Differences between WW2 and WW3 (aside from nukes, draft, manufacturing)

[Dale_Sams]

I don’t see how any Russia-US conflict ends in anything less than nukes.*

*I remember a few years ago, I don’t think it was the Crimea business…seems it was earlier…but A bunch of young’uns were beating the drums saying how the US would kick Russias ass (These were people from all over the political spectrum too).

They never for one second considered nuclear war. They proclaimed the Russians would back down and never dare to launch nukes. Jesus Christ. Was I watching Failsafe here??? i would think Professor Groeteschele would be dead by now.

[griffin1977]

@l0k1

There will not be an armed conflict if armed conflict means destroying both participant’s economies. Why would there be?

That has always been the case, and it never stopped wars from happening. The presence of nuclear weapons has stopped wars from happening.

The difference in the current environment (unlike the cold war) is it possible to carry imagine a limited military conflict between major powers that doesn’t devolve into all out nuclear war. The Pakistan-India example you mention, shows this.

The problem is it, while its not certain that any serious armed conflict will devolve into nuclear war, it is still a very real possibility. Again in the India-Pakistan example, it remained a very low intensity conflict, if it had become more intense or expanded beyond Saichen or Kashmir then there is a real chance of it going nuclear.

[l0k1]

@griffin1977

That has always been the case, and it never stopped wars from happening. The presence of nuclear weapons has stopped wars from happening.

The difference in the current environment (unlike the cold war) is it possible to carry imagine a limited military conflict between major powers that doesn’t devolve into all out nuclear war. The Pakistan-India example you mention, shows this.

The problem is it, while its not certain that any serious armed conflict will devolve into nuclear war, it is still a very real possibility. Again in the India-Pakistan example, it remained a very low intensity conflict, if it had become more intense or expanded beyond Saichen or Kashmir then there is a real chance of it going nuclear.

Mutually Assured Destruction stopped WWIII from happening. I was born in 1974. I saw The Day After when it was first broadcast on TV. I saw War Games and Terminator in the theater. I remember religious leaders saying on TV that the USSR was the Antichrist, and the President saying it was an evil empire. My parents had duke and cover drills. There was a Nike missile station a few miles from my house. Nuclear War between the Soviet Union and the United States was inevitable. It was going to happen. I’m about to turn 45, and it hasn’t. The Soviet Union wasn’t the Antichrist, these aren’t the end times, neither were the 1990s, or the 80s, or the 70s, or the 60s. The fallout shelter in my son’s school is just a few archaic signs affixed to the cinder block walls.

[XT]

@l0k1

I just don’t see it. Indian and Pakistan are two nuclear powers that have been in open conflict for decades. Actual war would be bad for both countries, so it won’t happen. The history of World Wars is mostly about imperialism. Modern imperialism happens through trade, not through hugely expensive wars. Governments will make bellicose threats to one another, but modern warfare does not involve equal players. There will not be an armed conflict if armed conflict means destroying both participant’s economies. Why would there be?

And India and Pakistan have actually had limited conflicts as well as been on the brink of general war several times. Stating that it would be bad for both countries is, basically, meaningless. War with the US was ‘bad’ for both Germany and Japan in WWII. War with Russia was ‘bad’ for Germany as well. They still did it. You might have noticed that their economies did actually suffer. Not only that, Germany’s economy suffered as a result of WWI, so it’s not like they didn’t know the possible consequences if they started ANOTHER large scale war.

It’s no different today…except wrt nukes. That’s the real game changer. But even with nukes it’s not impossible for there to be conflicts between major powers. I understand that you don’t see it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. There is a very real (albeit low probability) of conflict between China and the US. There are multiple flash points and trigger points for such a conflict that exist, any one of which (or a combination of which) could spark a conventional war. The fact that this would be bad for both economies (as well as the economies of the rest of the world) is not a guarantee that it won’t happen. The current trade war is happening, and IT’S bad for both economies AND impacting the rest of the world, but it’s still happening.

