I saw something rather alarming on Twitter today –apparently, there is a growing belief that the Belarusians are going to attack Ukraine in the west. This is a “not great, Bob” moment because one might make the assumption that such an attack would be directed against the city of Lviv.
What the what?
Add to this that such an attack would hug the border between Ukraine and NATO, holy shit, it makes you think that Putin through his Bealrusian proxies really is in his fuck around and find out phase of the Russo-Ukrainian Winter War. (Which, if it last much longer, I’m going to have to get rid of the “winter” part of its designation.)
It makes you wonder. Is it possible WW3 has started and we just don’t know it yet? Does Putin want a direct war with NATO? Such an idea, on paper, makes absolutely no sense. In fact, it only makes any sense in the context of Russia forming some sort of Axis with China, the DPRK and Iran.
Otherwise, what the what?
We’re reaching a point where we’re sort of in a make or break moment in recent modern world history. Either Putin escalates in a rather dramatic fashion and we see the end of the WW2 liberal order and something akin to WW3, or we punt the structural problems of the modern geopolitical world down the road until the United States answers its autocracy or civil war question in the 2024 – 2025 timeframe.
Thankfully — I guess — we’re probably going to get our answer as to what’s going to happen next with a matter of days or weeks. Things are too unstable. Either Putin loses, or in a desperate effort to win he destroys everything.
After decades of being half-away awake, history is now wide awake and ready to boogie. As part of that suddenly being awake, we face the prospect of the Russians and the Chinese making common cause against Pax Americana. This new Axis might also, along the way recruit Iran and the DPRK.
For the moment, this is rather fanciful.
China has a vested interest — for the time being — in Pax Americana existing so it can slowly rise peacefully within its context. The Chinese are very smart. They know they’re not quite ready to strike in a big away against, say Taiwan, so, lulz, let the Americans have a circle jerk over cancel culture without any major regional war in Asia to worry about.
And, yet, the case could be made that China might see what’s going on between Russia and Ukraine and think NOW is the time to strike. The United States is historically weakened by internal division and the careening existential choice of autocracy or civil war in the 2024 – 2025 time frame.
It’s possible that at some point in the near future all of us will be surprised when there’s a geopolitical tet-a-tet between Putin and Xi and the entire world’s post-WW2 liberal order collapses. China will send Russia arms for its war against Ukraine and Russia will sell China oil. Meanwhile, Xi could lean on the DPRK to attack the South Koreans as some sort of geopolitical distraction for the Americans so China can attack Taiwan.
The Iranians attack Israel and or Iraq to get in on the fun.
Remember, there are no assurances the Good Guys — us — would win such a new series of regional wars, or something that the press would call WW3. It could be that the United States either becomes a MAGA Fortress America or has a civil war and, as such, a new Age of Autocracies is established.
Or, it’s possible that a few billion people during a WW3 for various reasons and when we come out the other side with something akin to United Earth. The process of getting to that point would suck royally, but in the end humanity might find the wherewithal to save itself from itself.
The idea that we consider “WW3” is actually a spectrum of different scenarios, with The End Of The World being on one end and just a big old lulz at the other end. A lot of what would be “WW3” would be something that was marketed as such by the press.
The most likely scenario for something called “WW3” would be two or more regional wars happening at the same time. So, if China attacked Taiwan because it felt Russia was a brother in arms, then, that, legitimately, could be called WW3.
But no matter what, it’s at least possible that WW3 has already begun, we just don’t realize it yet. If Russia used low-grade battlefield nukes on Ukraine, then the slide into an actual fighting war between NATO and Russia would likely accelerate. And given that the 80 year old taboo against using nukes would no longer exist, Taiwan would definitely begin to look far more enticing to China. And, of course, you have the wildcard of the DPRK floating around.
AND — and this is a very important and — you have to take into account that the US is careening towards unprecedented instability starting the moment the Republicans take control of Congress. And that instability will only get worse and worse as we approach the existential choice of autocracy or civil war in the 2024 – 2025 timeframe.
