The peace of the world last year

That's what I thought.

Edit: Two arrowed page toppers in a row, it's obviously not my lucky day.

edited 30th Jul '13 4:01:44 PM by Silasw

It's just vote-getters. The most recent spat over the Ryukyu islands was because some idiot Japanese mayor vowed as an election platform to piss off China. But then both federal governments unexpectedly let that escalate for domestic reasons.

India-Pakistan is hard to say. Relations have calmed considerably over the years and now Pakistan is dealing with the largest refugee flood in the world due to the war in Afghanistan. Actually, what's happening in domestic Pakistani politics is whether or not they should drop their stance with India in order to deal with Afghanistan.

For a culture war in Europe, I believe someone reads too many pamphlets of encroaching islamofascistnazi zombies. France and the UK have a poverty issue that is primarily located in immigrant ghettos. France had an issue of accepting large numbers of North African immigrants to use as cheap labour but refused to give most of them citizenship leading to a large population of unemployed youth due to the children of those immigrants. For the UK, as we saw with the last riots, those weren't even connected to ethnic minorities. A bunch of British poor were simply rioting. There may be some growing pains as EU wrestles its way into a supranational union but war? That's basically like when North America was fretting about a national breakup due to Catholics.

A world war in Mid-east may or may not happen. Given that we've seen massive wars between Israel and Arab League nations in the past and we see LESS chance of it now, I'm not sure how that might come around. Iran is very unlikely to attack Israel given that they skipped out of any and all previous wars in the region that involved Israel. In the current political climate, Iran would gain substantially from letting Israeli attacks slide in order to gain influence and sympathy amongst mid-east countries. That may also cause Israel to back away from attacking them.

a) Rwanda-Burundi-Congo

The area is facing conditions increasingly similar to the ones in the 90s. If the things keep going the way they are, we may face another round of violence in 2030s or 2040s. There is not enough political will here to resolve the situation.

b) Arab Spring fallout

I expect sporadic fighting upwards to civil wars across North Africa through to Mid-east countries for at least the next two decades. However, I think the end result will be semi to fully democratic countries that do go through the pain.

c) Caucasus

I don't know if Russia and the Caucasus region will again have trouble mixing. The issue of South Ossetia hasn't been settled so it might flare up again in the future. Even if it does though, Russia's military is so powerful versus everyone else I'm unsure if it'll be anything but a few more flash conflicts like the war in Georgia in 2008.

d) Eastern Europe

When the Balkans is peaceful then well everything in the world must be good. But more seriously, I am concerned about the situation in Kosovo-Serbia. The forced breakup of the country by NATO may lead to further conflict down the road, especially if say Russia joined in on the "fun".

e) Central Africa

Well violence continues there but many of the rebel groups have actually dissolved. It's still not a nice place but I'm largely unsure if there could be yet another regional conflict. However, as stated above, if the Rwanda situation bursts again, then most certainly it will spill into Central Africa just like last time and millions might be killed.

f) Western Africa

There's been a flood of weapons due to the Arab Spring in the area of Western Africa which only helps rebel groups (Mali comes to mind). However, despite the violence, it seems that the central regimes are rebounding. I'm not confident about the future though. Those countries have borders that just look bad when it comes to stability. So there might be a few more secret wars by the French in the area in the next two decades.

g) Afghanistan

Given that NATO successfully liberated the country only to hand it over drug lords, I'm not confident about its future. The constant flood of refugees from Afghanistan to Pakistan, as well as the flux of Taliban and related groups, may trigger a war between the two countries. While the governments between the two are friendly, if Afghanistan can't handle its problem and keeps letting it spread into Pakistan, then the people of Pakistan may get fed up and finally bite the bullet to drop the military hammer. It'll mean civil war in Pakistan and likely a scorched earth campaign by their forces in Afghanistan.

Actually, Afghanistan is "refugee positive" - a huge number of Afghans, over 5.7 million, have voluntarily returned to the country since 2001, according to the UNHCR. There are still a large number of internally displaced persons, though fewer than one might think. Those who cross and re-cross the border tribal areas are tribesmen and women whose territory overlaps the border, militants, and some refugees from the closest border areas going to live with relatives in Pakistan.

Thanks. I didn't want to just toss it out there without a source, and I couldn't find it online.

Question, Given that one of the key things that established the power of the federal government over the states was the civil war, could the EU be heading towards a civil war? If so, what role would the US play?

No.

Firstly, the prime mover behind EU discord is the austerity measures put in place in order to alleviate the debts of the far-flung Eurozone nations. Not a deep cultural question like slavery. Similarly, there is no appetite for war in Europe, as there was in America. The Greeks and Portugese can simply leave the Union, and Germany will never launch another overseas war - the cultural inoculation against conflict is too strong to break down over something ;ike this.

Secondly, in the antebellum USA, there was no clear mechanism for a state to leave. That a state can leave the EU with a referendum has been implicitly acknowledged since its inception and more recently with the UK's desire to hold one after the next election. Similarly, the EU has never been a single nation, whilst the USA was. Therefore, seceding states would be leaving an international agreement rather than rebelling against the government.

Thirdly, the presence of slavery in the South and the South's desire to see it expanded along with America into the territories, Caribbean, and central America, combined with the North's utter refusal to let that happen, meant that the priorities of the slave states were not merely a matter of political disagreement (as the EU's are - its present discord is economic and political, not cultural) - they were a matter of fundamental outlook and national culture. The slavocracy could not exist on the same landmass as the North.

