Id ask people to be a little considerate of those who are nervous about the worldly issues before posting this kind of content
Do we have to preface posts with a trigger warning and use spoiler tags now?
If you have that much anxiety I'd suggest clicking into a thread about WW3 isn't a healthy life choice.
And what nickc said, every bloody year there's a thread claiming we're all going to be wiped out with the usual doom mongers and misanthropes dutch ruddering themselves into a frenzy.
I agree with some others here that the biggest risk of a major world conflict would come from China invading Taiwan
It is much much more beneficial to the CCP to make belligerent noises about Taiwan than it is to actually try to invade Taiwan - which is essentially an Island fortress across 100 miles of pretty difficult sea crossing and would have to be perhaps one of the biggest military amphibious landings and something that the PLA have never attempted and probably couldn't, and even if they wanted to, All they have to do is look at Eastern Europe to see how well it would go militarily, or to the middle-east to see how well it would go diplomatically.
I don't think the CCP would weigh that up and come to the conclusion that it would ever be a good idea to try to invade a country that isn't the same anymore; 80 years after Chaing-Kai-Shek legged it there. For that matter; China isn't the same anymore.
It is much much more beneficial to the CCP to make belligerent noises about Taiwan than it is to actually try to invade Taiwan
The CCP may not weigh it up the same as you. I agree, it would be very difficult undertaking but this is a matter of national pride to China, not a rational balancing of risks and benefits. They may decide that either the U.S. won't assist Taiwan or that it would be a limited conventional war that China can win, even if it comes at a tremendous cost. I believe there would be tremendous political pressure for the U.S. to assist Taiwan and I suspect a Chinese invasion would fail if the U.S. did join in. The question then is, what would China do next? It would be a shattering defeat for the CCP and there would be great pressure for them to use nuclear weapons to destroy U.S. aircraft carriers, etc. I think your assumptions about what China would see as rational are too optimistic.
Surely the biggest risk for the UK being drawn in is that it can be used to recruit people for terror attacks here in Britain
all of the 7-7 attackers cited Iraq as their justifications in suicide videos
another issue is that a wider conflict will increase the outflow of refugees which, suffering aside, is destablising across europe
I agree, it would be very difficult undertaking but this is a matter of national pride to China
I disagree, I think the current CCP just see this as something that they feel they need to say to connect themselves to a political party of 80 years ago that Mao wouldn't even recognise given all the changes that have happened. I think they'd act entirely rationally, there are zero upsides to actually invading Taiwan, there are endless upsides, on the other hand' to keep hinting that you want to invade Taiwan.
War usually ends up being good for economies, that's probably got more to do with it than anything else. All out WW3 I don't think will happen.
I don’t think the CCP would weigh that up and come to the conclusion that it would ever be a good idea to try to invade a country that isn’t the same anymore
Its not the CCP though but Xi JinPing who counts. Its a standard default for dictators when having problems at home to attack someone else and he has talked a lot about "regaining" Taiwan and as such if his prestige gets damaged in other areas, especially the economy and a housing bubble which makes ours look sane, then he may decide to roll the dice.
Unfortunately its one of those areas where rational goes up against ideological and its never clear which will win.
then he may decide to roll the dice.
He may do, you're right, and who can know what folks like Xi actually think is a rational idea after all? I think there are other targets that would prove more useful internally to him than the invasion route.
Yes, ernielynch is right. Russia knows that attacking a NATO country would lead to the destruction of Russia’s military and quite likely a nuclear holocaust. Russia would gain nothing and lose everything so the bluster about escalation is just intended to impress Russian nationalists who like to fantasize about Russia being a global superpower again.
China is playing a spoiling role – China resents the U.S. led system of liberal democracy and wants to undermine that, but without provoking a direct conflict.
