Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 173 posts

Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#11

Post by api »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #6
kypro wrote: post #5

I doubt it simply because there's still a massive power imbalance between western and non-western countries. A war with China and Russia would obviously be awful for the human race, but there's almost no way China and Russia would win such a war, nor would it make sense to fight it. I mean what does the "winner" of WWIII gain? You might win the war, but now the planet is a nuclear waste land. I think China and Russia…

> but there's almost no way China and Russia would win such a war For any sensible definitions of 'win', there's also no way the US can win against China, or even Russia. Both China and Russia are impossible to successfully invade and they both have nuclear weapons (same applies to the US). These 3 countries do not want to go to war against each others and they won't. As the WOPR once wisely concluded, the only winni…

So instead we see endless proxy wars where these three powers use other countries as battlegrounds killing other people.

Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#12

Post by jgrahamc »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #6
kypro wrote: post #5

I doubt it simply because there's still a massive power imbalance between western and non-western countries. A war with China and Russia would obviously be awful for the human race, but there's almost no way China and Russia would win such a war, nor would it make sense to fight it. I mean what does the "winner" of WWIII gain? You might win the war, but now the planet is a nuclear waste land. I think China and Russia…

> but there's almost no way China and Russia would win such a war For any sensible definitions of 'win', there's also no way the US can win against China, or even Russia. Both China and Russia are impossible to successfully invade and they both have nuclear weapons (same applies to the US). These 3 countries do not want to go to war against each others and they won't. As the WOPR once wisely concluded, the only winni…

I can’t leave “Whopper” uncorrected. It’s WOPR and stands for War Operation Plan Response.

Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#13

Post by erklik »

drKarl wrote: post #7

The TikTok spying is probably irrelevant since most TikTok users are teenagers. I was surprised when Putin went ahead and actually invaded Ukraine since I didn't see the cost/benefit justifying the invasion. Putin had a war chest of more than 600 billion dollars. Like half of that was on western banks and it's now frozen, so Putin can't use it. They're burning through the rest quickly as Russian economy is going to t…

> Providing a loan of millions of dollars to a poor African country to build infrastructure, and when they default on their loan, China takes control of the land, effectively having a military base.

Are there specific examples of such areas? Like where China has built infrastructure, and taken over and now has a military base there?

Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#14

Post by formerly_proven »

drKarl wrote: post #9
mytailorisrich wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're violating Taiwan air space daily They are not, actually, and I don't think they ever did. > it could have tried to take other countries, like Poland, Moldova, some scandinavian countries Of course not. Russia is not going to attack or invade NATO countries, nor is it clear why they would invade a non-NATO Scandinavian country... And in practical terms they couldn't really pulled off invading a country like…

> They are not, actually, and I don't think they ever did. Jan 2021 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3116557/pla... "Chinese air force entered island’s ADIZ on 91 days from January to November, according to Taipei-based think tank" April 2021 https://www.sps-aviation.com/story/?id=2907&h=Frequent-Viola... "Violation of Taiwanese airspace by military aircraft of the PRC appears to have become a regular…

Reports of air space violations have to be taken with the large grain of salt which is Taiwan's ADIZ extending significantly into mainland China (which is what most reports tend to be about).

Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#15

Post by qwerty456127 »

kypro wrote: post #5

I doubt it simply because there's still a massive power imbalance between western and non-western countries. A war with China and Russia would obviously be awful for the human race, but there's almost no way China and Russia would win such a war, nor would it make sense to fight it. I mean what does the "winner" of WWIII gain? You might win the war, but now the planet is a nuclear waste land. I think China and Russia…

> The Taiwan situation is interesting but ultimately China knows they won't be able to take Taiwan by force without extreme consequences - nor would it be easy.

Is there a reason to be sure they are this rational? Some people just get mad and kill others just for sake of "honour" as their weird philosophy defines it, no matter the consequences.

Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#16

Post by bitL »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #2

> With Russia invading Ukraine & China preparing to invade Taiwan, I can't help but wonder. And before that the US invaded Iraq (twice), Afghanistan, various other countries (arguably including Vietnam and Korea). The USSR also invaded Afghanistan. Plus various other proxy conflicts. WWIII, in the sense of an all out war, won't happen because the opponents all have nuclear weapons and are too big in any case. The Wes…

You are assuming rational actors. Look around at politicians and CEOs everywhere and tell me where is your confidence coming from?

Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#17

Post by andrewstuart »

China won't invade Taiwan.

The CCP is sabre rattling and blustering to look good to a domestic audience because it has lost huge face when Pelosi visited.

Here's a great video to watch on the topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1sGjulgBBs

The CCP well knows that if it moves to take Taiwan then the outcome WILL be world war 3 and remember all those politicians are leading extremely comfortable lives with everything they could ever want - why risk it?

If China invades Taiwan - and I've read quite alot of stuff that says they don't even have the military capability to do so - then they'll be fighting everyone from Taiwan to USA to Japan and possibly India and who knows what other countries. They won't win, they know it.

Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#18

Post by vwcx »

> When I look at the world unfold in the 2020's, it seems very few people accounted for how much corruption, economics, social media, propaganda, etc. would factor into geopolitics.

While I agree that propaganda has never quite been as hyper-targeted to specific micro-populations as it is today, you can't forget the larger role propaganda has played since, say, the printing press. Especially propaganda tied to the same concerns as today: economic insecurity, racial and cultural in-groups and out-groups, etc. Ask a Southern male US citizen in the 1850s what he thought about the island of Cuba — although he likely never would have any interaction whatsoever with the island, its inhabitants or its politics, he would've encountered (and probably adopted) talking points given to him by propaganda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostend_Manifesto

Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#19

Post by vbezhenar »

WW3 will not happen. Countries are not stupid to destroy the Earth.

Local wars here and there happened and will happen in the future. There's nothing special about Ukraine or Taiwan in that regard.

World will move from US-centric model to multi-polar model. One pole is China, one pole is Russia, one pole is EU, one pole is US, one pole is Iran. Confused about India but probably it'll be a separate pole as well. Probably there will be African pole and South-American pole. Economy, Internet, Science will be divided among those poles. Some poles will cooperate, some poles will not. Countries will join some pole or dive into anarchy. That's the script for next 50-100 years, then another country will rise as a world hegemon. I expect it to be China, but I might be wrong.

Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

#20

Post by tyrfing »

Very unlikely. Posturing regarding China is much cheaper than any action, the US was barely willing to take any action regarding Russia, and that's at least an order of magnitude cheaper. Consider that in any outright war, a company like Apple would no longer own anything beyond a trademark, and would have zero manufacturing ability. The costs would be massive - and for what? A small island in the Pacific?

As long as China doesn't launch missiles at the Pacific second island chain or carriers, an escalation to a world war even in a situation where they launch a military attack on Taiwan is unlikely.

Look beyond the rhetoric and I think even the ~ 20% odds on prediction sites is much too high, mostly clouded by recency bias.

Post reply on HN