So, it’s possible that in hindsight, 2022 will be seen not as 1939, but as 1937, the year when Japan attacked China in a big way and laid the groundwork for WW2. Or, put another way, you could go so far as to say you can count in months the time we have of lingering “normal” life before all hell really breaks loose.
The real question is what will the world look like once we get through this Great Reset or Fourth Turning (or whatever you want to call it.) Either humanity will be run by a bunch of autocrats or we’ll be even more united and able to deal with Big Issues like global climate change.
A few million (billion?) people may have died to get us to that latter endgame, but hopefully their deaths won’t have been in vain. But let me be clear — the United States is ripe for revolution / civil war in the coming years. If you were looking at America as different nation than ours this would be clear. And, honestly, I think the only thing that’s stopped us from collapsing is interia and the general laid back national personality of Americans. We’re not French, afterall.
I still don’t think Russia is going to do anything in regards to Ukraine. I think this is just another one of Putin’s occasional demands for attention. And, winter is coming, so it would make a lot more sense for Putin to wait until March -April to attack if he was going to do so.
And, yet, it definitely seems as though it’s at least possible that Russia really is going to strike in some way pretty soon.
All I can say is, if I am surprised and Putin attacks, it’s very unlikely to be a general war. Not only is Russia’s economy very small — about the size of Italy’s I think — but the moment Russia took a huge chunk of Ukraine between Odessa in the southwest and Donbas in the northeast of Ukraine, the fever of irridentism would strike the hearts of Ukrainians.
In other words, all hell would break loose.
Not only would a wave of nationalism rush over Ukraine, but NATO would begin to throw a huge amount of weapons and training at Ukraine. It would be a huge fucking proxy war that Russia simply could not win. And, in the end, the very existence of Putin’s autocratic regime would be put in danger.
Now, on paper, one way that Putin could get both a huge chunk of Ukraine and be able to keep it would be to start such a war in the context of China attacking Taiwan at the same time. It would be far more difficult for the West to help Ukraine if it was also struggling to help Taiwan at the same time.
And, if you really wanted to get dystopian, it’s easy to imagine Xi in China to nudge the DPRK to attack the South Koreans in a big way while all of this was going on in an effort to wear down and overextend Western governments.
All of this would, of course, be marketed at World War 3 and before you know it, India and Pakistan would nuke each other, as would Israel and Iran. I’m of the opinion that any such “Great Reset” would probably happen around the same time the United States has a civil war around 2024 – 2025 because Bannon’s administrative coup works and Blue States grow so enraged that they leave the Union.
The United States is historically divided and, as such, it’s easy to imagine the Chinese seeing this and attempting to take Taiwan. They’re a rising power and usually it’s at times like these that historic miscalculations are made.
I say “miscalculation” because while the United States is VERY divided, I still think if something as huge as a huge regional war broke out we would — eventually — get our shit together and address the issue. What would probably happen is it would be a huge shitshow.
Unless the United States simply lulzed the whole thing and left Taiwan on its own — which it would not — China would have to take Taiwan as part of a huge first strike. We’re talking days or weeks.
Given how Taiwan has been preparing for this very thing for decades, that just wouldn’t happen. China’s best bet is to get the DPRK to commit geopolitical suicide by attacking the south in a big way to distract the United States from what was going on with China and Taiwan.
Something as big as a war between China and Taiwan would so consume the American media world that it would, in fact, unite the nation. Yes, a sizable portion of the electorate hates Biden enough that they would rather let China win a war with Taiwan than let Biden look good, that’s just a small, vocal minority.
So, what would probably happen is Japan, the United States, South Korea and NATO would throw military supplies at Taiwan. The whole thing would become a pitched battle to the point that China would either risk blowing the fucking world up or they would give up.
There are some assumptions we have made about the world since the end of WW2 that may not be grounded in reality anymore. One of them is the United States is powerful enough that it, unto itself, is enough to prevent a major regional war from breaking out.