Iran similarly wants to undermine the U.S. and Israel, but wants plausible deniability that they are behind any military action so they arm militant groups across the region. The problem is (as the U.S. found out in Afghanistan) that supplying weapons to people who have the same enemy as you doesn’t mean you control their agenda. Iran wanted Hamas to keep harassing Israel, not to launch an unwinnable war. Hamas apparently made the miscalculation that Iran would join in the fight against Israel if they saw that Hamas had succeeded in invading Israel. Everyone in the Middle East knows that Israel has nuclear weapons. Those are useless in a normal war, they’re only useful as a final deterrent – if there is serious danger of Israel being invaded and destroyed, the major cities of whoever attacked Israel will also be destroyed. That’s how nuclear deterrence works, every nuclear power has the same unspoken policy – you attack us, your cities will be incinerated. However, Iran does not have nuclear weapons and no other Middle Eastern country is interested in yet another suicidal war with Israel. Very unlikely to go nuclear.
However, even if Israel and Iran end up in a direct war, China is not going to join in. They aren’t allies with Iran, they just have a common interest in undermining the U.S., not getting involved in a Middle Eastern conflict involving the U.S. The danger with China is that they decide to invade Taiwan. This to me is similar to the Falklands. Chinese leaders have used this as a nationalist rallying cry to distract from the economic and social problems that China faces and may gamble that the U.S. won’t risk a nuclear war with China over Taiwan. I suspect China is wrong about that, but U.S. policy on this is deliberately ambiguous. Thatcher faced enormous political pressure to retake the Falklands, regardless of how unimportant they really were. Any leader who just stands back and lets an invasion like that happen without responding is politically finished. Same in the U.S., there will be enormous political pressure for the U.S. to assist Taiwan. It’s not the Middle East that is my biggest concern (which is not to say that I’m not extremely concerned about it), it’s whether Chinese leaders miscalculate and blunder into a war with Taiwan, Japan, the U.S., etc.
This reads like the basis for a 1990s style Hollywood propaganda 'blockbuster' directed by Michael Bay and starring Sylvester Stallone, Tom Cruise and Matt Damon. Perhaps resurrecting Mel Gibson's career as the leader of Hamas. Not a lot of insight or gravitas, but an awful lot of revisionism and ignorance of facts. Team America, **** yeh!<br /><br /> Step back and take a wider view, and it quickly becomes apparent that the West, particularly the USA and the UK, are declining as 'superpowers' as late stage Capitalism grinds out the dregs of economic viability. Imagining 'power' in terms of military hardware is pretty redundant now, as the future of conflict lies not in bombing your enemies into dust, but in undermining the very markets they need to survive on, and impoverishing them to the extent they become utterly dependant on any crumbs. Russia may well be hurling millions of tonnes of outdated hardware into Ukraine, but that only makes it harder to clean up the region if and when the conflict there does eventually end. They'll still hold the cards regarding our energy prices though. And it's foolish to see only Russia as the 'enemy', when our own leaders and political systems are complicit in the same policy of divide and rule that has us all hating each other because we're very slightly different somehow. Follow the money properly, and you'll soon see all the links via offshore funds and numbered Swiss bank accounts.
WW3 ? Naah – it’s just the US/UK killing brown people. Business as usual.
As it has been for the last 30+ years or so. I'm so looking forward to the next spike in xenophobia that will inevitably follow this latest bout of sabre rattling.
This reads like the basis for a 1990s style Hollywood propaganda ‘blockbuster’ directed by Michael Bay and starring Sylvester Stallone, Tom Cruise and Matt Damon.
Yeah and for clarity I didn't say any of those things.
I’m so looking forward to the next spike in xenophobia that will inevitably follow this latest bout of sabre rattling.
It'll be fine. Just remember to condemn Hamas. And the Houthis. And ...
Instability and anxiety just becoming something we have to live with it appears.
WW3 - when we least expect it rather than when we think it's going to happen.
It’ll be fine. Just remember to condemn Hamas. And the Houthis. And …
At what point do I have to turn myself in? Or do I just leave that up to my neighbours?
