a. The threat of World War Three is looming large in the public consciousness.
The defense secretary has warned we are moving to a “pre-war world“, top military brass are talking about conscription, and tensions in the Middle East show no signs of abating. So are we on the cusp of another World War?
In the Middle East, UK and US forces have launched airstrikes on Yemen in response to the Iranian-backed Houthis’ attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
“Certainly, the time we are living in is enormously dangerous. And the killing of three US troops in Jordan has increased the likelihood for the crisis in the Middle East deepening considerably. “Iran’s allies and proxies have been undeterred by the huge show of US force in the region – if anything the warships and aircraft carriers have acted as a magnet for attack. . . . “All of this of course comes when Russia is at war with Ukraine (and the West) and China is ramping up its posture on Taiwan.
This doesn’t mean that we’re heading for WWIII – but frighteningly, it doesn’t mean we’re not.” —Alex Rossi, Sky News international correspondent
b. ‘Nuclear risk should be taken seriously’.
“The danger here is not that one side takes the pre-meditated decision to spark the apocalypse, but rather that a conflict or area of tension escalates to a certain point, one party makes a move that another party misinterprets, and then a nuclear exchange begins despite the fact that no-one was looking for one. “We should take that risk very seriously, especially over Ukraine and Taiwan.
—Dr David Wearing, lecturer in international relations at the University of Sussex
c. ‘We are in a pre-war era’
“In one sense, we are always in a ‘pre-war’ world, as wars can start from miscalculation, from hubris, or misunderstandings as well as deliberate design. However, the last months have seen some loud rumblings, and the sense that the inevitable tensions of a complex world may only be resolvable by war. “Nothing is inevitable, but the Ukraine invasion in particular has shown that Russia sees war as an instrument of policy, as a tool to change the world order in its favor, and not simply as a means of defense.
“China likewise seeks reunification with Taiwan, and Iran, in its region, wants its ‘place in the sun’.
“What this means, in short, is that the presumption against the use of force – which was the basis for the post-WWII world order, for anything other than defense – has been lost. . . . We are, most definitively, in a pre-war era.” —Simon Diggins, military analyst
Also see Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn: America’s FUTURE In Danger & Potential of World War 3? | Eric Metaxas On TBN video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH24yZKN3bQ&ab_channel=EricMetaxasonTBN
(This is crazy! How did this happen in such a short time? See How Did We Get Here?)