And, yet, I don’t know if that’s still the case.
The specific instance I’m thinking of is China and Taiwan. China is now powerful enough that it could attempt to retake Taiwan and…what would happen? Anything? The United States isn’t going to nuke them because of MAD and the United States and China are so tightly linked on an economic level that there’s not a lot, in real terms, the US could do.
As such, the argument could be made that China — far sooner than we might expect — could made a grab for Taiwan and the United States would make a lot of noise, but wouldn’t do much about it.
The big wildcard of such event, of course, is World War 3 would start because once China proved they could do whatever the fuck they wanted, then other, similar hotspots would also erupt and we would have a number of regional wars happening at the same time that would be marketed as “World War Three.”
It could be that China will simply way for the United States to buckle as part of a civil war to strike. Or, a MAGA president might make us Fortress America and then China could strike because we won’t care about the outside world anymore.
The point of all of this is — it’s possible the existing global order is a far more fragile than we might otherwise believe.
August is careening towards us. And we all know that August sucks as a month. If something shitty is going to happen in 2021 – it’s probably going to happen in August.
So, let’s say it’s China going to war against Taiwan.
First, let me say, I have no expertise in this subject, so this is just a rough back-of-the-envelope scenario. But let’s suppose at some time in August, 2021, we find ourselves with a major East Asian war. What happens?
Well, at first, the United States would freak out. There would be a lot of rallying around the flag and Biden’s approval rating would skyrocket. And…then…once it became clear that the US wasn’t going, to, uh, blow the world up to save Taiwan, everything would go back to normal.
The center-Left would support Biden’s thoughtful, reserved approach, while the MAGA New Right would would suggest that what they believed all along — that Biden is “soft” on China — was right and why isn’t Trump president since he really won?
The other thing that would happen is such a huge event in the world would great destabilize everything. Flashpoints across the world would likely heatup for no other reason than a governments with an itch for conflict would say, “Well, China is scratching their itch, why can’t we do it?”
The DPRK is the country I would be most concerned with. It’s easy for me to imagine that as part of this scenario, that the DPRK would attack the ROK as some sort of Communist brothers-in-arms thing. In fact, I could even seen the PROC gently goading the DPRK into doing just that as a way of distracting the US so it could successfully secure Formosa.
Anyway, the whole thing would be a fucking clusterfuck. If China was cocky enough to attack Taiwan, then we really would be in a New Era. The entire post-WW2 liberal order would collapse and who knows what would replace it.
For a number of significant macro trends, it seems as though what will be marketed as World War 3 will likely happen around 2030. I say this for the following reasons.
Fortress America The United States is going to implode into itself sometime around 2025 when the Republican fascists take control. They will proceed to “Make America First” and pull all our troops out of countries across the globe. The United States will leave NATO, etc. This will destabilize the world order in a rather spectator fashion.
Power Vacuum It will take a little while to do this — maybe five years or so, and, so, by about 2030, the world will descend into something akin to a world war.
Wildcard: American Civil War / Revolution Now, the above assumes that the United State’s transition into an autocratic managed democracy will be peaceful. It’s possible that the United States will violently implode in the 2024-2025 timeframe and World War 3 will happen then, not in 2030.
I love me some worst case scenarios and it’s pretty easy to imagine The Darkest Scenario whereby Trump starts World War 3. It goes something like this — Trump successfully boxes Iran into a corner and they strike Israel in some major fashion.
Israel sees this as an existential threat and nukes Tehran. The entire Middle East descends into war. But what, there’s more. Once the taboo of using nuclear weapons is broken a number of the Usual Suspects begin to saber rattle. While India-Pakistan and China-India are obvious, it’s possible that the DPRK might make significant military moves again ROK.
Put this in context — because of Trump’s “love letters” with Kim Jung-un, our problems with the DPRK have evaporated. But once Trump is out of office, the DPRK could come roaring back to the front of our consciousness.