To be fair that above all else is what could save Sunak’s bacon – the UK involved in a war. It shouldn’t be forgotten that Margaret Thatcher was all but certain to lose the general election before the Falklands War kicked off.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1983_United_Kingdom_general_election
I realise this isn't a thread about the 1983 general election, but this is just not true. What is true is that the Falklands War provided a boost to the personal approval ratings of Thatcher, but the impact on overall support for the party was much less the case, and there were, as ever, multiple major (and even more minor) factors in the outturn of the 1983 election, not least the reduction in support for the SDP / Liberal Alliance after polling some spectacularly high numbers in their honeymoon period, the (no, this isn't contradictory) support for the Alliance splitting the traditional Labour vote, and, very significantly, the 1983 Labour manifesto (or "longest suicide note in history" as Gerald Kaufmann memorably described it).
The source you posted doesn't remotely support your contention that the Conservatives were "all but certain" to lose before the war - Argentina invaded the Falklands on 2nd April (1982). The Gallup poll published by the Telegraph 31st March (i.e. before it "kicked off") had the Conservatives 2% ahead of the Alliance, with Labour a further 3% behind them.
At what point do I have to turn myself in? Or do I just leave that up to my neighbours?
Well, if you won't go back home voluntarily, what choice do we have?
I do believe though that in the event of a serious risk of Israel capitulating the Israeli gov would very likely as a last resort use nuclear weapons.
Naah, the Israeli govt have proven themselves to be a responsible and cautious govt which prioritises human life and wellbeing above all else.
What is true is that the Falklands War provided a boost to the personal approval ratings of Thatcher
Which is all that I claimed. It was certainly an important contributory factor, at least it is widely accepted that it was.
Well, if you won’t go back home voluntarily, what choice do we have?
Wait until I go abroad, then illegally revoke my citizenship?
Actually, can they wait until I'm somewhere nice like the south of France, or Spain?
because you’ve just condoned murder and pleaded for my family to be wiped out
Although I havent really condoned anything, because nothing has happened and while my tongue in cheek post has been condemned by yourself because your family live, there your post is basically meaningless.
Besides, if Russia ever retaliated with a nuclear strike on the UK, London would be subject to multiple strikes and your family would be vapourized anyway.
If they're lucky that is.
I mean, they could receive massive doses of radiation and have a slow lingering death.
So point in fact Im doing your loved ones a favour 😀
I do believe though that in the event of a serious risk of Israel capitulating the Israeli gov would very likely as a last resort use nuclear weapons.
Countries have nuclear weapons as a last resort. Israel has not officially acknowledged having them but it's an open secret that they do. No country is going to attack Israel because they would be inviting their own destruction. Same goes for Russia, U.S., France, U.K., China, ****stan, India, and North Korea. The danger is that nuclear armed countries drift into a limited conventional war, but that escalates and ends up going nuclear. That's why Taiwan is so concerning. India and ****stan too.
Actually, can they wait until I’m somewhere nice like the south of France
Are you Muslim brownperson? If you are they will welcome you with open arms. They love brown Muslims in the South of France.
Well, I don’t have a reserve liability any more and, if I did, the Army would have to come get me from Sweden first.
Noice. I've dusted off my spork just in case, never leave the country without it.
I can't buy into the doom mongering, the entirety of my career was spent in an equally violent and unpredictable world.
And as Brownperson has eluded to, we'll have a uptick in ****ery from mouth-breathing 'patriots' harassing those they think should 'go back home'.
I heard through the grapevine that a former terp I worked with who resettled here after the withdrawal has been assaulted whilst being abused with the usually epithets.
I imagine they have a union flag in their FB picture at least one poppy picture and that gopping photo of an American soldier kneeling with the union flag as backdrop and the heading 'noes the time to kneel' featuring somewhere.
Mouth breathers the lot of them.
No country is going to attack Israel because they would be inviting their own destruction.
So no country has attacked Israel?
I can’t buy into the doom mongering, the entirety of my career was spent in an equally violent and unpredictable world.
Yes, people today forget how dangerous the Cold War was. The Cuban Missile Crisis was utterly terrifying (based on reading about it, I wasn't born then). I do remember the shooting down of the Korean airliner by Russia back in the 80s though, that was tense. There were a lot of close calls back then, they're all forgotten about now and people don't remember how terrifying it was.
So no country has attacked Israel?
Well they have been attacked, but in retaliation they are expunging the other country, and its' people from existence.
So no country has attacked Israel?