I don’t think you really grasp what the CCP feels wrt Taiwan or where what they do or don’t do factors into their calculation of risk or what they would be willing or forced to do if certain things happen. THEY see it as a core touch point, even if you (and probably most others who aren’t Chinese or directly involved) don’t. IF Taiwan declares itself independent and completely repudiates the One China policy and attempts to make itself an actual (as opposed to quasi-de-facto) sovereign state then China could very well attempt to use force of arms. That would almost certainly see the US responding with military force to prevent that.

[griffin1977]

@l0k1

these aren’t the end times, neither were the 1990s, or the 80s, or the 70s, or the 60s.

They weren’t but only by sheer dumb luck. If
Stanislav Petrov had called on in sick on September 26, 1983, or countless other near misses had gone the other way, then we won’t be having this conversation now.

@l0k1

The fallout shelter in my son’s school is just a few archaic signs affixed to the cinder block walls.

Except all those nuclear missiles (or most of them) still exist, and still pointing at each other. They aren’t on the same hair trigger they were during the cold war, but that only makes it more likely one side will decide to try something. Not that I think its likely in the immediate future. As other people have pointed out the OP wasn’t asking about the chances of it happening. They were asking what it would be like.

So IMO a hypothetical future WW3 will be totally different to WW2. Not a world spanning conventional war, spanning numerous theatres and different continents. It will be a very limited local conflict (My money would be on Taiwan). That conflict stays conventional until one side is losing, then goes nuclear. Once it goes nuclear (even if its just battlefield nuclear weapons) then it escalates very quickly into a cold war style all out nuclear war.

[l0k1]

@griffin1977

They weren’t but only by sheer dumb luck. If
Stanislav Petrov had called on in sick on September 26, 1983, or countless other near misses had gone the other way, then we won’t be having this conversation now.

Except all those nuclear missiles (or most of them) still exist, and still pointing at each other. They aren’t on the same hair trigger they were during the cold war, but that only makes it more likely one side will decide to try something. Not that I think its likely in the immediate future. As other people have pointed out the OP wasn’t asking about the chances of it happening. They were asking what it would be like.

So IMO a hypothetical future WW3 will be totally different to WW2. Not a world spanning conventional war, spanning numerous theatres and different continents. It will be a very limited local conflict (My money would be on Taiwan). That conflict stays conventional until one side is losing, then goes nuclear. Once it goes nuclear (even if its just battlefield nuclear weapons) then it escalates very quickly into a cold war style all out nuclear war.

I’m not saying that no one will accidentally kill us all, but it won’t be a war between super powers. War doesn’t work like that anymore.

[RickJay]

@Urbanredneck

I have trouble seeing a military conflict between major powers because world economics are so intertwined.

That’s exactly, almost word for word, what they said in 1913.

[XT]

WRT the actual use of nuclear weapons, my personal opinion is that they would only be used if one side was losing to the point it was an existential threat to the regimes survival (the only caveat to this is North Korea…gods know what their trigger point is or how rational they are). Take Russia. I could see a conventional war between Russia and NATO happening over, say, the Baltic States. I think it’s a lower probability than one between China and the US and allies in the Pacific, but it could happen. It would almost certainly end up in a failure for Russia and the re-capturing of the Baltic States in the end, but if it only went that far I don’t think there would be nukes used. Now, if after re-taking the Baltic States (and maybe some additional peripheral territory) NATO decided to actually invade Russia proper, THEN you would have a higher probability of nukes happening, IMHO. Especially if Putin’s regimes survival was fundamentally threatened by an external enemy driving in on it. Same goes for the Chinese. It would be madness for them to attack the US et al with nukes. But a conventional war is possible. However, if once the conventional war was over, if there was an external existential threat to the CCP then all bets would be off wrt restraining the use of nukes. The CCP would see losing as the same as the end of the world, so might as well go out swinging.

[XT]

@RickJay

That’s exactly, almost word for word, what they said in 1913.

Exactly. Hell, some were saying that even into the early 30’s.

