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Ask HN: Is WWIII already in its early stages?

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

#81

Post by actionfromafar »

csomar wrote: post #76

I have a quite different (and most likely biased) opinion than most people (here or in Western countries). WWIII is already happening. The US is closing up on Russia now for more than a decade. China is growing economically but they are still far away militarily and except for Russia there isn't really another contender for the US militarily speaking. Before 2010 the world was quite multi-polar with the US being the…

Very thought provoking take. But I think Russia will splinter long before China. Specifically the eastern and some of the central asian parts of Russia have no upside to staying in the federation. They are being sucked dry and if Moscow loses its grip from the attrition of a war, things will crack.

I don't have much knowledge of China, it just appears from the outside to me that the State is in much more control.

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

#82

Post by locutous »

vbezhenar wrote: post #19

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. Proba…

First assumption is faulty. That a nuclear war would "destroy the earth". It would not destroy the planet nor render it significantly uninhabitable. Which leads you to poor conclusions.

It does have significant consequences, will render some limited land area as radio active for a limited period of time (weeks to months). Survivors of the infrastructure destruction, chaos, and troop invasions will need to be careful of their sources of food and water for a while.

But it is very much a survivable event for most of the population if basic preparations are in place.

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

#83

Post by setr »

300bps wrote: post #60
arethuza wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, I think people tend to forget that Germany declared war on the US - which I have seen described (in a fantastic bit of understatement) as "most puzzling": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_declaration_of_war_agai...

Thank you for the interesting link! It seems to hold the key to why Germany declared war against the U.S. - essentially it was a condition of Japan’s first strike against the U.S.: On 28 November 1941, Ribbentrop confirmed to Hiroshi Oshima, the Japanese ambassador to Germany, what Hitler himself had told Japanese foreign minister Yosuke Matsuoka: that if Japan got involved in a war with the US, Germany would enter t…

Further down clarifies that the agreement only triggered for defense, not offense

> According to the terms of their agreements, Germany was obliged to come to the aid of Japan if a third country attacked Japan, but not if Japan attacked a third country. Ribbentrop reminded Hitler of this, and pointed out that to declare war against the US would add to the number of enemies Germany was fighting, but Hitler dismissed this concern as not being important,[3] and, almost entirely without consultation, chose to declare war against the US, wanting to do so before, he thought, American president Franklin D. Roosevelt would declare war on Germany.

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

#84

Post by csomar »

actionfromafar wrote: post #81
csomar wrote: post #76

I have a quite different (and most likely biased) opinion than most people (here or in Western countries). WWIII is already happening. The US is closing up on Russia now for more than a decade. China is growing economically but they are still far away militarily and except for Russia there isn't really another contender for the US militarily speaking. Before 2010 the world was quite multi-polar with the US being the…

Very thought provoking take. But I think Russia will splinter long before China. Specifically the eastern and some of the central asian parts of Russia have no upside to staying in the federation. They are being sucked dry and if Moscow loses its grip from the attrition of a war, things will crack. I don't have much knowledge of China, it just appears from the outside to me that the State is in much more control.

Russia is way more advanced and united than China. Don't look at GDP figures, these are inflated and a bad measure of how advanced an economy is.

Look at this last coronavirus crisis: Russia was able to procure a more advanced vaccine than China. You'd think the second most powerful and planned economy in the world should have done better but it didn't.

Edit: Another measure to look at it. Look how many countries of the world were affected by this last war with Russia. (either for food, rockets, raw materials, etc...)

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

#85

Post by sph »

csomar wrote: post #76

I have a quite different (and most likely biased) opinion than most people (here or in Western countries). WWIII is already happening. The US is closing up on Russia now for more than a decade. China is growing economically but they are still far away militarily and except for Russia there isn't really another contender for the US militarily speaking. Before 2010 the world was quite multi-polar with the US being the…

> Before 2010 the world was quite multi-polar with the US being the leader. Now, we are moving to a uni-polar world

Don't you mean the opposite? It was unipolar since the end of WW2, with US being the top superpower. Now other countries want, and can get, a piece of the pie. To be fair that means pretty much only China.

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

#86

Post by Simon321 »

smallstepforman wrote: post #66
atemerev wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I must make the assumption that you’re young. China today has set its path to carry out an action in 5-10 years when it’s ready. You never engage when you’re not prepared. You build up, plan, prepare, then act. That takes time. Remember, revenge is best served cold. China has stepped down today, but I can reassure you, in 5-10 years it will act militarily to avenge its current embarrasment. Just like Russia prepared…

> Russia won the war in the first 72 hours. Russia has also only committed 10% of their resources, the rest are on standby in case NATO intervenes.

Imagine the mental gymnastics you have to do to believe this.

Some sources:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-14/russia-tu...

> There are indications the Kremlin is running out of troops for its war with Ukraine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62496905

> the nation has been "forced into a greater reliance on old Soviet-era equipment, such as personnel carriers offering limited protection, and tanks last produced in 1973." > Kremlin is increasingly using "older, less-precise missiles for strikes, killing and injuring innocent people." > "These outdated tactics are a sign of Russia's desperation amid its equipment shortages and tactical deficiencies,"

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-running-out-steam-growing-de...

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

#87

Post by monster_group »

mathgeek wrote: post #61
rich_sasha wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Nazi Germany stood a reasonable chance of winning WW2. They made many mistakes as well as underestimating the resistance that Britain would provide, but victory was certainly feasible through 1941 or 1942.

Off-topic - I highly recommend watching the show "The Man in the Highcastle" on Amazon. It depicts a future in which Germany and Japan won World War II.

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

#88

Post by csomar »

philwelch wrote: post #79
csomar wrote: post #76

I have a quite different (and most likely biased) opinion than most people (here or in Western countries). WWIII is already happening. The US is closing up on Russia now for more than a decade. China is growing economically but they are still far away militarily and except for Russia there isn't really another contender for the US militarily speaking. Before 2010 the world was quite multi-polar with the US being the…

This is a very interesting and unusual take, pretty much the exact opposite of what I usually see.

Most countries try to feed their population what makes them feel proud, calm and ready (got a war to fight? Time for nationalism and that BS).

Of course, if you are living in a country where the war is happening, you tend to see things differently. Many people in the West haven't seen a war in a long time and would happily believe what the general media is telling them; or the other side of the media (the alternative media).

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

#89

Post by AlbertoGP »

Henry Kissinger in the Wall Street Journal last week:

> “We are at the edge of war with Russia and China on issues which we partly created, without any concept of how this is going to end or what it’s supposed to lead to,” he says. Could the U.S. manage the two adversaries by triangulating between them, as during the Nixon years? He offers no simple prescription. “You can’t just now say we’re going to split them off and turn them against each other. All you can do is not to accelerate the tensions and to create options, and for that you have to have some purpose.”

> https://www.wsj.com/articles/henry-kissinger-is-worried-abou...

He had something to say already in May about Ukraine at Davos: “Kissinger vs. Soros on Russia and Ukraine” https://www.wsj.com/articles/dueling-approaches-to-world-ord... (on a lighter note, this URL sounds like a conspiracy theory bingo card)

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

#90

Post by actionfromafar »

locutous wrote: post #82
vbezhenar wrote: post #19

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. Proba…

First assumption is faulty. That a nuclear war would "destroy the earth". It would not destroy the planet nor render it significantly uninhabitable. Which leads you to poor conclusions. It does have significant consequences, will render some limited land area as radio active for a limited period of time (weeks to months). Survivors of the infrastructure destruction, chaos, and troop invasions will need to be careful…

Yes. Let's just remember that 49% of the population dying is most of the population surviving.
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