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Is WWIII Inevitable in this Century?
Recent History
In 1815 the Napoleonic Wars were over and Europe, along with much of the world, entered a 100 year period of peace, progress and prosperity. However, the many factors that coalesced into global war in 1914 are not widely understood, but 100 years later there is a coalescing of similar global warfare factors.
“We now know, of course, that such faith in progress and reason were sadly misplaced, that the Europeans of 1900 were heading towards a crisis in 1914 that they failed to manage, with dreadful consequences: two world wars and a host of smaller ones, the rise of totalitarian movements on both sides of the right and the left, savage conflicts between different nationalities, and atrocities on an unimaginable scale.” …Margaret MacMillan, The War That Ended Peace.
As connections between societies expanded throughout the world during the 19th century, “Faith in (human) progress and reason” provided naïve hope for unending peace and prosperity to the masses. By the 20th century, all hope was slashed away and the worst blood baths in human history immersed the world. By 1890, England’s balance of power over the world’s trade routes was being challenged by the new fleets of Germany, the USA, Russia and Japan. Colonial outposts along the West coast of the Pacific Ocean and North and Central Africa were under dispute and smoldering.
Conflicting ideologies were creating fears and anxieties between and within nations. New Alliances were spreading at a rapid pace. Diplomats were scurrying around the world as the “entitled” leaders of great nations became increasingly aggressive and ambitious. “Activists” spread seeds of discontent, mistrust and fear within families and throughout nations. It was as though the world was spoiling for a fight against everyone who had a different view of anything.
Today, a century later, the world is very, very similar.
Geopolitical Adversaries
The USA’s balance of power over the world’s shipping lanes is under dispute by China. China’s navy has been enlarged enough to assume control of adjacent waters well past the 200 mile internationally free shipping lanes where almost 50% of global cargo passes. Underwater reefs are being claimed and used to build runways far out into the seas beyond China’s borders.
Russia’s massive navy from the Cold War lies frozen in the Barents Sea, but its land and air forces have quickly re-clamed lands previously lost and the technology of their naval vessels surprised many people with dozens of cruise missiles launched from the Caspian Sea to targets in Syria and Iraq.
Russia’s “colonial” ambitions and China’s “territorial” ambitions are not hidden.
Islam Fragmentations and Alliances
Shia and Sunni conflicting religious ideologies have produced widespread war and battles across the Middle East and into Africa. Alliances across religious theologies is a volatile cocktail in global politics. 75% of Russians claim to the Orthodox Christian faith, but they have a military alliance with Syria’s governing Alawites who number only 12% of the population, whilst 70% are Arab Sunni Muslims. The Alawites have an alliance with the leaders of the Persian Shia Muslims in Iran. Arabs and Persians have been feuding for centuries.
Christian America and its allies have formed alliances with Saudi Arabia where conservative Wahhabism beliefs lead most Sunni Muslims. Ironically, this sect produced the radicals of 9/11 and the Taliban and now IS.
The core leadership of IS are Ba’athist officers of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq who have murky Sunni alliances and sympathizers throughout the Islam community (Ummu) and most recruits tend to be isolated individuals with little religious training, such as the young man who murdered the Canadian soldier in Ottawa. Their radicalized beliefs have alienated moderate Sunnis and Shia across the Middle East.
(for more details see Karen Armstrong’s Wahhabism to ISIS:
Trusting Human Progress
The Royal Families, Aristocrats and Autocrats of the 19th century were effective in isolating most of the wars of their time through diplomacy. However, the Democracies of the 21st century are never as stable as the authoritarian nations and empires of 200 years ago. Democracies are vulnerable on a daily basis to our mass media’s formation of our beliefs, opinions, attitudes and feelings. Change is happening so fast, and new knowledge is drowning our capacity for analysis and understanding, that we are carried along on a false sense of security for our future. The mass blinding of “faith in progress and reason” of the 1800’s has most certainly been replaced by the mass blinding of “faith in technology and communications” in this century.
