Will there ever be another World War?

[Frankster]

Growing population on a planet with less and less ressources, which we are fucking up cos we are too short sighted to see that in 100 years time, every ecological shortcut we took is going to bite us in the ass 10 fold.

Yeh i can totally see a ww3 happening allright, i just don't know how it would be fought due to to many countries having nukes...Or maybe thats how humanity ends, with some asshole leader deciding that if their country is going to be defeated/fucked over then s/he will take the entire human race with them.

Ever notice that in SciFi Earth is almost always under a single government? I think that eventually that will happen.

I think the last best chance of such a scenario happening died with Napoleon.

Could you imagine the average american (well could be any country really, but usa is the most patriotic gun wielding easy example i can think of+still currently the world superpower who teaches its citizens the manifest destiny doctrine from school age) accepting a goverment that rules over them that isnt american based?

Now nationalism is just too entrenched imo for a single world government to happen.

 

[thiosk]

I am highly suspicious of those of the cloth. I fear religious fervor more than any ideology.

 

[Thaluikhain]

1) The world powers have to be divided into two neatly divided camps

This was something that existed for the entirety of the Cold War. But since the fall of the Soviet Union there really aren't neat and even divisions between the world powers. Everyone has started to be either in it for themselves or in it for the "global community" and that isn't the kind of environment that sparks a "World War".

Not sure about that. WW2 ended up like that, yeah, but took a while to get to that point. Out of interest, would you say it'd count as a world war if the USSR, US and Japan had stayed out of it?

3) A major world power has to think they CAN WIN

When the World Wars started, both of them began on the idea that someone could effectively fight all of the other powers in the world and WIN. You look at Germany's progress in WW2 and you can see pretty clearly that they had a fair reason to think they could.

I'm not sure there. Germany flat out could not win against the UK and USSR. Japan could not win against the US. However, people in power would not accept this, they'd promised victory to their leaders. The Emperor had been promised victory, so victory had to be achievable. Likewise, to an extent, with Hitler.

For anyone who thinks differently about the balance of power right now, I leave you with this: I've been told by a couple people in the military (on both sides) that in the 90s we actually managed to lose a couple of war games against Canada - CANADA of all places. Think about that the next time you picture someone trying to rule the world.

A war game that pits the nation of Canada against the US, or a war game that pits a Canadian force against a US one?

Canadian is a small nation, with a small military and no nuclear capability of its own, but that doesn't mean it's forces are worse than comparable US forces. Notably, they use a lot of the exact same equipment.

I remember reading somewhere that humans are no less likely to start a war than we ever have been, but we no longer have large enough militaries to go to full scale war and lack the reserves in troops and equipment to support a war after it has started. North Korea, one of the most militarised places on the planet can wage total war for 100 days before running out of fuel and ammuniton. 100 DAYS!

At the beginning of WW2, many powers weren't ready. Chamberlain got a lot of flak for not declaring war on Germany sooner, but they weren't ready in 1938. He then quietly built up Britain's military but still wasn't ready in 1939. British troops used the Sten not because it was a great weapon, but because you could cheaply make one in a garage in a few hours. (As an aside, it'd be interesting if the UK ever needed to massively increase the size of it's military in a hurry, you can't make a L85A2 in a hurry, though I'd expect they keep a lot of older stuff in storage, I've heard that they've still got Lee-Enfield rifles sitting around)

The US after Pearl Harbour likewise. A lot of troops were issued with revolvers instead of 1911s because they couldn't build 1911s fast enough.

 

[Strazdas]

That's not the way information works these days. Scientists don't write single formulas that can't be recreated on single pieces of paper. We have these things called computers. Not only are they routinely backed up, but when you "steal" information from one, it doesn't automatically destroy the original. This is why, you know, music piracy happens.

For an "Information War" to be credibly called anything remotely comparable to a World War, we'd need to see direct casualties clearly caused by information warfare. Things like nuclear powerplant control systems being sent into meltdown mode, or more likely shutting down water or power grids during the height of summer/winter.

i never implied thats how information works, merely assuemd you knew that hackers and viruses can do more than just copy information. Lets say a government designed virus infects a computer of one of the scientists. it quickly spread to other scientsits computers and backup drives during backup process, while remaining dorment, and keeping score of how many copies it has created. then it gets a signal to act, waits till it can relay all this signal to all of its own copies (backup drives are supposed to stay offline when not bkacuping), and then all drives get to delete all the info at once.
bam, no backups.
the virus would be complex, but such is informational warfare.

