Has The U.S. Military Prevented World War III?

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta meets with U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, before a summit with NATO defense ministers and representatives from non-NATO nations that contribute to the International Security Assistance Force to discuss Afghanistan operations at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Oct. 6, 2011. DOD photo by U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jacob N. Bailey

Will Our Military Soon Be Unable to Prevent World War III? -- James Jay Carafano, FOX News

Has HASC—the House Armed Services Committee—prevented World War III? That depends on whether the Congressional Super Committee, charged with slicing a trillion-dollars plus from the federal budget, listens to what HASC has to say.

If the Super Committee heeds HASC’s warning and refrains from savaging the already anemic defense budgets proposed by President Obama, America may be able to continue to be a stabilizing force in an increasingly dangerous world. If not—well, we could soon find ourselves embroiled in a world war of 1914-like scope.

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My Comment: Has the US militray helped in preventing World War III? We are going to find out in the next few years because the US military is going to be slashed to a fraction of what it is today.

The Six Most Dangerous Regions On The Planet -- A Commentary

The State of the Nations -- Wall Street Journal

A primer to the six most dangerous regions on the planet

On the start of 2009, the world seems dauntingly unstable. The Western industrial economies face perhaps several years of zero growth in the worst crisis of capitalism since the Great Depression. While the economies of rising Asian giants like India and China will still grow, they, too, face severe challenges as their industrial output slows and they deal with workers' protests in this global crisis.

Palestinian-Israeli peace talks are stalled, not least because of bitter divisions among Palestinians themselves, while Israel has launched a massive air assault on Gaza in retaliation for rocket attacks that has killed hundreds and raised tensions throughout the Middle East. Iraq is improving but frightfully fragile. The specter of an Iranian terrorist-cum-nuclear empire looms large, reaching from Lebanon with its Hezbollah legions to western Afghanistan, over which Kabul exerts no real authority. Afghanistan itself threatens to return to the blind neglect of the Taliban. The India-Pakistan rivalry has never been so explosive since both sides became nuclear powers.

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My Comment:Many of these problems are intractable .... they have been here for centuries, and there are no "easy fixes". With the U.S. and President Obama now focusing more on their domestic situation, I predict that this fragmentation of the world is going to accelerate. This "fragmentation" will occur along economic, racial, tribal, and religious lines. In other words .... we are descending to what the planet was like before the growth and spread of cohesive empires and power blocs.

Will peace be the result of this trend .... I can predict not. The latter half of the 20th century put a stop to the many conflicts that have been breeding for centuries. But once there is a realization within a region that a conflict will ultimately break out .... like the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s .... such a breakup will be fast and brutal.