Until humanity recognizes that our hope for a better life is what encourages us to have confidence in proactively living out our lives. People with hope will either defend themselves or retreat to another place. Those without hope will surrender and become slaves to their masters. Faith in our beliefs determines which of the three choices we will make. But faith alone does not avoid conflict or war. This is only achieved by our reasoning and understanding (or lack of understanding) of our apparent adversaries and vice versa.
Leaders of humanity are involved in a life or death struggle over the world’s sharing of its resources and its souls. WWIII might not be a final human Apocalypse, but the journey and final outcome are not worth any price. If the world can’t quickly stabilize the Middle East, or any other conflicts, we have the capacity to isolate the combatants. Isolation is costly, but the currency is need not be rivers of human blood.
War is not an option for humanity in this century. The days of heroic fighters is long gone. The sending of a cruise missile into a target is not an heroic act. The shooting of a bullet over a mile away is not an heroic act. The murderous methods of modern warfare are not heroic acts. Technological mass destruction is not an heroic act. Heroism may occur in battles, but it doesn’t win wars. Wars no longer have winners, only losers on both sides.
Everyone understands this monologue as most of us have thought this through to similar conclusions.
But our present reality is not much different from 100 years ago. Our new century is still plagued by: Oppressive Government Leaders, Corrupt Officials, Trillionaire Gangsters, Aristocratic Families and Desperate People. Morality and ethics are intellectual fantasies deployed to mask their ambitions and quest for dominance. We still haven’t reached a state of nobility for humanity. “Slaughter or be slaughtered” is still the human condition in too many parts of this world.
It is this reality that seems to feed those who promote anarchy. Their mantra is “Just kill the leaders. Society can manage itself.” Such imbecilic reasoning is at the core of all gangsterism. Societies were anarchy prevails (often after the ceasefire) merely reinvent themselves under the strongest demagogues.
Even our Democracies are constantly under threat by autocrats. Elections may allow us to choose our leadership, but once in power, the dictates of the few people in the party elite tend to be the order of the day. The masses are not consulted by the party in power. In fact, many democracies are merely just three or four weak opposition parties away from one-party communism.
Human progress is measured by our progress towards learning how to live in harmony with each other. This noble quest remains beyond our reach. The nature of humanity is still so barbaric that wars are inevitable in this century. The question remains: “How large will they grow?”
Conflicts of this Century
For people in the West, China has never been a warlike nation. Their wars have been more about geographic ethnicity and mass control rather than world dominion. Their recent massive wealth accumulation has enabled China to project their mix of powers in areas of commerce and politics and technology almost over-night in an historical context of only one generation.
The fact that most of this wealth was produced within slavish run enterprises is indicative of humanity’s most successful process for elitist wealth accumulation. Britain’s empire was built on the same principles of constraint over workers. America’s had most of these same attributes. Wealth and power are not bedfellows of morality and ethics.
The big question, and fear, of the West is their autocratic form of government whereby family elites rule all aspects of their huge society. These few people have the power to influence and direct their masses in ways that many democratic politicians might even envy.
Alongside this fear of totalitarianism and its internal corruption is the fact that aside from the democratic states and their alliances being the victors after WWI and WWII, the largest empires in history were created by totalitarian regimes, not democracies.
Our confidence in avoiding being conquered by an alliance of totalitarian states is fragile. Weapons of mass destruction can be delivered anywhere in the world nowadays regardless of the power of the democracies. The best strategy we can live with is to “live and let live”. As long as totalitarian regimes will agree, we should never need to decimate each other’s peoples. Sharing the patrolling of sea lanes should be a mutually advantageous policy.
It is most unlikely that democratic forms of government will replace existing autocracies in this century. Thus, in the near term of 100 years, a “live and let live” policy is clearly the best option for all peoples. Wherever, and as soon as possible, territorial disputes must be clearly identified and isolated from military actions by UN decree.