 

[IBlackKiteI]

Snip

Overpopulation is a very great concern and I reckon it's something we should be more concerned about than a hypothetical World War 3, though the idea that 9 tenths of the human race should be exterminated in a global conflict for the apparent betterment of humanity is one of the most crazy things I've read in a long time. Aside from the idea of wiping out the majority of the human race (which would probably also include the majority of our best thinkers and workers whose talents would be needed to stabilize the world after such a catastrophe) a conflict that disastrous, that can actually result in that number of fatalities will irreversibly scar the entire planet, even if WMD's aren't used, and it would drag on for a very, very long time. We aren't gonna be building some great space exploring utopia if there's practically no materials left to build it with, not enough people to do it, no places where people can be educated on how to do it, not enough habitable areas and food sources left for reasonably sized populations to exist anymore and create it, etc. If you'd envision the world after something like that it'd be like a dead, grim stone age with the odd peace of modern technology no one can really do anything with lying around.
Yeah, we need to do something about overpopulation before it gets too severe, but it's not that great a concern that a war with the express purpose of wiping out most of humanity would make any kind of sense whatsoever. And those kind of space endeavors should only be undertaken if the profit is most definitely worth the insane investments that kind of thing would require.

Wars happen. Conflict, whether its among one individual and another or groups of some kind is a part of human nature and occurs for a ton of reasons. But the state of world now, the fact that as many have already said, warring with someone nowadays will hurt your country more than benefiting it in just about every possible outcome, means that a World War just won't happen, at least not as long as the current state of the world exists. Between world powers things like ideological or theological concerns just don't exist as a reason for great conflicts anymore (and even then these kinds of things rarely were an actual reason for wars, more of a motivator or justification) and many of these kind of ideas still left are dying with the older generations and being replaced by those of the younger ones who are overall much less concerned with whatever archaic, unreasonable ideals or prejudices their forebears may have had a long time ago. In short, nobody wants to go on a holy or nationalist crusade anymore. I'm not trying to say that newer generations are inherently smarter or better or anything, but on the whole people question more than they used to. They won't support a lot of hardship for little gain, and you can forgot ridiculous claims that WW3 will be started by some single tyrannical dictator with some kind of evil, genocidal agenda because noone will allow that kind of person to become a world leader in the first place, and even if they did noone would want to follow them.
Of course, all this applies to how things are now. Only last century Hitler, a dictator with an evil, genocidal agenda, came to power and effectively created the most destructive conflict of all time, but a number of things were going on and a number of factors existed which allowed him to become powerful enough to create it, things and factors which thankfully don't exist right now...

 

[Kj Boyce]

There wont be another major global war unless someone develops a defense for nuclear weapons. The reason that we've only seen cold war and proxy wars and regional level conflict since VJ day is mutually assured destruction.

 

[Old Father Eternity]

no. there is literally nothing to gain. war is about getting stuff. always.

Materialism is not the only driving force behind conflict.

its always about getting stuff, while stuff is not closely defined it is the truth that noone ever went to war for shits and giggles.

nowadays you can get just about anything with means that do not run the risk of mowing down your country in the same process.

While not on the scale of WW, conflicts have erupted over insults, hate toward specific groups of people. There are bound to be other reasons but I am not a war historian. You see, you fail to take into account the entirety of what makes humans the way they are.

 

[Thaluikhain]

In short, nobody wants to go on a holy or nationalist crusade anymore. I'm not trying to say that newer generations are inherently smarter or better or anything, but on the whole people question more than they used to. They won't support a lot of hardship for little gain, and you can forgot ridiculous claims that WW3 will be started by some single tyrannical dictator with some kind of evil, genocidal agenda because noone will allow that kind of person to become a world leader in the first place, and even if they did noone would want to follow them.
Of course, all this applies to how things are now. Only last century Hitler, a dictator with an evil, genocidal agenda, came to power and effectively created the most destructive conflict of all time, but a number of things were going on and a number of factors existed which allowed him to become powerful enough to create it, things and factors which thankfully don't exist right now...

