Because war, and violence to eachother has been around since the beginning of time, and the present situation in the Middle East who, what, and when do you think the next war will be about? Also what would the reactions of other countries outside of the Middle East be to this situation. THIS SHOULD BE INTERESTING...
I don't know exactly, but it will be about something stupid. After all, all wars are about stupid things. Probably it will be because most people aren't able to share a piece of the world with someone else because it belongs to another race. So it would be about some stupid city. we are crazy.
The two main drivers always seem to be Intolerance for religion of others and oil, oil intrests which indirectly lead to money
Don't forget about water, wet1. It's already a pretty big contention in the Middle East, particularly between Syria and Israel (the Golan Heights).
Every war in the history of mankind has been about territory and has nearly always been between neighbors. This is a basic animal trait, where more territory allows the dominant group to spread their particular DNA seeds more widely. The usual justification given is that the imaginary supernatural friend of one group is better than the other’s imaginary supernatural friend, or variations on that theme. At least that’s how Yassar Arafat described the situation, and I definitely agree with him on that. As for when the next major war will occur: Never. The recent rapid spread of technology, the internet, globally available information and knowledge, and the new global economy means that any regime that starts overtly excessive aggression will be ostracized by the rest of the world and will suffer extensive economic disaster. The reason for the fall of the USSR was economic, for example. The increasing size, financial power, and political influence of the relatively new multi-national companies represent the most dominant factor that will prevent low-paid intellectually vacant politicians from committing national suicide. The only rogue component that remains difficult to predict is the fundamentalist religious fanatics that just might be able to obtain nuclear weapons. Their extreme irrationality just might cause some atrocious damage but is highly unlikely to cause a major war. Cris
That's a little to optimistic. maybe not a war with a grey helm beating a green helm, but something like a cold war will happen ever again. I lost my trust in humanity that we can live in peace, we have wars since the first cave-man came out, and we will always have wars. That's the price we have to pay for intelligence I think. The recent technoloy does make it a different wars. A lot of threats etcetera. And when a war finally comes, it will be over soon because of the weapons (though with disastrous outcomes). Let's say that the next major war will be a 'cold' war.
Cold wars are just as bad as hot ones... For some reason you think that the next war, should be a Cold War. BAD, BAD, BAD, IDEA! I'll get back to that in a minute but first I have to reply to the first slight problem I have. Nuclear war is still a very tempting proposition. The US and Russia, democratic or communist could end up killing each other. Recently Russia has lifted sanctions against Iraq for cheaper oil. In a far stretched scenario we got to war with Iraq again, and while doing that endanger cheap oil going exclusively to Russia. Russia gets involved to protect their ass, things escalate with trigger happy generals on the Russian side, trained to kill America during the Cold War, and kablewy. End game. A nuclear war on a smaller scale, between second-or third world countries will happen. They have in a way less to lose, and are generally stupider, and more anxious than the first world countries. In 30 years India, and Pakistan will go at it or India, and China, or a countless number of other countries. This will be horrifying to my generation which was born during the last few years of the Cold War, with no understanding of nuclear annihilation. About the Cold War thing. This is a horrible idea. A Cold War is just as bad for a country as a hot one. A Cold War uses subversion, fighting between third world countries as battle fields, Vietnam, Korea. If the Cold War would have lasted another thirty or fifty years, America would have destroyed itself. Personal freedoms could have vanished, making us a police state, and the military could have begun to exercise control over the civilian government. The Cold War destroyed Russia, more specifically the arms race, it could have happened to the States just as easily. This more importantly is why the individual can't remain number one, we most work with each other, fellow humans and nations to promote peace. If we don't things could get real ugly, real fast.
In cold war there is another expense that I have often spectulated about. It seems that every time Russia got into position with more tanks and superior numbers of weapons there would come out a new technological leap forward that helped equal the seesaw back to balance. A lot of money was poured into reasearch and development to achieve this. Weither the advances were already there awaiting the proper moment to revel, I can not say, (It would seem likely though) If I were Russia, I would fear waiting after a new leap ahead in numbers. I mean, if everytime you gained an advantage your enemy came up with a new nullifier almost in step with your advance, it would seem to be a real putoffer to wait. I think we literally outspent our rival into submission. The cold war effort was not just spy vs spy and diplomat vs diplomat. There were also material and money tied to it. At one time East Berlin was the showcase to hold up for the visitors to see how well things were done under communism. Fresh paint, modren buildings, side walks and fine roads. However, there were also bombed out churches remaining from WWII (when they were not renovated for govenment buildings) and the highways made a Y around them. The multistory apartment buildings had no steel to reinforce them and make them safe. Buildings in the outskirts had no paint and were dingy in the extreme. And this was the show place! You can imagine what it would look like away from the political centers and showplaces, Even today Russia has troubles with pollution control. Nothing was put into place with the industry to safe guard against such. It needs hard currency today. I don't know if it has changed lately, but at one time there were no coin vending machines because the metal for the coins was aluminum. And the exchange rate for foreign currency was outragious! Most of the metals went toward the supporting of war materials and cold war support to the point of bankruptcy.
