10-31-2019, 11:08 PM
(10-31-2019, 09:45 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote:(10-31-2019, 12:50 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: By the 1900s, almost all the timelines has coalesced into two major
ones, the World War I timeline and the World War II timeline, with
African timelines being the biggest exception.
But now, those two timelines are coalescing into the grandest war of
all, a war that really will encompass the entire world, and kill four
or five billion people.
Sorry John But Most of the developing world and the third world were unaffected by WW1 and WW2. Even if The first world coalesced in to hostile blocs and went to all out war, in that case it would be the first world nations bombing and nuking each other. Nobody is going to waste time bombing neutral third world nations. Sorry But a war that begins in eastern europe, Central Asia, or east asia would have its epicenter in the Eurasian "ring of fire" conflict zone. Your Notion that the "ring of fire" zone nations would be least devastated is logically untenable. WW1 and WW2 broke out In central and Eastern Europe for example; and Central and eastern Europe suffered by far the most devastation in the wars. You are underestimating "national" nationalism and overestimating "pan" nationalism. For example in any modern ww3 scenario if one bet whether for example Asia or South America would be more devastated in a global world war III, any thinking man would bet that Asia would suffer far more destruction than south america. A US, Russian or chinese nuclear forces would be given orders to nuke Russia and China (in the case of the US), nuke the US and Russia (in the case of China), or Nuke China and the US (in the case of Russia). No one is going to say "lets nuke Brazil and Argentina or Nigeria in africa" even in an all out nuclear war. Because those countries have not presented to existential threat to the countries with the nukes or had anything to do with what caused the war to begin. Not everyone is Kim.
Sorry, Cynic. There was war over the German colonial empire in Africa and the Pacific during WWI. In World War II -- practicaly the entire zone of war in the Pacific theater was in the Third World. Japan was Third World going into World War II. The Italian Empire, cosisting of what are now Ethiopia, Eritrea, and most of Somaliland as "Italian East Africa", Libya and the short-lived Italian possession of Tunisia were theaters of war -- important ones. The second battle of El Alamein was one of several turning points in the Second World War.
If I am to ascribe anything to the start of wars, then it is thug rulers and thug political systems -- societies in which the political leadership is little better than gangsters. Like Nicolas II of Russia they can be weak and ineffective leaders, but they stand for horrid social orders in which people have little value. The Iran-Iraq war exemplifies the principle that dictatorial leaders with opposing ideologies are particularly susceptible to war -- and with the gas warfare and human-wave attacks on front lines, the Iran-Iraq war proved very similar in such respects to World War I.
If I am to pick the political system most likely to find itself at war, then it is North Korea, whose impetuous leader is full of himself and can kill at will. Should Kim Jong-Un decide that he wants war with the USA, he will get it. Nobody in North Korea will stop him, and all that can will be a foreign army that obliterates his regime.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