Yes and no. I don't think people are less likely to accept a dictator, or rather, that the conditions which lead to one couldn't happen.

But like you say, all sorts of things had to go on to allow Hitler to come to power, and they were mostly independent of what put Mussolini in power, and totally independent of the Japanese political situation.

If Japan hadn't been wanting to build itself an empire, or if it had decided just to opportunistically attack Germany like it did in WW1, things would have been very different.

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

If several things happened politically, it could happen. Probably the greatest upcoming threat to international peace would be if Iran decides to pursue nuclear weapons development, because it can be guaranteed that Israel will bomb them; whether or not that could escalate into a greater conflict I don't know. Otherwise the political landscape doesn't really lend itself to a global conflict anymore; none of the major industrialised nations has a political regime whose desire is expansion by conquest.

 

[Strazdas]

That's not the way information works these days. Scientists don't write single formulas that can't be recreated on single pieces of paper. We have these things called computers. Not only are they routinely backed up, but when you "steal" information from one, it doesn't automatically destroy the original. This is why, you know, music piracy happens.

For an "Information War" to be credibly called anything remotely comparable to a World War, we'd need to see direct casualties clearly caused by information warfare. Things like nuclear powerplant control systems being sent into meltdown mode, or more likely shutting down water or power grids during the height of summer/winter.

i never implied thats how information works, merely assuemd you knew that hackers and viruses can do more than just copy information. Lets say a government designed virus infects a computer of one of the scientists. it quickly spread to other scientsits computers and backup drives during backup process, while remaining dorment, and keeping score of how many copies it has created. then it gets a signal to act, waits till it can relay all this signal to all of its own copies (backup drives are supposed to stay offline when not bkacuping), and then all drives get to delete all the info at once.
bam, no backups.
the virus would be complex, but such is informational warfare.

And do you have evidence that such a virus exists? Because initially you asserted quite confidently that WWIII is already being fought through information, and suddenly you're now talking very theoretically about what could be possible.

if i had evidence, quite a few governments would be after me by now.
That being said had you forgotten the Iran created virus that devastated middle east this year?

 

[Strazdas]

if i had evidence, quite a few governments would be after me by now.

So how exactly is this different from you just making stuff up and claiming it to be fact?

That being said had you forgotten the Iran created virus that devastated middle east this year?

Which virus exactly was that? I was unaware that the middle east was "devastated" by anything this year, let alone by a virus.

From the very begining i said this was an example of what could happen in information war, and not a fact. So you arguing i claim it to be a fact is moot.
Stuxnet and Flame are two names that spring to my mind for viruses lately.

 

[O maestre]

I highly doubt it, unless it is a resource war far in the future were unclaimed resources are in play.

The first world war was caused by squabbling between empires, the only reason it became a world war was because of the belligerents colonial ties.

The second world war was a battle of ideology.

Both those things are dead, there are no great causes to go to war for any more, besides Jihad wich hasn't been poipular enough to entice large scale wars between nations.

Individuals are much more independent from their countries and are capable of finding information with ease, all these things along with the increased cynicism make world war seem very very unlikely. As we get more an more globalization even the concept of nations might begin to disappear, and then who knows what a world war would look like, let alone how it will be defined as such.

I had a discussion with someone in the R&P subforum where that person full heartedly claimed that cold war proxy was still global practice. The diplomatic development in Syria is the most recent evidence that it isn't. Trade and economy is now at the forefront of most conflicts. I am straying from the OT, but personally I don't think a world war will happen until new resources are found or a new energy system harnessing system is introduced to the general market, but not in our life time.

 

[Rblade]

I think all of the world powers are way to dependend on eachothers trade and recources to start an all out "world war" and nobody is stupid enough to think they can control a nation they conquered by military conquest. Sure there may be battles here and there and there will be digital tugging but anything that will actually destroy any of the world economic powerhouses is also disasterous for the others.

 

[Davey Woo]

I don't think there will ever be a full-scale war like the first two. As others have said 'warfare' is all information based these days, and with things like the UN there is far too much communication and diplomacy for any huge world conflict to start.