[griffin1977]

@l0k1

I’m not saying that no one will accidentally kill us all, but it won’t be a war between super powers. War doesn’t work like that anymore.

War works exactly the same way it has since the start of human civilization. Nothing has changed about the basic calculations that decide whether or not nations go to war. See all the posturing going on in the Ukraine, Taiwan, and South China Sea for evidence of that.

What has changed is the existence of a huge nuclear arsenal capable of wiping out all the sides. That is why I don’t think any of the flash points are going to boil over in the immediate future. But if at some point in the future domestic and foreign factors line up just right then it is totally possible the one side will think they can get away with an advantageous local military action without bringing about a full scale nuclear war. It is also totally possible that they will be wrong about that.

[bump]

@XT

WRT the actual use of nuclear weapons, my personal opinion is that they would only be used if one side was losing to the point it was an existential threat to the regimes survival (the only caveat to this is North Korea…gods know what their trigger point is or how rational they are). Take Russia. I could see a conventional war between Russia and NATO happening over, say, the Baltic States. I think it’s a lower probability than one between China and the US and allies in the Pacific, but it could happen. It would almost certainly end up in a failure for Russia and the re-capturing of the Baltic States in the end, but if it only went that far I don’t think there would be nukes used. Now, if after re-taking the Baltic States (and maybe some additional peripheral territory) NATO decided to actually invade Russia proper, THEN you would have a higher probability of nukes happening, IMHO. Especially if Putin’s regimes survival was fundamentally threatened by an external enemy driving in on it. Same goes for the Chinese. It would be madness for them to attack the US et al with nukes. But a conventional war is possible. However, if once the conventional war was over, if there was an external existential threat to the CCP then all bets would be off wrt restraining the use of nukes. The CCP would see losing as the same as the end of the world, so might as well go out swinging.

Which is why I suspect the Russians and Chinese won’t actually do anything in the Baltics or South China Sea- neither has the ability to go toe-to-toe with NATO or the US conventionally, and nobody wants to go the nuclear route either.

[Sam_Stone]

Wars are the ultimate in chaos. They aren’t generally predictable or controllable when multiple parties are involved. We also tend to sleep-walk into them.

We also tend to believe that we understand the motivations of our rivals and can rule out certain actions and behaviors because of it. So we’ll say things like, ‘Russia would never go to war with us, because they kiw they’d lose’. In the meantime, the internal pressures of the Russian government have their own logic, and it might turn out that a Russian Leader’s motivations for war are totally inscrutable to us. For example, he may be facing internal coup pressures from the military, and needs a war to occupy them. Or he’s playing a militant faction of his government to maintain control of them, and a bluff gets called. Etc.

There are a million scenarios for how a war could start. For example, recently a hotheaded Chinese admiral suggested that if China just sunk a U.S. aircraft carrier the next time one steamed through disputed waters in the South China sea, the Americans would be forced to back off and allow China hegemony of the region.

My opinion of what America could do if a carrier was destroyed along with 5,000 men and women is somewhat different than that Chinese Admiral’s. I think that Admiral is making a category error, and such errors are exactly how wars start.

So imagine China sinks a carrier. The U.S responds by launching a raid against some Chinese asset. China escalates. Now the U.S. is down a carrier, and also moves more military resources into the region.

Now, the other restless powers take notice. Iran thinks, ‘Yoh know, if we ever are going to cement our leadership in the ME, this is the time to do it while America is busy’. So they start moving troops en masse into Syria. Israel responds by mobilizing its own forces. Now the U.S. commits more soldiers and ships to the Middle East.

Now Putin, who is watching America get bogged down on two fronts, decides this is a great time to invade the Baltics.

Before you know it, You’ve got your military bogged down in Asia and the Middle East, and suddenly Europe erupts. Before you know it, China, Iran, and Russia are allied, thinking that if they can coordinate their actions they can split up the U.S. military and make the war so painful that the U.S. will sue for peace and allow them to keep all the gains they made.

Sound familiar?

But that’s just one hypothetical scenario. Wars can break out in many ways, and once they do they rarely follow a script.

