And if so where do you think it’s most likely to start?
I had a debate with my cousin over this last night. He claimed that the world economy is too interdependent nowadays and that no major economic/military power would risk getting into a big general conflict because they would have too much to lose. His point of view is similar to the Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention and the Golden Arches Theory as posited by Thomas Friedman.
I disagreed, perhaps because I’m more cynical but also because I could imagine one or two scenarios that might result in a big general conflict even in our globalised age. One was Taiwan, which is often cited as a potential spark for a bigger conflict.
So what do you all think?
We can see the faultlines shaping up for another world war as we speak. That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. Note that the Golden Arches theory predicts that liberal countries have no particular reason to go to war against each other, and have multiple methods of conflict resolution short of war. All we have to do is note that there are many countries and regions that are not liberal.
While the middle eastern countries aren’t major powers, they control what is still a vital resource. So unless we stop using middle eastern oil we’re going to be in conflict.
We don’t have to worry very much about Saudi Arabian tanks driving towards Paris. But thousands of Saudi Arabian suicide bombers? The easy way to stop this is to deny Saudi Arabians entry to western countries and expel those that are already here.
So while we probably won’t see a WWII style war, of two coalitions of states waging total war across the globe, we certainly could see global warfare between state militaries versus non-state military and irregular forces.
I suspect that the next World War will be the world against the US. It will be over the US refusing to cut CO2 production, expanding its nuclear capabilities, maintaining a military presence all over the globe, or some such issue. Imagine that “the world” decides to embargo oil sales to the US and the US takes some sort of military action to ensure its oil supplies.
What, even Europe?
Oh for pity’s sake. France is going to bomb the United States because we aren’t cutting CO2 production? They’re going to bomb us for expanding our nuclear capabilities? Why? We have thousands of nuclear bombs, who’s going to care whether we have 1000 or 2000? Why isn’t the world going to go to war against Pakistan, India, North Korea or Iran over expanding their nuclear capabilities? Why isn’t the world going to attack the UK, France, Russia, or China?
Why is the world going to attack us for maintaining a military presence around the world? What countries do we maintain military presences in that are unwelcome? Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And…well, that’s about it. Or are you complaining about the troops we have in NATO countries?
And how exactly does “the world” embargo oil sales to the United States? How is this organized? Is this run through the United Nations? What world body or alliance is powerful enough to unify THE ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD, yet is so weak and ineffectual and crazy that they can’t negotiate with the United States?
Maybe you haven’t been paying attention to the fucking news for the last 30 years or so. That’s the only explanation for the idea that liberal democracies like the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Japan, and Canada would ally with authoritarian countries like Russia, China, and Iran against the United States. OVER CO2 PRODUCTION!
Frankly, only an American could be so ill informed about world affairs.
What if the Saudis wait til the day all the oil everywhere else has run out and then fills up their tanks? Ya didn’t think of that 
.
I don’t think an everyone else vs. USA war is very likely but then they do say to expect the unexpected!
The “commercial ties” thing? Rubbish. France & Germany have always had the closest trading ties, & see how well that worked out.
I say, China vs India, & it grows.
I rather suspect that Russia’s nukes are pointing East at the moment.
I believe China vs. India was the other possible flashpoint I suggested to my friend.
I don’t think it’s quite as unlikely as you think. If it does get to the point where we see massive worldwide economic dislocation and crop failures ( such as Europe’s climate turning into something like Canada ), then the greenhouse effect will become the most important issue, worldwide. If America or any other country at that point still insists on pumping out yet more CO2, I’d be very surprised if they were not punished by the rest of the world. If the UN can’t do it, a whole new organization will be founded for the purpose. And with millions of people suffering or starving, you can expect tempers to be high.
Not that I consider that the most likely scenario; if a world war erupts over global warming, I expect it will be a matter of many countries attacking many countries; not a neat war with two sides. And I bet it’ll be a matter of nations with collapsed agriculture trying to steal land or food or water from a luckier one.
As for me, my top candidate for starting a world war is America. Powerful, aggressive, and with a strong militaristic/fundamentalistic bent.
What interests me, in a hideously morbid way, about a possible China-India conflict, is how other countries will align themselves. I wonder now if economic interests would become the pre-eminent deciding factor in alliances and involvement.
Democractic and western-oriented India should probably hope for natural support from the democratic west. But should full-blown conflict happen today, China’s defeat would rock the world economy way more than India’s would. The Chinese consumer economy is already very important to the west, and the manufacturing base is a huge contributor to the low-cost consumer base in the west. If one country had to have its economy put out of action, I suspect that the US would favour India’s.
Yow, switch to decaf. My scenario has nothing to do with the UN, the US has veto power in any case. It would not take very many countries to have an effective embargo of the US. The middle-east and Venezuela already hate the US and we are not very popular anywhere right now. Our traditional oil producing allies like Saudia Arabia and Kuwait could be forced to join and embargo or else face fundamentalist pressure internally. I just don’t think having the US be the sole world hyper-power is a stable position. Either the world will resent us or the US will decide it has to use the power it holds.