 

[NSGrendel]

Wars are fought over resources.

Water, food and fuel are going to become extremely stretched over the next 50 years.

Then you have the dual truisms that rich people don't fight in wars and the world has a much larger population than can be currently sustained at the standard of living the rich currently enjoy.

You do the math.

This all assumes of course that there isn't some form of paradigm shift or failure cascade that destabilises things even quicker, like large scale crop failures.

 

[darkorion69]

There will likely never be a WW3 in a model resembling WWI and WWII. The reasons are many and varied; but the most obvious one that comes to mind is that war must be perceived as more profitable than peace for conflict to become a viable option. Contained conflicts (such as in Syria) are the most warfare that the international community will tolerate economically without direct military intervention by a coalition of nations protecting their economic interests while waving flags of freedom from oppressive warlike nations.

Oppressive warlike nations (like North Korea) have discovered that saber rattling is far less expensive and nearly as effective as open warfare in getting what they want from the international community. Governments are also slowly losing their control over the ideology of their people as well, and that makes it harder to convince or coerce their citizens to go to war on purely ideological grounds. So economic grounds are slowly becoming the rallying call to warfare around the world.

The threat of future war lies in corporate worldwide armed conflict over scarce resources such as food, water, and power waged by private military corporations (sic mercenaries) on behalf of international corporate interests. However, a war backed by corporate interests will not be a sprawling worldwide affair (like a World War) that might damage or destroy valuable resources. Such conflicts will be an echo of today's governments contained conflicts each ending eventually in a diplomatic and economic accord restoring order to the global economy.

We as a species are done with large scale World Wars after seeing the devastating still lingering effects of WWI and WW2. It simply does not pay out well enough to tear the world apart. Not enough people care about ideological differences on a mass scale to warrant such a large scale conflict. The history books often gloss over the fact that nearly every war in history is economically motivated.

 

[DarthAcerbus]

Either Israel will have to be drastically weakened or the Arab world will have to be drastically strengthened. The Arabs will attack Israel full force, the US will step in to defend Israel (likely with European and British allies), and Russia will likely stand with the Arabs to prevent "American oppression." China or North Korea (likely both) will take advantage of this situation to go nuts in Asia, likely dragging India and Japan into it. The lines won't be as clear-cut as in the previous World Wars, and regardless of what everyone says, nukes likely will not be used. They exist more as a threat than an actual weapon (although if North Korea does actually get its hands on a working one, who knows).

South America will continue being South America, although if the fight comes to the Western Hemisphere (which it may), they may be pulled in on the side of the Americans. Africa (excluding Egypt and maybe Ethiopia) continues to be terrible.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Either Israel will have to be drastically weakened or the Arab world will have to be drastically strengthened. The Arabs will attack Israel full force, the US will step in to defend Israel (likely with European and British allies), and Russia will likely stand with the Arabs to prevent "American oppression." China or North Korea (likely both) will take advantage of this situation to go nuts in Asia, likely dragging India and Japan into it. The lines won't be as clear-cut as in the previous World Wars, and regardless of what everyone says, nukes likely will not be used. They exist more as a threat than an actual weapon (although if North Korea does actually get its hands on a working one, who knows).

I agree that nuclear weapons won't likely be used, but only because nobody will take actions that might cause them to be. Nuclear armed nations don't dare antagonise each other too much. In a full scale war, they'd be used, and nobody wants that, so wars don't get to the point where they might get that bad.

For example, Russia won't get into a direct conflict with the US or a close ally, and vice versa.

North Korea can't do much of anything. Their military would be quite good at taking South Korea down with them, but not for winning anything in particular.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

At the moment islamic terrorists are causing problems and i think they will be the catalyst. There is a lot of middle east countries in chaos at the moment and it will take one thing to set it off. One would be if Israel attacked a muslim country.

I doubt we will be fighting WW3 on the same scale as WW1 and WW2. But terrorism would go through the roof.

 

[tehroc]

No. Corporations rule the world these days. WW3 would ruin a lot of these corporations. The best we could get is Corporate Wars once governments collapse and only the megacorps still survive.