[Folacin]

@Velocity

NATO isn’t going to march to Moscow.

Historically that hasn’t worked out for anyone who has tried it so far, at any rate.

[l0k1]

@XT

Exactly. Hell, some were saying that even into the early 30’s.

And since 1945 people have been telling us that WWIII is right around the corner.

[MichaelEmouse]

@Sam_Stone

Wars are the ultimate in chaos. They aren’t generally predictable or controllable when multiple parties are involved. We also tend to sleep-walk into them.

We also tend to believe that we understand the motivations of our rivals and can rule out certain actions and behaviors because of it. So we’ll say things like, ‘Russia would never go to war with us, because they kiw they’d lose’. In the meantime, the internal pressures of the Russian government have their own logic, and it might turn out that a Russian Leader’s motivations for war are totally inscrutable to us. For example, he may be facing internal coup pressures from the military, and needs a war to occupy them. Or he’s playing a militant faction of his government to maintain control of them, and a bluff gets called. Etc.

There are a million scenarios for how a war could start. For example, recently a hotheaded Chinese admiral suggested that if China just sunk a U.S. aircraft carrier the next time one steamed through disputed waters in the South China sea, the Americans would be forced to back off and allow China hegemony of the region.

My opinion of what America could do if a carrier was destroyed along with 5,000 men and women is somewhat different than that Chinese Admiral’s. I think that Admiral is making a category error, and such errors are exactly how wars start.

So imagine China sinks a carrier. The U.S responds by launching a raid against some Chinese asset. China escalates. Now the U.S. is down a carrier, and also moves more military resources into the region.

Now, the other restless powers take notice. Iran thinks, ‘Yoh know, if we ever are going to cement our leadership in the ME, this is the time to do it while America is busy’. So they start moving troops en masse into Syria. Israel responds by mobilizing its own forces. Now the U.S. commits more soldiers and ships to the Middle East.

Now Putin, who is watching America get bogged down on two fronts, decides this is a great time to invade the Baltics.

Before you know it, You’ve got your military bogged down in Asia and the Middle East, and suddenly Europe erupts. Before you know it, China, Iran, and Russia are allied, thinking that if they can coordinate their actions they can split up the U.S. military and make the war so painful that the U.S. will sue for peace and allow them to keep all the gains they made.

Sound familiar?

But that’s just one hypothetical scenario. Wars can break out in many ways, and once they do they rarely follow a script.

We tend to think of people in important posts as the equivalent of Olympic athletes in their profession. Sometimes, people are in their post not because they’re the best person for it but because they’re the kind of person intensely attracted to that post to do everything to get it (Stalin) or the kind of person who would end up getting that post (May). Reading up on the US involvement in Vietnam, it’s a tale of ego-driven one-trick ponies who fell victim to the Peter principle, never paused enough to really think about the issue and the hard choices involved. They were like a cigarette smoker who increases the amount of tobacco he smokes in the hopes that the cravings will go away for a while even if that made things worse and more painful long term. Politics is full of people who screw things up because of their personality defects or their extraordinary situations.

There is also the impression we may get that dictatorships don’t have to worry about the opinions of anyone but the dictator. But dictators know they’re sitting on a throne of daggers and that loss of power could mean much worse than losing an election and having to settle for a cushy board seat.

Sam, you’re involved in automation or something related to it, correct? I’m quite curious about your insights into how electronics and automation of all sorts could impact a future high intensity war between peer adversaries.

I think one of the reasons that Terminator 1 & 2 were so successful is partly because they conjure up plausible golems. Instead of being made of clay and having a piece of writing in their mouth, they’re made of metal and have software but it’s the same phenomenon.

[Urbanredneck]

@RickJay

That’s exactly, almost word for word, what they said in 1913.

Yes, also before WW2. To be honest that’s what worries me.

[Urbanredneck]

On China invading Taiwan.

There are various websites discussing this but from what I’ve read despite the huge size difference, their is no guarantee China would win.