No more MAJOR wars Kned, Curly, wet1, OK Guys. A little history lesson and some perspective. After WWII Stalin made his intentions known – communism’s stated objectives were to spread their ideology throughout the world through any means necessary. Their clear intentions were worldwide domination. US politicians were terrified of this threat and became paranoid about communist infiltrators in all aspects of American society; from this we had the phrase – reds under the beds. But the real threat was the USSRs massive military presence in Eastern Europe. These were overwhelming conventional weapons, tanks, artillery, and troops. The quantities easily outmatched anything the western alliance could muster. The US countered this threat by stating that if the USSR move their military power any further west then the US would retaliate in the only way possible; nuclear weapons. Yes that’s right, the USA intended to be the cause of the ‘first strike’ with nuclear weapons. Te USSR very rapidly developed nuclear weapons and then we entered the time of assured mutual extermination. Whoever fired their nukes first would be met with equal launches. The number of nukes ready for launch was enough to kill everyone on the planet 30 times over. This period was the heart of the cold war. When Reagan began his plan for a nuclear shield, a way to intercept incoming missiles, the soviets went nuts since this disturbed the delicate balance of power. This time it would have to have been the soviets who would make the first strike before the shield went up, otherwise they would be locked out and the US would then be free to take over the USSR – yes the soviets believed that was the plan of the US. No trust on either side. The USSR also knew that they couldn’t afford their own shield development – so they would have had no choice but to strike first. The USSR no longer exists (incidentally I was in Frankfurt Germany on the day of unification), and Russia is now a democracy. They are now effectively bankrupt and their economy is in ruins. They have nothing to gain by starting a war of any type, they simply can’t afford it (wars are incredibly expensive) and the morale of their armed forces is in tatters. Russia is no longer any threat to the USA. Communism crumbled because of basic human nature. Humans are essentially selfish, lazy and greedy. For humans to take any action there has to be an incentive. In a capitalist regime it is work or starve, or work harder and become wealthy. But communism relied on mutual cooperation with no promise of rewards for work done, and where the state apparatus would provide everything needed for survival. With no competitive incentive to improve personal quality of life the entire communist state became slow, sluggish and was simply left behind in the technology race. The increasingly aging industrial apparatus began to wear out and there was insufficient money to repair the breakdowns. This gradually escalated until the authorities recognized loss of control and effective bankruptcy. I disagree that there will be any major wars in the foreseeable future. No one stands to gain anything. Economic trade between all nations is now essential for the continued prosperity of every nation. A major war means economic chaos for nearly the whole world. All leading countries will go to any diplomatic length to prevent such a disaster. We face only three real dangers – 1) a nuclear accident, 2) terrorists gaining nuclear weapons, 3) a madman obtains control of a nuclear weapon, Sadham Hussein would possible qualify, but the backlash on him would be so overwhelming that he would not survive, and he knows that. But none of these represent a war status, well maybe Hussein but that is highly unlikely. I repeat there is no longer any advantage to be gained by any country on the planet to start a war. The global economy is so interlinked, that it represents a lifeline to every country. I reckon the probability of another major war in the future as being extremely low. There is always a reason for a war and usually a clear gain for the aggressor – the state of the world now is that there is nothing to be gained from warfare and a great deal to lose. Cris
cheese21 Animals never fight wars over territory. Never. The animals may fight wars over what is in the territory, but never the territory itself.
I hope you're right When I approach the subject about another global war taking place, I try to appraoch it from two mind sets. Optimistic, and pesimistic. My optimistic view, is that there won't be another global war, because if you fight another country you shoot yourself in the foot because of the world economy. All the facts represented in Cris' statment about how a future world war not talking place are very persuading. Now for my pesimistic view. Humans have been killing themselves since the beginning of time, though not always on a large scale we do kill. More people have died since 1945 in small civil wars, throughout Africa, Asia, and South America, than in WWII, though we seldom pay attention. Stupididy has a way of getting around in the world, this stupidity, mixed with the right conditions could lead to another world war. The First World War was called the "Great War" or the "War to end all Wars". Many intellictuals procalimed it would be the last major conflict in human history. Some 21
Sry I accidently posted it, let me finish my statement years later Germany invaded Poland and WWII started. The global economy is very meshed together, it would seem that you don't want to go to war with the country or countries that are giving you supplies. To protest the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia, the US cut off supplies to the Japanese, then they whacked us at Pearl. If they hadn't a peace agreement could have been worked out, and supplies could have flowed again. Just because there is an existing trade between countries doesn't mean that one won't attack each other. P.S. WWIII has been thought of as strictly a war using weapons of mass destruction. This is untrue, conventional arms could be used in a conflict between first world countries. You would try to win your objectives with small weapons and small casualties before blowing the opposing country apart.
