors to remain predominantly in form of proxy wars.
In future history books, if they exist at all, the main prerequisites for war, probably, will be Budapest Memorandum fraud (contradiction between long-term ideological desires and short-term Political Realism benefits), and 2008-2021 years Western pacification policies (Too strong hopes on Information Age, postmodernism, globalization, without understanding that part of resources that the West gave to autocratic regimes was spent on their distortion. As it was with 1920-1930s soviet industrialization/militarization).
Sarajevo assassination analogues – 2014 year and 2021 year ultimatum, Russian official claim onto Western Europe.
2022-2024 years – something between of Neville Chamberlain’s “Peace of our time” and Phoney War period.
The real war most likely will begin not from some critical event, explosion, but by continuation of International Law discredit, implosion, and then instant phase transition – partial return of the World to 19th centuries norms.
Sides will be divided essentially by level of education and quality of culture/ethics/social traditions (Freedom of Speech * time).
On more pro-imperialistic, pro-populism-fascism-monarchic, pro-clerical, pro-feudal/slavery, short term goals, zero-sum-games actors.
And on more pro-French Revolution heritage, middle term goals, non-zero-sum actors.
The invasion on Ukraine came hot on the heels of the defeat in Afghanistan. Russia and China think the US and NATO are over and this attacked. If we quit on Ukraine you can certainly expect a conventional world war 3
We are in World War 3, world wars don’t look the same from the inside. If you want some ideas; everyone in the world is paying more for food and fuel because of this war. The military part of this war is not just Ukraine, but Azerbaijan, Armenia, Israel, and the middle part of Africa. We also have Iran and North Korea trading with Russia with military tech, which means nukes. So we can expect mushroom clouds on our horizon, because it’s a trend in our world wars. And what is the point of being a crazy bastard if you don’t use the crazy tools? Anyhow, enjoy the war as it warms up.
Surprisingly thoughtful for the modern Western press article with very good accents and conclusions. Without typical complacency, narrow focuses, reality tunnels.
>When Americans switch on their flat-screen TVs, they seriously want to Leave the World Behind. Rather than contemplate dystopian futures, they prefer to immerse themselves in the Taylor Swift cult — a form of mass escapism that recalls the mania for screen goddesses in the isolationist 1930s.
Not only in 1930s. But also and during “Red Scare”, when against the USA there were 33% of the World’s population, with an average age of 25 years, and which spent 30-50% of their GDP on militarization. But fueled by WW2 tiredness, substantial part of Americans just wanted anything else, any rationalization, except to see/understanding of very grim future horizons.
By Stalin’s “death” USA/World saved millions, or even tens/hundreds of millions, of lives, but, especially after botched WW2 historical lessons by ban on USSR criticism during Nuremberg Trials, lost the opportunity for a history lesson that now, very possible, will cost significantly more.
Niall Ferguson destroyed his credibility with Brexit.
Are we unable to imagine defeat? The last time America actually won a war was 1945. We’ve gotten really good at starting them, though.
Article is full of it from the start. The US did not lose in Afghanistan, we had control and could have continued indefinitely. At a minimum, it was not a military loss. What was lost was the notion that we could somehow magically make the afghans into allies and a fledgling democracy. We chose to leave once we realized the country was too backwards to reform, but that’s not “losing a war”.
Second, Republicans did not vote out McCarthy, a handful in the party raised the motion and the Democrats voted him out. You can argue all you want that each party should be ironclad lockstep (which is stupid and dangerous, btw), but go look at the votes, eight republicans voted to remove him, that’s it.
Yes, I do believe we are on (or have started into) WW3, but this publication is not a trustworthy source when facts are being distorted from the offset.
Meh. It’s easy to think we’re already in the beginning of ww3. Maybe we are. But hasn’t the world always been like this since the end of ww2? Just read the lyrics from Barry McGuire’s song Eve of Destruction, and tell me that song from 1965 hasn’t been relatable every year since then.
Good news: We’re already in World War III, and our enemies are fucking incompetent.
I don’t want to make light of the very real humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine. Every life lost is an infuriating, preventable, and senseless tragedy.
