12-25-2017, 10:38 PM
(12-24-2017, 11:01 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: The most obvious imminent threat is North Korea. Two days ago, China
and Russia both signed off on new extreme Security Council sanctions
that N Korea calls a "total blockade" and "an act of war." It's
becoming increasingly likely that a war with North Korea will begin
soon, quite possibly starting with a preemptive strike by the US, and
that China will tolerate it as long as US troops and S. Korean troops
don't remain in N. Korea, or come close to the Yalu river.
Analysts are hoping that any such situation will end in some kind of
peace treaty, but from the point of view of Generational Dynamics, I
would expect it to escalate in a much larger war in this generational
Crisis era.
And so, a world war could be triggered today by any of a number of
random events, even by a high school student who manages to
assassinate some world leader. Any event like that could spiral into
a regional war and then into a world war, as happened in 1914.
This makes a lot of sense. I still have trouble visualizing how a Korean intervention sparks WWIII, though. If North Korea nukes the US, Pyongyang gets turned to glass and Russia and China won't step in.
I suppose North Korea could respond to limited strikes by selling nukes to Al Qaeda, which then get used against the US. There's an outside chance they could nuke Beijing into submission, which would result in a China versus US alignment in a way.
If a world war gets triggered by a random event as with WWI, existing treaty arrangements would tend to put the US and Russia on opposite sides.