Not since they acquired nuclear weapons. Iran funds groups that attack Israel, but with plausible deniability. Every country in the region knows that an open war with Israel is unwinnable. If you succeed in destroying Israel, Israel will destroy you. That's what nuclear deterrence is all about.
Interesting. So Israel has obtained the ultimate defence and has shown itself to be aggressive enough that they might just use it. And yet they don't have peace.
Nukes work against _states_, physical countries that are doing bad things to you. Nukes do not work as a deterrent against groups that operate outwith a state. They also don't really work as a deterrent against people that don't care about their own death.
I know I am probably agreeing with you, but MAD and the nuclear deterrent is effectively pointless for something like IS or Al Qaeda. Even if the group is state associated, link or adjacent, someone like Tehran can say "Not us mate, it's those pesky rebels/students/Houthis*" and then you suddenly have a difficult conversation about why you just threatened to turn a country into glass without proof.
If you (as a country) don't care about that last bit, then yeah, sure, use the nukes when you are threatened and likely end up being a pariah for as long as the fallout affects the planet. That's the scary bit and I am not sure there are many of the traditional nuclear powers that would risk that, even Vlad. The new kids on the block ('Lil Kim, Iran, Israel) might if they have them and are pushed hard enough.
Not since they acquired nuclear weapons.
Israel has probably had nuclear weapons since 1966, it certainly had them in 1973 at the time of the Yom Kippur War. Israel was last attacked less than 4 months ago.
Being in possession of nuclear weapons doesn't seem to have guaranteed peace for Israel.
I do believe though that in the event of a serious risk of Israel capitulating the Israeli gov would very likely as a last resort use nuclear weapons.
Israeli politicians have been advocating nuking Gaza, so I don't expect them to wait until they're on the verge of capitulation to press the big red button.
Being in possession of nuclear weapons doesn’t seem to have guaranteed peace for Israel.
Yes but if they just kill a few more kids, it will all work out fine.
Interesting. So Israel has obtained the ultimate defence and has shown itself to be aggressive enough that they might just use it. And yet they don’t have peace.
No country has openly attacked Israel in 50 years. Netanyahu, who I think has been an utterly disastrous leader both for Israel and the region, seems to have believed that Hamas had been contained and was just a minor nuisance. Hamas may have mistakenly believed that Iran and other countries would join the fight if they showed they could successfully attack Israel. Whatever the case, we have an utter catastrophe for Palestinians and no country is going to openly attack Israel. They'll complain but military action is not on the agenda. It's the same with any nuclear armed state, its neighbors have to accept its existence and make the best of that reality. Russia isn't going away, North Korea isn't going away, their neighbours have to accept that.
Do we have to preface posts with a trigger warning and use spoiler tags now?
If you have that much anxiety I’d suggest clicking into a thread about WW3 isn’t a healthy life choice.
No, and I agree but sometimes there’s healthy and educational debate to be had in a thread such as this. Being happy to suggest a postcode to “Bomb London” might be “I’m alright jack” for those that live in the Lake District (aka a faraway place) but isn’t very inspiring to those of us that live here. I don’t see the implied condolence of doing so as anything other than the acceptance and glamourisation of a mass murderous event, which is frankly very insensitive at best.
Israeli politicians have been advocating nuking Gaza,
Russians have been advocating nuking Ukraine or NATO countries. That's just right-wing bluster. In the case of Israel, nuking Gaza would spread radioactive fallout across Israel. Situations like this favour extremists, Hamas attacks on Israel give right-wing Israeli extremists the propaganda they seek and Israeli attacks on Palestinians give Palestinian militants the propaganda they seek. They bluster and posture, but they all benefit from conflict and seek to discredit anyone who seeks any sort of compromise peace deal.
The big concern for me is if Iran openly gets nuclear weapons and then its leaders have to justify why they don't nuke Israel. To me, the rational thing for Iran to do is to threaten to go nuclear, but not actually do it. It gives them credibility, but they aren't pushed to actually use nukes. Right-wing Israelis might be utter ****s, but they are rational and calculating. I'm not so sure about Iran's leadership.