1. It would be hard to have the element of surprise given so many nationals can keep tabs on Chinese military bases not to mention satellites. This isnt like how the Germans took Norway in 1940.

2. Because of weather there is a limited window of opportunity for an invasion.

• so because of those 2 the Taiwanese would be ready leading to -

3. Taiwan has been preparing for just such a war for a long time and have there defenses figured out pretty tightly because just like what was mentioned, such a war would need to be over fairly quickly. China would need to to invade and conquer in just a few weeks or the threat of other countries jumping in or harsh economic sanctions coming along would cause too many problems. Can you imagine the backlash the Chinese would deal with newsfeeds filled with the images of Chinese troops napalming Taiwanese? Every Chinese business in the world would be shut down.

[XT]

@Sam_Stone

Wars are the ultimate in chaos. They aren’t generally predictable or controllable when multiple parties are involved. We also tend to sleep-walk into them.

We also tend to believe that we understand the motivations of our rivals and can rule out certain actions and behaviors because of it. So we’ll say things like, ‘Russia would never go to war with us, because they kiw they’d lose’. In the meantime, the internal pressures of the Russian government have their own logic, and it might turn out that a Russian Leader’s motivations for war are totally inscrutable to us. For example, he may be facing internal coup pressures from the military, and needs a war to occupy them. Or he’s playing a militant faction of his government to maintain control of them, and a bluff gets called. Etc.

There are a million scenarios for how a war could start. For example, recently a hotheaded Chinese admiral suggested that if China just sunk a U.S. aircraft carrier the next time one steamed through disputed waters in the South China sea, the Americans would be forced to back off and allow China hegemony of the region.

My opinion of what America could do if a carrier was destroyed along with 5,000 men and women is somewhat different than that Chinese Admiral’s. I think that Admiral is making a category error, and such errors are exactly how wars start.

So imagine China sinks a carrier. The U.S responds by launching a raid against some Chinese asset. China escalates. Now the U.S. is down a carrier, and also moves more military resources into the region.

Now, the other restless powers take notice. Iran thinks, ‘Yoh know, if we ever are going to cement our leadership in the ME, this is the time to do it while America is busy’. So they start moving troops en masse into Syria. Israel responds by mobilizing its own forces. Now the U.S. commits more soldiers and ships to the Middle East.

Now Putin, who is watching America get bogged down on two fronts, decides this is a great time to invade the Baltics.

Before you know it, You’ve got your military bogged down in Asia and the Middle East, and suddenly Europe erupts. Before you know it, China, Iran, and Russia are allied, thinking that if they can coordinate their actions they can split up the U.S. military and make the war so painful that the U.S. will sue for peace and allow them to keep all the gains they made.

Sound familiar?

But that’s just one hypothetical scenario. Wars can break out in many ways, and once they do they rarely follow a script.

Exactly. Good post. Basically, this is how real wars start…a series of unpredictable events that, from each side SEEMS to be the correct response or a low order risk they can take but that snowballs into something else, as the other side (or other sides) make their own assessment and pursue their own international goals or objectives. Next thing you know, everyone is jumping in on one side or the other or on their own and it’s cats and dogs living together…

[XT]

@l0k1

And since 1945 people have been telling us that WWIII is right around the corner.

Well yeah…because if it hasn’t happened yet, that means for sure it never will! When WWI happened there hadn’t been a major European war since, IIRC, the Napoleonic era. Again, a war between major powers today is not a high probability event…but it’s not zero either. There are quite a lot of conditions that could spark one. I’m not sure why you are in denial about that, but saying it hasn’t happened since 1945 so therefore it won’t or can’t is really silly. Just like your assertion that since the US and China trade that means we won’t fight a war. It totally ignores the reality and complexity of both countries positions on a host of things and what might set them off or start a chain of events that leads to military action.

[bump]

@XT

When WWI happened there hadn’t been a major European war since, IIRC, the Napoleonic era.

Hardly… the Crimean War and the Franco-Prussian War come to mind, and there were also a crazy number of brushfire and colonial wars, as well as a few independence wars and rebellions.