The End or End of the Beginning in the Middle East
The Arab- Persian- Jewish wars have continued throughout known history. Yet each one’s cultural progress has endured all these genocides and murderous centuries. The tensions between these societies has never let up and thus there has never been time for grieving their pasts and forgiving their enemies. “Live and let live” has rarely been an option on the negotiating tables.
Israel’s conflicts with all its neighbours may be anchored within different beliefs about Jehovah’s and Allah’s visions for human life and death, but in their separate human lives Jews and Muslims have actually done much for each other. Both have benefitted by their shared heritage, knowledge, traditions and even mutual scriptures. In many areas throughout the Middle East and around the world, Jews and Muslims share over-lapping communities and do business with each other and even inter-marry. War is not a universal condition or necessity between these two cultures.
Nevertheless, just like every other nation, there is both a religious and human foundation for the nation of Israel to defend their land to the end.
In a world where knowledge is freely available, it is sheer ignorance and naive to not try to understand the desire for co-existence between the thousands of cultures around the world. Co-existence is valued by all living creatures, but conflict arises when one relatively homogeneous group encroaches or displaces another as the dominant group. Even animals move rather than risk their lives holding onto a piece of game or their territory. But humans find it very difficult to move away from such conflicts, especially those with tribal heritages. Also, now that almost every square foot of land on the planet is owned by someone or something, moving is not always an option. Defending one’s land is an extremely powerful and over-ridding motivation for all of humanity.
Every nation harbors a large percentage of cultural racist values against other cultures within and external to their lands. This is an exclusiveness value that contradicts inclusive co-existence within human cultures. Multi-cultural nations strive to suppress racism, but humanity could take another 2 or 3 hundred years to accept that we are all different but equal and can be friends with each other. Many Israelis may already feel this way, but with constant warfare raining down, the desire to make friends with obdurate enemies is naturally a luxury they cannot afford.
This principle of defending one’s land is respected by all of humanity. Thus, in modern history, for a nation to feel that they have a right to annihilate Israel, is a crime against humanity. This is why Israel has many allies. The fact that upon leaving Egypt, Hebrew scripture states that Jehovah ordered them to annihilate all the inhabitants of Israel roughly 3,000 years ago, is no justification for a contemporary human to order the same against the Israelis. Even though genocide is considered a crime against humanity, ignorant and inhumane people still hold such obsolete values and beliefs amongst Israel’s neighbours. This may be shocking to a western mindset, but it is not an uncommon despicable evil mindset in too many parts of the world.
Israel and the USA had a falling out in 2015 over limiting Iran’s nuclear development programmes principally because the Ayatollah and his former Prime Minister publically declared their goal of eradicating Israel and all Israelis. One must wonder why such propaganda that creates this evil mindset amongst their people isn’t a war crime. It is also of considerable concern that the USA did not insist that the Ayatollah disavow their former statements and assert that such statements would be considered a war crime in future.
Instead, the IS and other government and religious officials in Muslim states freely use such propaganda statements to arouse hatred for Israel within their nations. Such threats increase the radicalization of their peoples and thus serve to focus the angst of their poorest citizens externally and away from their autocratic regimes. Israel is not innocent in killing or maiming non-combatants either as their leaders encourage their own share of mad men and women in the region. Hatred and insanity are the bedfellows of all war torn states.
Just as the Sunni Taliban sect pursues a global Caliphate ideal that could only exist in a pure format isolated from western democracy and values, the Sunni Islamic State sect is also pursuing this ideal society which is clearly stated in their scriptures. The Shia version of an Islamic global society pursued by the Ayatollahs is couched more in ethnic purity than conflicting religious doctrines. This 1100 year conflict had been fought through tribal and princely rivalries that were naively redrawn into national interests following WWI. The territorial ambitions of IS are primarily between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers with a secure land link to the Mediterranean and/or Black seas. Their leaders are descendants of these tribal princes and wealthy families who were forced into national boundaries governed by their local enemies.
