Climate change is on
Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?
31–40 of 173 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?
#32China 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 everythin…
+1 for the Laowhy86 link.
The paper tiger won’t be invading Taiwan anytime soon. The west will pull out even further. Not sure who they will make stuff for if manufacturing leaves. We already see it happening during Covid and especially the 0 Covid measures.
Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?
#33I 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…
Regarding defining the "winner" of a global war, I can't help thinking of the quote from General Thomas Power, head of US SAC in the late 1950s and early 1960s:
"Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win!"
Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?
#34Nah. The difficulty that Russia has had with taking any significant portion of Ukraine has, if anything, shown the folly of military adventurism in the post-modern era. Remember that in WW2 Poland and France lasted for about a month before capitulation.
Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?
#35WW3 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. Proba…
“WW3 will not happen. Countries are not stupid to destroy the Earth.”
That’s pretty optimistic. I wish I was less pessimistic. I think it’s just a matter of time.
Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?
#36> In the 2010's, many people told me 'WWIII will never happen, the world is too interdependent'.
That's because it happens this way - not as immediately global and not as intense as one would expect from a world war - because the world has became more dense and viscous so processes like that happen this way like processes in molten glass compared to processes in a gas.
Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?
#37WW3 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. Proba…
I think that the world is now more unipolar than ever before. Russia is repeatedly proving that it worth nearly nothing both in military and political sense, the Chinese military power is also very much overestimated. EU is nearly defenseless on their own too.
Only the US has the military power to win any existential war (small wars of course can still be “lost”, as the adversary can become the prize not worth taking).
Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?
#38I 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…
I would like that to be true.
Did Germany stand a chance to win WWII? Probably not, or at best a slim chance; it made huge, surprising victories against most of continental Europe, but it just picked on too many opponents. By the time the US was in, it was (slow and deadly) game over. They believed their own BS and went ahead with it regardless.
I guess the risk here is that Russia or China could also believe their own BS and do something stupid regardless. Russia clearly did in Ukraine.
As far as I can tell, WWI started kind of because everyone wanted a war. All the belligerents were convinced this is their moment to shine, 3 months and it will be all over, with [shiny new territory]. Alas it was not to be so.
Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?
#39They said the same thing in the build up to WW1 and that is even considering that all the royal houses were cousins on top of it.
Re: Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?
#40> 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…
Nuclear weapons are deterrents, they have a very limited use against actual military targets, only against civilians. Going nuclear means that there will be no more prize worth taking, and one’s own survival is jeopardized.
Which means that conventional wars are still very much possible when the implicitly agreed rules of engagement are formulated and accepted by the warring parties.