World War 3 is Coming...

Well here's an ominous headline to start your Monday morning with.

World war 3 is coming...

The prospect of a global conflict – World War III if you like – appears somewhat unthinkable. Since the Second World War, there has been no major war between the great powers. The original post-war European project was based around peace, social justice and harmony. The unravelling of this project, accompanied by rising nationalism, is likely to exacerbate the dangers of war on a continent with a fraught history of bloody conflict.

In the 20th century, both world wars were unanticipated. Christopher Clark’s much acclaimed The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 – published in timely fashion for the centenary of First World War – charted Europe’s unexpected descent into war. First World War had been preceded by a prelude of serenity – the long 19th century of relative peace and stability. The great powers of Edwardian Europe had been engaged in diplomacy and trade prior to the onslaught of carnage.

During the 1930s, the major powers were keen to avert another war hence the policy of appeasement, the initial reluctance of the US to become involved and the Nazi-Soviet pact. Neville Chamberlain’s ill-fated announcement of “peace for our time” should be viewed in this context. Throughout the Cold War, the concept of a third world war was inextricably associated with nuclear war and the MAD doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction.

Yet it is possible that future conflict between the great powers may take the form of another cold war or even a conventional (as opposed to thermonuclear) hot war. In the 21st century, there are three key fronts emerging as the loci for future wars. The first is the Europe-Russia front with a new cold war triggered by the Ukrainian conflict. The second is the Middle East cauldron centred around Isis and the Syrian war. The third is the Asia-Pacific front with a face-off between the United States and China.

Time magazine – the original Cold War mouthpiece of the American establishment – trumpeted the start of Cold War II in 2014. Western powers have characterised Vladimir Putin’s incursions into Georgia in 2008 and lately Ukraine as aggressive expansionism. Evidently the irony of the US casting aspersions around violation of national sovereignty, in light of the folly of the Iraq war, seems to have been lost. The realist perspective – as articulated by John Mearsheimer in the pages of US foreign policy bible Foreign Affairs – is that the Ukrainian crisis was preceded by two decades of NATO expansionism up to the borders of Russia. This was in contravention of promises made to respect these boundaries at the end of the Cold War.

The Trump transition is likely to exacerbate US-China tensions. Trump has threatened a trade war with China. While his chief strategist Steve Bannon stated in March of last year that, “We’re going to war in the South China Sea in five to 10 years…. There’s no doubt about that.” If there is a coherent philosophy of Trumpism then it is represented by the ideology of Bannon. Bannon subscribes to the Huntingtonian idea of a coming clash of civilisations between west and east with the Orient bracketing both China and Islam.

Bannon views China and Islam as expansionist threats. He has also stated that the Judaeo-Christian west is, “at the beginning stages of a global war against Islamic fascism” and that, “We’re clearly going into, I think, a major shooting war in the Middle East again.” China will eventually overtake the US in economic terms but US supreme military dominance is unchallenged. This is a dangerous discrepancy as it means that the US will use this military power to guarantee its economic prerogative – particularly as a massive national security apparatus now seems to dictate US foreign policy. As Obama has put it, the US is exceptional because it acts.

This would be in keeping with the default operational mode of capitalism. One might even argue that capitalism often resolves systemic economic crises through war. After all, a war economy with militarisation, mobilisation, full employment and jingoism can be viewed as the ultimate solution to economic woes and social unrest. The transition of Western democracy to oligarchy and the descent into soft fascism is under way. Citizens will need to participate actively, rather than as passive consumers, to demand an end to this cycle of violence from governments and to defend the assault on democratic processes. We can only hope that British foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey’s refrain on the commencement of First World War – “The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time” – will not be repeated in ours. But the omens are not good. As the late Eric Hobsbawm put it, the old century has not ended well.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/world-war-3-is-coming-a7622296.html

OUch!  There are some pretty serious statements in this article...like this one from one of Trump's advisers;  “We’re going to war in the South China Sea in five to 10 years…. There’s no doubt about that.”

For anyone who thinks that mankind has figured out a way to "just get along", you better think again.

Planet earth just isn't set up for that.

When the "whole world is under the control of the evil one" (1 John 5) you can know for sure that wars, famines, rape, hatred, murder. child abuse, drug abuse and all sorts of other heinous problems will be the standard until the Lord returns to set it all straight and usher in his Millennial Kingdom on earth.  

"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."