War... War never changes

World War. It will happen again. After we survived the cold war we thought we were safe from it. History had ended just in time for us to see the ending credits. If we could only just stop those pesky terrorists in Ireland and Israel and remember to send some extra money and medicine to africa, we would all life happily ever after. Not many people still believe this. The freedom fighters trained to bomb the enemy started to bomb everybody who they disagreed with. Although history apparently ended enough stuff keeps happened to fill the newspapers. Proving again that the only difference between a comedy and a tragedy is who dies at the end.

The funny thing is. We are quite safe from terrorists and their like. They have killed a few of us and will kill a few more just for the heck of it. Certainly not something you want to happen to you or anybody else for that matter. But it won't topple our nations, or even influence the balance of power globally. They'll continue for a given time and fizzle away with smoking ruins behind them but leaving the playing field intact. What we should be afraid of is something of a different magnitude; World war III.

Luckily, World Wars don't start out of the blue. They require a lot of factors to be right, or more precisely, to be wrong. As with any war there have to the participants. In this case they have to be Global or Regional powers with a lot of tension between them. Tension is at his peak when the existing power balance is threatened when global and regional powers lose influence and other regional power are gaining it. The power struggle creates a virtual powder keg.

There has to be a spark setting off that keg off. Smaller players who create or are used to create situations were two of more of the Powers have different stakes. Such as the assassination of the Archduke by Serbian sponsored agents set Austria-Hungary against Russia. or the Cubans requesting defensive help from the USSR which pitted them against the USA. Or the Invasion of poland by Germany and Russia which set France and England against Germany but not against Russia.

The Cold war here is notable because it had only two players and thus pitted the Nato and Warsaw-pact so directly against each other. It clarified and simplified the results of armed conflict so that there was little too gain and much too lose which actually helped prevent its escalation in general and in this case the cuban missile crisis.

The Cuban missile crisis also showcases the last things needed for escalation; Confusion to the outcome of the actions taken and vagueness about the involvement of other powers. through unclear treaties and commitments. So that a small conflict can snowball out of control and quickly attract more participants.

The Great War came actually quite unexpected. It's alliances system was not as constricting as now often portrayed and if anyone of the parties would have acted differently it could have stayed a between little war and a mayor one but would not likely have grown out to the size it had now. And while it was arguable hitlers intension to attack the rest of Europe anyway. But he had good hopes that Poland would be like Austria and Czechoslovakia and that the allies would not honor their commitments. and in a way he was right because the resulting "phony" war gave him the opportunity to attack on his own terms

So in order to to assess the chance of a New world war we must look those criteria. We see that right now they are not met. the global powers have all declined, Russia imploded, the countries of Europe are nowadays only mention worthy combined as the EU and almost wholly reactive in world politics and slowly but surely is the influence and economic power of the USA shrinking. However the countries growing in power and influence are still in no way able to upset the balance. The mayor players have on the whole clear and well defined treaties and commitments. And tension between the powers are on the whole quite positive.

However this state of affairs will almost certainly worsen over the next twenty years. The rise of china towards a regional power already puts a strain on almost all asian relations, who will only further deteriorate as long as china keeps increasing its power. Japan will be in danger of losing its place as the dominant regional power to both china and India. The USA will ever increasingly lose its grip on the region and it will be sorely stretched to honor its security guaranties. Most of the defense budgets are rising and/or high already. The region has a massive growth in countries with nuclear arsenal. The region is rive with potential conflict situations who seem chronic which can be expected to stay around for a long time. Like Taiwan, Kashmir and North Korea for example.

There are some positive aspects, right now the conflicts are reasonably limited to only a pair of countries Their are no loosely organized blocks of countries, so the effect of snowballing are not that high. There are better institutions for defusing potential tense situations. So while it is avoidable the chance and threat is still there. And we should be aware of that.