But compared to World War II, or all the Hellish nuclear apocalypses fiction writers braced us for, this one feels like more of a breather. It’s like Hitler skipped France and Poland and went straight to Operation Barbarossa.
Which is even funnier, because MASTER STRATEGIST and Learn-ed scholar of History Vladimir Putin’s while strategy hinges on combining Stalingrad with the fall of the USSR.
The long ass word for WWIII is inevitable, not unimaginable.
The repeated references to Taylor Swift were annoying, and only excusable if this piece is intended to catch the attention of the MAGA rightwingers, most of whom wouldn’t read this, and the ones who would only because it’s fear porn.
Where it lost me completely is jumping from a Chinese victory over Taiwan immediately to CCP-US. There’s nothing there to indicate how this would happen.
This is fever dream agitprop.
Lol
Delusional article. I knew it was going to be full of feces when it implied the US was militarily defeated in Afghanistan.
Russia is a dangerous military but it cannot function in projecting strength across multiple fronts. There is no other army in Russia waiting to strike. This is it. This is their best. They can level cities and murder civilians but then again, so can basically any military with enough hardware.
It’s inevitable.
I think surviving WW3 is unimaginable.
Fallout knows no boundaries and the half-life of some isotopes is decades long if not longer. Good luck finding something to eat or drink that is not radioactive.
There will be more wars and Israel will be in it.
We are already in it. Once November rolls around the the Axis powers realize their number one asset isn’t going to be president, they will get more aggressive. China will invade Taiwan. Iran will form a Muslim attack on Israel. North Korea will attack South Korea. Venezuela will attack their neighbors…
19 comments
>Are we unable to imagine defeat?
>You might have thought that, having so recently lost a small war, Americans would have no difficulty picturing the consequences of losing a large one. But the humiliating abandonment of Afghanistan in 2021 has been consigned with remarkable swiftness to the collective memory hole.
>Presumably a similar process would occur if at some future date the Ukrainian army, starved of ammunition, were overrun by its Russian adversaries. A year ago, US President Joe Biden traveled to Kyiv and told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy: “You remind us that freedom is priceless; it’s worth fighting for as long as it takes. And that’s how long we’re going to be with you, Mr. President: for as long as it takes.” That turned out to mean, “For as long as it takes House Republicans to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy and cut off aid to Ukraine.” (McCarthy was gone by early October.)
All of Democratic senators voted for this, in support of only a handful MAGA extremists.
“Wait; who thinks that WWIII is unimaginable?” – Gen-X, probably
Because Political Realism West traded with autocratic/authoritarian regimes, giving them money and technologies for evolution and start of globalization use in their own interests, most likely, WW3 already started.
It doesn’t seem as such only because it is very different from others two, much closer to Cold War characteristics, but now with too much and too unstable actors to remain predominantly in form of proxy wars.
In future history books, if they exist at all, the main prerequisites for war, probably, will be Budapest Memorandum fraud (contradiction between long-term ideological desires and short-term Political Realism benefits), and 2008-2021 years Western pacification policies (Too strong hopes on Information Age, postmodernism, globalization, without understanding that part of resources that the West gave to autocratic regimes was spent on their distortion. As it was with 1920-1930s soviet industrialization/militarization).
Sarajevo assassination analogues – 2014 year and 2021 year ultimatum, Russian official claim onto Western Europe.
2022-2024 years – something between of Neville Chamberlain’s “Peace of our time” and Phoney War period.
The real war most likely will begin not from some critical event, explosion, but by continuation of International Law discredit, implosion, and then instant phase transition – partial return of the World to 19th centuries norms.
Sides will be divided essentially by level of education and quality of culture/ethics/social traditions (Freedom of Speech * time).
On more pro-imperialistic, pro-populism-fascism-monarchic, pro-clerical, pro-feudal/slavery, short term goals, zero-sum-games actors.
And on more pro-French Revolution heritage, middle term goals, non-zero-sum actors.
The invasion on Ukraine came hot on the heels of the defeat in Afghanistan. Russia and China think the US and NATO are over and this attacked. If we quit on Ukraine you can certainly expect a conventional world war 3
We are in World War 3, world wars don’t look the same from the inside. If you want some ideas; everyone in the world is paying more for food and fuel because of this war. The military part of this war is not just Ukraine, but Azerbaijan, Armenia, Israel, and the middle part of Africa. We also have Iran and North Korea trading with Russia with military tech, which means nukes. So we can expect mushroom clouds on our horizon, because it’s a trend in our world wars. And what is the point of being a crazy bastard if you don’t use the crazy tools? Anyhow, enjoy the war as it warms up.
