Saturday, March 5, 2016

Are We Blundering Towards A World War?

(L-R, front) U.S. President Barack Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. (Reuters / Alexei Druzhinin) / Reuters

Michael T. Klare, The Nation: Are the Major World Powers Blundering Toward War?

The US, Russia, China, and others are playing a dangerous game of military provocation. That’s exactly how World War I started a century ago.

Whether or not we have slid into a “new Cold War,” as claimed by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev at the Munich Security Conference on February 13, we certainly have entered a period of escalating provocations, with China, Russia, the United States, and other major powers testing one another’s resolve through a series of military feints. While usually contained below the level of armed combat, these actions—deployment of bombers or warships in or near a rival’s territory, construction of new military bases in menacing locations, aggressive military maneuvers, and so on—naturally invite countermeasures of an increasingly belligerent sort and so increase the risk of war.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: I see a lot of disagreements, worrisome military incidents, and conflicting long term goals .... but will all of this push us towards a war .... my answer is no .... the differences are not big enough or worthwhile enough to start a war .... even an accidental one.

6 comments:

Joseph A. Lambert said...

It comes down to the fact that countries/leaders who see there star as falling need a crisis to divert thinking, rejigger the economy and generally disrupt the bad news. Both China and Russia face question about social openness, personal freedoms and their lack of acceptance in the modern world.

Stephen Davenport said...

No, we are not.

fazman said...

World no regional yes

TWN said...

I think eventually I don't have much faith in Human Kind.

Bob Huntley said...

TWN except in its ability to destroy the world. Think about how people condemn the Catholic Church for its attack on scientific research during the middle ages. They claim, and rightly so, that the Church delayed development of wonderful things by 300 to 400 years. Now if they hadn't delayed development imagine what the world would look like today if nuclear weapons had been developed say 200 years ago. Most likely it would have been a dead planet for 100 years.

Young Communist said...

Today not, but next year may be different.

Various crisis continue to hit and stress the people of certain region, and even democratic country are stressed and eroded by their economy that push the new rise of extremist pseudo-fascist party.

The world great powers, with their mutual provocations, are in search of someone to blame for a major war.

@Bob Huntley: Obscurantism of Catholic Church has not only delayed science, but also modern politics.

As an atheist, my personal faith is in humanity and nature.