It’s time to admit this is WWIII
The North Koreans are fighting in Ukraine. Wagner group profits in Africa are used to financially support the Russian invasion. The ReArm Europe initiative has launched. Plus Iran sent ballistic missiles to Russia.
Nuclear proliferation and the rise of intellectual property over mineral and agricultural resources are big hits against the logic of empire. Unfortunately WWIII doesn’t operate on such logic. It’s driven by dictators presiding over countries like Russia and China where growth has faltered and why not “give war a chance”.
Once dictators become addicted to conquest “give war a chance” will propel them to roll the dice again and again. You cannot appease Russia by letting them take Ukraine anymore than you can stop a starving lion by throwing it a single steak.
A dictator striving for empire can only be stopped by a beatdown so epic, a slap so hard that the nation’s children and their children still feel it. This is why people will so casually say that if Ukraine falls then China will invade Taiwan — it’s the logic of WWIII.
So when Japan also starts ramping up defense spending and says:
The government’s 2024 iteration of its annual Defense of Japan white paper noted, “Japan is facing the most severe and complex security environment since the end of World War II.”
What they really mean is they are facing WWIII. Other proponents of calling this WWIII point to the Syrian revolution as just another part of the same global conflict.
Russia, North Korea, China, and Iran are the new Axis.
It is tempting to imagine that if the United States presses Ukraine to end the war and pursues a more pragmatic relationship with Russia, Moscow’s cooperation with members of this axis could lessen. Yet this is wishful thinking. The growing ties among China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia are driven by incentives far deeper than the transactional considerations created by the war in Ukraine. If anything, concessions made to Russia to end the war would only enhance the Kremlin’s ability to help its partners weaken the United States.
Of course reluctance to recognize world war is nothing new. Here’s President Herbert Hoover chatting with Adolf Hitler in Hitler’s home on March 8, 1938:
In Hoover’s defense Germany wouldn’t invade Austria till three days after the meeting on March 11, but Hitler strong arming the Austrian government had already started February 12th. Hitler’s rejection of the peace plan of Sir Nevile Henderson, British Ambassador to Germany, happened on March 3rd. The United States wouldn’t actively fight Germany until December 11, 1941.
The America First Committee (AFC) was an American isolationist pressure group against the United States’ entry into World War II. Launched in September 1940, it surpassed 800,000 members in 450 chapters at its peak.
Not surprisingly the AFC
was controversial for the anti-Semitic and pro-fascist views of some of its most prominent speakers, leaders, and members.
The problem with American and world war was never that we might lose but that we might not fight. Perhaps some argument can be made for isolationism if the American DoD 2025 budget were not $850 billion.
Spending that kind of money to stand and watch as an evil Axis threatens the world is just stupid. The quotes coming out of the Republican party in support of Putin are pure idiocracy.
While the Republican party being captured by fascists is new much of the history of WWII and WWIII rhyme very well. WWIII had fascists marching in Charlotte, NC and WWII had the the Silver Shirts founded in Asheville, NC. WWIII has America’s biggest car manufacturer owner (Musk) doing Nazi salutes and WWII had America’s biggest car manufacturer owner (Ford) being an early member of the America First Committee.
The Great Depression started in 1929 which was ten years before WWII. The major invasion of Ukraine was in 2022, but the first invasion was 2014 — let’s split the difference and say WWIII started in 2018. Ten years before that was the Great Recession of 2008.
The Great Depression had women entering the workforce in greater numbers to support their families. The Great Recession has women giving up on having families altogether. Either way both WWII and WWIII have surges in toxic men unhappy with women’s changing roles.
In WWII tanks rose rose to prominence as a crucial combat element; in WWIII it’s drones. In WWII nerve gas was off the table; in WWIII nuclear weapons are so far off the table.
It’s time to admit this is WWIII, because it’s time to ask ourselves how we got here again. WWII killed 3% of the world’s population and hopefully WWIII is a lot less deadly. However allowing world wars to continue to be fought on a regular basis with a backdrop of dictators, fascism, misogyny, and economic stagnation is insane and depressing even if this time the death count is lower.