Surprisingly thoughtful for the modern Western press article with very good accents and conclusions. Without typical complacency, narrow focuses, reality tunnels.
>When Americans switch on their flat-screen TVs, they seriously want to Leave the World Behind. Rather than contemplate dystopian futures, they prefer to immerse themselves in the Taylor Swift cult — a form of mass escapism that recalls the mania for screen goddesses in the isolationist 1930s.
Not only in 1930s. But also and during “Red Scare”, when against the USA there were 33% of the World’s population, with an average age of 25 years, and which spent 30-50% of their GDP on militarization. But fueled by WW2 tiredness, substantial part of Americans just wanted anything else, any rationalization, except to see/understanding of very grim future horizons.
By Stalin’s “death” USA/World saved millions, or even tens/hundreds of millions, of lives, but, especially after botched WW2 historical lessons by ban on USSR criticism during Nuremberg Trials, lost the opportunity for a history lesson that now, very possible, will cost significantly more.
Niall Ferguson destroyed his credibility with Brexit.
Are we unable to imagine defeat? The last time America actually won a war was 1945. We’ve gotten really good at starting them, though.
Article is full of it from the start. The US did not lose in Afghanistan, we had control and could have continued indefinitely. At a minimum, it was not a military loss. What was lost was the notion that we could somehow magically make the afghans into allies and a fledgling democracy. We chose to leave once we realized the country was too backwards to reform, but that’s not “losing a war”.
Second, Republicans did not vote out McCarthy, a handful in the party raised the motion and the Democrats voted him out. You can argue all you want that each party should be ironclad lockstep (which is stupid and dangerous, btw), but go look at the votes, eight republicans voted to remove him, that’s it.
Yes, I do believe we are on (or have started into) WW3, but this publication is not a trustworthy source when facts are being distorted from the offset.
Meh. It’s easy to think we’re already in the beginning of ww3. Maybe we are. But hasn’t the world always been like this since the end of ww2? Just read the lyrics from Barry McGuire’s song Eve of Destruction, and tell me that song from 1965 hasn’t been relatable every year since then.
Good news: We’re already in World War III, and our enemies are fucking incompetent.
I don’t want to make light of the very real humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine. Every life lost is an infuriating, preventable, and senseless tragedy.
But compared to World War II, or all the Hellish nuclear apocalypses fiction writers braced us for, this one feels like more of a breather. It’s like Hitler skipped France and Poland and went straight to Operation Barbarossa.
Which is even funnier, because MASTER STRATEGIST and Learn-ed scholar of History Vladimir Putin’s while strategy hinges on combining Stalingrad with the fall of the USSR.
The long ass word for WWIII is inevitable, not unimaginable.
The repeated references to Taylor Swift were annoying, and only excusable if this piece is intended to catch the attention of the MAGA rightwingers, most of whom wouldn’t read this, and the ones who would only because it’s fear porn.
Where it lost me completely is jumping from a Chinese victory over Taiwan immediately to CCP-US. There’s nothing there to indicate how this would happen.
This is fever dream agitprop.
Lol
Delusional article. I knew it was going to be full of feces when it implied the US was militarily defeated in Afghanistan.
Russia is a dangerous military but it cannot function in projecting strength across multiple fronts. There is no other army in Russia waiting to strike. This is it. This is their best. They can level cities and murder civilians but then again, so can basically any military with enough hardware.
It’s inevitable.
I think surviving WW3 is unimaginable.
Fallout knows no boundaries and the half-life of some isotopes is decades long if not longer. Good luck finding something to eat or drink that is not radioactive.
There will be more wars and Israel will be in it.
We are already in it. Once November rolls around the the Axis powers realize their number one asset isn’t going to be president, they will get more aggressive. China will invade Taiwan. Iran will form a Muslim attack on Israel. North Korea will attack South Korea. Venezuela will attack their neighbors…