Good response from Massive Attack
https://twitter.com/massiveattackuk/status/1745765598674518016?s=46&t=qvPR6lBfBXtAWZ-6beFWyA
Hamas may have mistakenly believed that Iran and other countries would join the fight if they showed they could successfully attack Israel.
You keep repeating this. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Hamas thought Iran would attack Israel.
Whatever the case, we have an utter catastrophe for Palestinians and no country is going to openly attack Israel.
The Palestinian catastrophe is the tens of thousands of women and children killed by the IDF. But the catastrophe for Israel is that they walked straight into a trap set for them by Hamas. And the more the IDF kills Palestinians the more they guarantee Israel's eventual demise.
The IDF is currently fighting the children of Gaza that they didn't kill in their military incursions of the previous 20 years. In future years they will be fighting those children which survive their current onslaught.
Add to that the changing political dynamics, regional and globally. Hamas now enjoys more support in Gaza than it did before Oct 7, and considerably more in the West Bank.
Throughout the Middle East support the Palestinian people has grown enormously. And never has support for Israel being lower globally than it is currently.
Internally Israel is a political and economic crisis.
And you think that they are "winning"?
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi has posted this on twitter, can't disagree with anything she says
https://twitter.com/sayeedawarsi/status/1745755511021064326?s=46&t=qvPR6lBfBXtAWZ-6beFWyA
The failure of the world to stop the killing in Gaza has triggered an escalation in the region that did not need to happen. Our misplaced and misjudged support for an Israeli government made up of corrupt , self confessed facists, convicted terrorists and now before the ICJ on charges of genocide is a grave error. This was the moment we needed to show leadership and stand up to Netanyahu his genocidal rhetoric and his extremist supporters. Our support for Netanyahu is against British interests-it has damaged our reputation , opened us up to accusations of hypocrisy, now put our armed forces at risk and the UK a target. We will look back at this and be ashamed of how we stood by as a genocide unfolded before our eyes in real time and a regional conflict escalates because we lacked the moral courage to say stop the killing #CeasefireNow
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi has posted this on twitter, can’t disagree with anything she says
IMO Jo Biden is doing more lasting damage to the United States globally than Donald Trump ever managed to do.
The United States providing $billions in unlimited weapons to a country actively engaging in genocide, before the eyes of the world, has shot to pieces the United State's globally perceived moral authority. It is something which will not be easily forgotten.
In contrast South Africa is now emerging as leading power with a growing moral authority internationally.
With her Muslim background Warsi is able to see the bigger picture beyond the usual blinkered Western politician attitude.
Internally Israel is a political and economic crisis.
And you think that they are “winning”?
No, it's a catastrophe. Right-wing Israelis and militant Palestinians got what they wanted, everyone else suffers. Israel is worse off, Palestinians are worse off, regional peace is threatened. I don't see any winners in this except hard-line extremists who benefit from conflict.
But to be fair Israel was in a very serious internal political crisis before Oct 7. IIRC tens of thousands of Israeli reservists refused to serve? The crises was particularly serious in the Israeli air force.
This might of course have figured in Hamas's calculations of when to launch their attack which undoubtedly was years in the planning.
Ironically Oct 7 has temporarily at least papered over the cracks in Israeli society
But to be fair Israel was in a very serious internal political crisis before Oct 7. IIRC tens of thousands of Israeli reservists refused to serve? The crises was particularly serious in the Israeli air force.
Yes. Netanyahu has been an utter catastrophe. First step in improving the region is getting rid of him. The Hamas attack just helped him, I don't know what they hoped to achieve, but the result has just been to empower right-wing Israelis and prolong Netanyahu's political career. Utter catastrophe, but not WW3, at least yet.
It all seems to be doing a fine job of keeping us, the west, in a state of pending recession. Just when things seemed to be calming down, I reckon we're in for another bout of economic struggle.
It's just one thing after the other. I don't really remember the world feeling this unsafe in my adult life, and I grew up during the Troubles! (I appreciate that's nothing compared to what is going on now). I know many recall the 80's as a turbulent time. I wish I understood it all better, maybe that would help stop the worry.
