Israel Defense Forces
Mohammed Ayoob, RCD/The Strategist: When Will the Next War Erupt in the Middle East?
The signs are ominous—especially in Israel and its neighbours, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. Violence, both actual and rhetorical, has been escalating on all three fronts. Gaza could become the immediate flash point as the Palestinians’ ‘March of Return’, which began on 30 March, intensifies and Israeli retaliation becomes increasingly lethal.
On 28 September, 20,000 Palestinians marched to the Gaza–Israel border and seven of them were killed by Israeli bullets. Such confrontations are now becoming an almost daily occurrence. The march began as a civil-society movement born of the mounting economic and political frustrations over the Israeli blockade of the territory that has made life in Gaza ‘poor, nasty, brutish and short’.
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WNU Editor: The Israelis and Palestinians/Hezbollah are definitely due for a fight.
6 comments:
Depends on if we're talking about conflicts arising on their own, or by external influence or both.
My guess is - as we're entering a new nature of cold wars - with the West led by the US on one side - and China / Russia (somewhat working together) on the other side(s), that we'll likely enter a hot proxy war(s) phase next. Chinese money, equipment, and Russian soldiers and equipment, will train insurgents or military of country X and the US will be on the other side... the goal is to push Western influence out of the middle east, bet on these as markets of the future, and also get to test your favourite new weapon systems/gain on ground experience on how each other's side performs, train your people to detect their latest planes - all while not having to directly engage etc. ...if we see that all happening, I'd assume the worst - that Russia and China will consider a major war next. .and if that doesn't work for them (because they might see our military power is actually quite high and their losses wouldn't be acceptable), I'd assume more cyber warfare, more spying, trying to bring down the US dollar and gain more territory and influence by slow land grabs (Ukraine, 9dash line etc)
Also, we will be seeing two newish trends:
1. In the age of the supersonic missile warfare - with China actually leading - Russia on second place and the US only projected to catching up in 2021 - it becomes crucial to forward position offensive and defensive measures (detection networks) to have any chance of getting them
2. We're already in an age of constant and extensive disinformation. Anyone who honestly believes he knows the truth still is not quite right in his head. My concern is that Russians and Chinese are much better at misinforming their population than ours is..they are winning the propaganda war ---internally-- with their own population. The Chinese are much better and more ruthless at this than Russians. In Russia many people joke about their government and question the politics of foreign influence. But the state has state media that pushes out narratives. The Chinese of course too -and- are very determined to keep information from coming in. Something similar happening to the MSM in the US. There seems one narrative that's very hard to align with realities on the ground and sometimes opposite to US interests even, so I think the MSM in the US is influenced by foreign actors. But that's another topic. My point being that we're not good at this either. ..and - importantly - China and Russia have realised that they can just try to expand their region of influence through war fare and then sell to that bombed country nice new buildings and S400 rocket systems. And of course they'll control the Internet and mind of the people. And sooner or later this also influences the UN votes and we'll see an eastern leaning expansion of influence
The US and west in general know and see this of course. .hence you get proxy wars of varying level of involvement
Syria - no clear explanation what we're doing there and how much we're doing what
Ukraine- advise, weapon systems and money
..I think the next front should support the goal of expansion of influence on either side - and if the country has lots of resources to pay for the aftermath and perhaps offers a strategic port the better
The Syria - Iraq free fire zone where the Iranians will make a mistake on the strength of their superior form of Islam.
interesting guesses here. Left out: all climate science suggests that there will be major drought and extreme heat in most of Middle East, and though it already has had that, the projections suggest a disaster in the making, with climate refugees replacing in numbers economic and political refugees.
100-Year Drought Mayans' Demise?
Damn Mayans with their automobiles. What were they thinking?
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