Oh, and I didn’t say that France would bomb us. It’s more likely that the US would take military action to keep shipping lanes open or use force to obtain oil. At that point the ROW would react much like the US did in WWII when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in an attempt to stop the US from restricting access to raw materials.
That’s an interesting viewpoint. I can’t help thinking, though, that the threat of war between India and China is lower now than it has been in several decades, simply because there’s too much reliance on mutual trade. Chinese manufacturing is coming to India in a big way. I think the volatility of the 60s and 70s has been replaced by something a lot more pragmatic and neutral, if not quite friendly. Call it civility.
I’m not sure how well it would go down with the rest of the world if the US invaded a large democracy without pretext, even if it was to settle a globe-rocking conflict. I’m not saying that it would create instant support for India, but I think the diplomatic fallout from that would be far, far worse than what was obtained from the Iraq war. Something to consider, though.
Maybe. But there won’t be two.
But the thing is, an oil embargo by several countries against the United States is completely useless. Oil is fungible. If Saudi Arabia sells oil to companies in France, how do they prevent France from turning around and selling that oil around the world?
There is a global oil market. You can’t cut off supply to one country without a military blockade, unless every oil producer and consumer agree to embargo that one country. The OPEC oil embargo of the 1970s wasn’t an embargo against the United States, it was an embargo against all oil consuming countries. And the purpose was to jack up the prices. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, and Kuwait can’t cut off oil exports without cutting their own throats, because the elites in those countries depend on that oil money to buy their popularity. How long do you think the Saudi royal family would last without the oil money that buys everything in the country? Five minutes.
These oil producing countries are much much much more dependent on oil exports than developed countries are dependent on imports. Without oil money these countries will essentially collapse.
So if there is a global oil market, the United States will be able to buy oil, just like everyone else. The economic power of the United States and China doesn’t mean that people in small unimportant countries aren’t able to buy oil. All it means is that the price of oil is bid up.
This is why your scenario is ludicrous. All first world countries have a shared interest in promoting global trade, in keeping shipping lanes open, in peace. They have a shared interest in promoting global governance, the rule of law, stability. They have a shared interest in combatting islamic fundamentalism, terrorism, piracy, lawlessness, warlordism, and chaos. So why exactly are France and Japan going to cheer when Islamic fundamentalists shut down oil exports from the middle east? Why are they going to help the islamic fundamentalists rather than the United States?
Sink oil tankers; bomb pipelines. Or threaten military retaliation against any country caught selling oil to the embargoed country. Also, you assume that unless ALL oil is stopped an embargo is useless; even a porous embargo would raise prices and hurt America.
They did before WWII as well; it didn’t help. Countries are not always rational, or motivated by pure self interest.
Only if it’s directed at them; they seldom care if it’s hurting someone else - and that’s when they aren’t actively encouraging that sort of thing against rivals and enemies.
Perhaps at some point they will decide the fundies are less dangerous. Especially if the fundies offer to keep selling them oil, or other incentives.
Iraq and Afghanistan, definitely. Japan and South Korea aren’t too enthusiastic about it, either.
Yes, except if the Islamic fundamentalists are bombing French pipelines and sinking French tankers, well, that isn’t exactly the scenario DanBlather laid out, where the United States is at war with the entire rest of the world, now is it? Instead that’s a world war where the entire industrialized first world is at war with Islamic fundamentalism, both state and non-state.
Yeah, you’ll have countries that try to sit out the war. Maybe France would do that. But that certainly doesn’t amount to France joining fundamentalist Saudi Arabia in a shooting war against the United States, now does it?
An embargo would raise prices in the United States, sure. And it would decrease profits in the oil exporting countries as well. The money lost in the US and the embargoing countries would go to middlemen.
As for the United States maintaining unwanted military bases in Japan and Korea, please, for the love of Christ, think for a second. You honestly imagine that if Korea or Japan asked us to remove our forces, we’d declare war on them?
No, of course you can’t mean that. So what exactly DO you mean? That some people in Japan would prefer us to leave, but the government prefers us to stay? Well, duh. So how is that going to provoke World War Three again? When enough people in Japan care enough they can force the government to ask US troops to leave. And so?
Will there ever be another world war? Almost certainly - “ever” is a long time. Political issues that we aren’t even considering might be causing major wars in a hundred years. To put it in perspective, if you asked an informed person in 1907 what the most serious international political issue in the world was, it probably would have been how many battleships Germany was building. Nobody in 1907 would have predicted the issues we’re thinking about now. And nobody now can predict what issues they’ll be worrying about in 2107.
Little Nemo, you’re absolutely correct so for the sake of this debate I’ll rephrase the question “will there be another world war in the next 50 years?”