When did World War II start? Americans usually answer that it started in December of 1941 when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Europeans say it began in 1939 when the Nazis invaded Poland. But for Asians, the date is July 7th, 1937 when Japan attacked China in the Marco Polo Bridge Incident which started WWII on the Pacific Side. In other words, World Wars start at multiple times and places until they merge into one big global conflict. The attack on Israel by Hamas is probably our 1939 moment. In other words, World War III has probably started, but we are now at the point where most of the world is on the verge of admitting it.
IS THIS WORLD WAR 3?
Probably. When historians look back on this time, they will probably say that the seeds for World War 3 were sowed in 2008 when the global economy went into recession, nations took on unsustainable debt, social media became toxic, and the culture wars led to a decline in democracy and the growth of autocratic leaders. That describes 2008-2020 with a pandemic thrown in.
When did World War 3 actually start? They will probably say it began in 2014-2016 when Russia began overtly using cyber-attacks on democracies and weaponizing social media. Phase 2 will be viewed as the nearly invisible weaponizing of Space which has been occurring behind the scenes (between the USA, Russia, China, and India). The goal is not really to get to Mars, the top priority is to have the capability to destroy your enemies’’satellites, take down their internet, disconnect them from the global and electronic world. Space today is a crowded, busy, dangerous place filled with space junk, satellites, and weaponry. It’s so dangerous anyone going up in a spaceship has to seriously worry about crashing into something as you leave the Earth’s atmosphere.
Phase 3 of World War III will probably the invasion of Ukraine by Russia which pushed China, and Iran into more overt cooperation. It also ushered in Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia’s desire to displace the US Dollar. It united and divided NATO, and encouraged China to ratchet up its belligerence toward Taiwan.
Phase 4 will be the Hamas-Attack on Israel, where suddenly, a modern nation and significant world power is on the brink of complete collapse, invasion, or destruction. It’s also the moment that the world wakes up to the fact that Israeli and Chinese surveillance technology is not the ultimate impenetrable weapon. Like 9/11 with the box-cutters, Hamas has destroyed Israel’s high tech safety perimeter.
HAMAS HAS SET A BRILLIANT TRAP
It looks like Hamas has brilliantly executed a plan to completely box-in Israel and possibly destroy the nation. The trap seemed to involve a number of ingenious moves. 1) They pretended they were fighting with each other, bickering, and in desperate need of economic assistance from Israel desiring work permits. Israel bought into their fake drama and believed they were weakened and humbled in light of Israel’s high -tech surveillance. 2). They took advantage of the fact that Benyamin Natanyahu had massively weakened Israel splitting it in two using the culture wars (conservative, hard-right orthodox jews vs. the more secular Jewish establishment). It won him elections narrowly, but divided the nation, the military, and led him to start destroying Israel’s checks and balances by weakening its key institutions, like the Supreme Court. Israel had leadership that talked about War against Iran all the time, but was actually doing everything it could to weaken its own nation in order for the Likud Prime Minister to keep winning elections amidst many scandals. 3) They gave up using technology to communicate and went back to old school face to face communication, they got drones from Iran, and re-armed themselves right under Netanyahu’s nose. Netanyahu’s anti-terrorism blabber was shtick to win elections. The real threat wasn’t the culture wars or Iran’s nuclear bomb, it was Israel’s occupation of Palestine. For this Netanyahu will eventually be removed in disgrace once we get passed the initial unity phase.
But the most ingenious part of the trap was taking hostages and moving them to Gaza. In my next post, I will share why Hamas’ Gaza-based war and their hostage taking has made it impossible for Israel to respond without horrific consequences, and why this accelerates what will be a time of disruption like World War II. Initially, all the nations will try to pressure Israel and Hamas to settle this quickly. They might give Israel 3 months to attack without much condemnation, and then ask them to let sleeping dogs lie. But the moving pieces that have been set in motion will not make this a conflict that is localized and ends quickly. Instead, it will unleash a geo-political shift that will mean certain world powers that exist now, will collapse. Other nations that exist now, will be absorbed into other nations. And some countries and peoples that are weak now, will emerge as new powers on the scene. It will be a pivotal hinge of history that no one will forget.
In further posts, I will talk about the economic consequences, how the culture wars have enabled this fragility, what the USA, China, and Russia will most likely need to think about, and why apocalyptic movements increase, amongst other things.