Or, put another way, given how unstable Trump is, it’s not too difficult to imagine something happening in the final weeks of Trump’s time in office that causes him to switch gears with the DPRK in some dramatic fashion.
Remember — the DPRK has the means, motive and opportunity to use city-killer bombs on the United States.
I love scenarios. In fact, that’s pretty much how I spend all my mental free time — thinking up elaborate scenarios and then playing them through in my mind. So, let’s think about what a secession crisis in modern America would look like. Hopefully, we’ll never have to find out how close I get.
The future is not bright.
The reason why this scenario is so difficult to game out right now is I can’t figure out if it will be Blue States leaving or Red States leaving. It really depends on Trump at this point.
He pretty much has the fate of not just the United States, but all of humanity in his tiny, tiny hands — without even really realizing it. The moment he decides to take “total control” or he takes up the cause of Red States leaving the Union as we grow closer to January 20th, the closer we grow to a secession crisis that would cause the country to implode.
If the United States imploded at this point — 2020 would be up there with 1453, 1789 and 1940 as seminal turning points in human history. But, let’s run the scenario with the assumption that it’s Red states, not Blue states that decide to leave the Union.
First, there would have to be some sort of catalyst. It could be anything. From Trump “joking” on Twitter that Red states should leave the Union to a major Red (or Blue) state figure being murdered or even just some sort of abrupt, sudden and unexpected event that causes Red States to decide they can’t abide by liberal-progressive cancel culture anymore. (Ugh.)
If there was a secession crisis, it would happen really fast. Like, all at once. at least 17 Red States would likely leave the Union in one fell swoop in snap Conventions. That would create a lot of momentum for other Red states to pick a side.
Now, here’s where things get tricky for would be Neo-Confederates. While it’s pretty easy for the lily white central Red states to bounce, when, say South Carolina, or Alabama, or Tennessee — or, even, for that matter Texas — get it in their head to leave the Union the African American community in these states will flip the fuck out.
So, it would likely go something like this — a huge swath of states in the sparsely populated central part of the lower 48 would leave cleanly. This would prompt the good old boys in the South to get REALLY EXCITED and see visions of the South “rising again.” And then…they hit a political brick wall: black people.
As such, the South would be the first place where the passions of a modern day secession crisis would explode into massive violence — maybe even a race war. Some states, like Florida and Virginia (and maybe even Texas) wouldn’t survive. (At least in my opinion.) They would implode. Virginia into Red rural counties and Blue urban areas, Florida into the panhandle, the middle peninsula and the south and Texas would probably just have its own internal civil war as communities with mixed Red and Blue exploded into violence.
Around this same time, the domestic political refugees would begin to bounce around the imploding Union at an alarming rate. There’s even a possibility that the U.S. Military itself would implode into Red and Blue at this point. And passions would get so whipped up that some pretty astonishing things would happen, like New York City declare itself a free state or something.
This would all happen really, really fast. No more than two weeks total. Here’s another point where I just can’t figure out things — would all of this happen in, say, early January when Trump finally snaps at the prospect of going to prison in New York State, or does it happen closer to January 20th?
Or does it not happen at all?
As I’ve written before, while all the conditions for all of this exist, Trump, to date, has proven himself all talk. It’s gotten to the point where it’s somewhat eerie. I hate the idea of any type of violence at all, and even I am astonished Trump hasn’t taken the final steps necessary to destroy the country.
There are some pretty huge wildcards. One, is suddenly strike by Iran either against Israel or somewhere domestically in the United States (or both.) Or the DPRK might rattle its saber just enough to give Trump an excuse to start a major regional war so he can simply use that as a distraction to stay in power. (Though I doubt that gambit would work.)
But remember, if the United States implodes, the entire post-WW2 liberal order implodes, too, and well, World War 3 starts as a number of regional wars break out. If you throw in a series of limited nuclear exchanges, as many as 1 billion people might die because white working class men in Red States can’t afford to get married and have kids.
I’m wrong all the time. I hope I’m wrong this time, too.
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