The West need only mention their scriptural mandate and IS recruiting propaganda for an Islamic world government to justify involvement in stopping the formation of a new country in the Middle East. But the ability of such a country to actually launch a global caliphate is presumptuous in the extreme. Thus, a cessation of fighting should be feasible with the drawing of borders to accommodate the structure of the underground oil reserves the new state would have access to. Only an utter fool extremist would pursue a global caliphate from this narrow range of territory where its peoples could easily be wiped out by a weapon of mass destruction.
Just to clarify how such global conquest mindsets create havoc, it is important to recognize that Saddam Hussein’s insiders led the turbulence in Iraq and now lead Islamic State. The USA was reluctant to punish the Syrian president for using chemical weapons because such a direct interference in their Shia vs. Sunni war would quite likely unify more combatants against the USA.
Even the screams and tears of the innocent victims have become merely subliminal echoes in the minds of hardened warriors. Once a human kills another, the rationale and justification establishes this capacity in their persona. Giving the order, or pushing a button, changes ones identity as well. But being there profoundly impacts one’s self-realization much more than merely being the remote commander. Taking one life or a million will always prick human conscience, but it is unlikely we will ever stop doing it.
At some point, the killing in the Middle East will run its course. The danger we face is not the establishment of another rogue state, but the escalation into other countries and the potential for a standoff between Russia and the USA.
Existing Strategies
In October of 2015, the USA is intending to add ground troops to hem in IS and hopefully return lands to their former Kurdish governors. Russia is using a similar strategy to help recover Shia territory and secure their foothold onto the Mediterranean Sea. US troops will have to watch their backs as Shia “friendly fire” incidents could escalate. The Russians face the same risks from Moderate Sunni militias also opposing IS. Meanwhile the Egyptian and Saudi forces are somewhat distracted in Yemen, so their somewhat reluctant animosity towards IS is being fought by proxy by its ally the USA and its allies. IS has allies also in the Gulf States, Africa and overseas. They are now well funded to equip themselves for a drawn out war.
Canada’s new Prime Minister may have other reasons, but his desire to stand down from the present conflict is a prudent strategy. The USA knows we are its ally and that our contributions are more tactical than strategic.
But if we are to recover our role as “peacekeepers”, we must withdraw from combat and begin the calls for ceasefires. Canada can alleviate the USA’s and its ally’s dependence upon Middle East oil. We can temper their need to maintain their level of influence in the region. The dominant role of Middle East oil is over. The deadly game of Cowboys, Arabs and Persians must stop.
America may think they have the military power to overcome the IS, which is true, but their estimate of the time and resources needed is most likely much greater than they should afford. At this moment in the battles, a brokered peace is the most desirable result for all participants. A “winner take all” attitude would be foolish in the extreme.
Overall, we are seeing the old pattern of alliances drawing more and more parties into a limited conflict. We are seeing major non-aligned powers overlapping their military forces. The potential for military bravado to escalate and redirect military combat is very real.
If there will be a time for the democratic alliances to restrict this conflagration it is now. Strategically, the West will benefit most by standing down and then brokering a peace between the Sunni and Shia interests. The world has succeeded in restricting the expansion of rogue states like North Korea. It can do likewise with another Islamic state in the Middle East.
The present conflicts with IS should be managed by the protagonists, not their Christian and Secular allies. These local neighbours must cease these disputes between their rich elites and influential religious leaders by demonstrating compassion for their peoples.
These cowardly proxy battles merely feed the flames of hatred and misery. The hedonistic machoism of these leaders and their inner courts is a blasphemy against their religious beliefs and values. Any pretense to nobility is a sham and cancer in their cultures. Rampant corruption and privilege is a sign of their iron grip on the excesses of their heritage. The world is finally coming together and such ancient tribal traditions of power and control need to be loosened. Otherwise the heritage of the glory of Islam will be known as a pariah of humanity.
Now is the time for all Muslims to focus their prayers on grief, forgiveness and peace throughout their brotherhoods. Hatred must be overcome by Love.
Allah Akbar, God Bless.
Jim Reid
Founder: Canadian Federalist Party