Almost certainly peacemaker. Europe is too important to lose. It keeps the Russians away from the Atlantic, for one thing.

Bengal/Myanmar seems unlikely to happen. Despite Burmese violence against the Rohingya, the Bengalis really don't seem to give a shit about them at all. Kind of like the Jordanians with the Palestinians, where a lot of native Jordanians seem to wish they would just go away.

Chairs. Though it's only a matter of time until all British furniture is made out of rubber anyway, since chairlegs can apparently be used as a weapon. -_-

Unless the IMF/Troika evaluations and measures become too unbearable for us, the Portuguese (you missed a u there), it's unlikely that we'll leave the Union. In fact, we want to become a economic gateway and diplomatic mediator of sorts (or at a least, to be a link) between Europe, Africa and South America (and Central American countries like Panama), so, to leave the Union would harm our economical trade in the long run.

@Thread: I think that, if a big conflict is to happen, it will likely be in the Middle East (especially between the Sunnites and the Chiites). Religious tensions or wars will be one of the big things in this century.

edited 31st Jul '13 1:58:06 PM by Quag15

Gonna throw mine in with the whole "Muslims start the next big war" thing.

I'd really like it if as soon as it started, the US just instantly pulled out, sat on the sidelines, and got out the popcorn. Let them kill eachother, and let the rest of the civilized world try and clean up the mess without us. We've no business stopping other people from killing each other, we have enough of our own problems.

The problem with that is that as much as it would be really nice to just go "screw you guys, we're not going to help you if all you do is bitch about how we're an evil empire", it's been tried before. The British got so sick of losing British lives in Israel/Palestine that we pulled out in an effective Screw This, I'm Outta Here, and look at what a mess it is now. You get the short term gratification of telling people who you see as constantly bitching when you're helping them, but then you're left with a mess that may well never go away.

Well the British kinda screwed it up in the first place (or helped to screw it up).

However, I suppose I am concerned that due to the destablization of Iraq and the situation in Syria beside it that it may lead to further conflict in the future. And let's not try to forget that the World Wars started because Europe didn't want to deal with the Balkans.

I really wish we didn't need anything from the Middle East, so we could just build a big wall and let them kill each other until the End of Days.

I can buy the an inter-middle eastern conflict (which inevitably means the great powers get dragged in) but I don't see it being a world war. The GP's have gotten very good (and comfortable) with proxy warfare.

Sadly even then we couldn't do it, since even if you could convince the US government to not back Israel in such a mess, there's the worry of what might happen as it all ends. Specifically that no one is entirely sure how many different countries Israel might nuke if it goes down.

edited 31st Jul '13 8:42:50 PM by Silasw

If the West didnt need anything from the Middle East, they wouldnt be killing each other off like they are. They would be much more unified, and more powerful.

I don't know, the religious issues in the Middle East aren't actually our fault, even in the oil ones can be ascribed to us. The only religious issue that could truly be blamed on the west is maybe Israel due to western support of it, and even that's an iffy one.

Though I guess it depends how far back you roll western meddling, since rolling back the colonial era meddling would have done a lot for regional stability, same as with rolling back the Cold War meddling. Either way you've still got the religious divides.

Yeah, don't lump in the violence between Shia and Sunni on us, that's a stupid ass theological fight that's been going on for a very long time.

And honestly, it's one of the poorest reasons I've ever heard for the amount of death it's caused. Killing each other over the opinion on who should lead an Islamic Caliphate that does not exist is.. Stupid.

It's not we Christians are much better... Catchollic vs. Protestants, Crusade against Ortodox? Whole Catcholic-Ortodox split was over whenever or not The Pope's hat was the mightiest. was the leader of all Christianity.

Though yeah, religions are stupidest reason ever to kill each others. Main reason Christians stopped killing each others was because we, more or less, stopped caring.

I said "Like they are". Without Western interests getting involved, they wouldnt have the money for all those AK's, if nothing else.

EDIT

NVM, brainfart.

edited 1st Aug '13 5:23:08 PM by Mandemo

Shit, "we" Christians? I'm irreligious, I'd only kill someone in the defense of myself or others, or for adequate amounts of money.

At least my reasons make sense!

edited 1st Aug '13 5:36:37 PM by Barkey

When I say "we" I more or less mean "people who technically are Christians, but since 90% of don't give a shit really aren't". I am a member of a church and I am an atheist. It's less about conviction and more about tradition and beign able to have way too expensive, pointless and generally "Why the hell are we spending years salary on this thing?" wedding.

I really don't want to start going to extremely narrow descriptions which eventually are not narrow enough.

Besides, "I wanted that dudes hat!" is always legit reason to kill! </joking>

edited 1st Aug '13 5:45:25 PM by Mandemo

The religious divide in the Mid-east is very trumped up. They didn't have this violence back during the middle ages when such things were more pronounced than today (when there are so many sub-sects of the two groups), not to mention the greater plethora of third parties now in the mideast.

Most of the conflict stems exactly from meddling. Typically waves of violence overtook the mideast as there was a new successive wave of a power that overran the last failing power. It might change now that it's unlikely for a new group to arise and invade the mid-east again.

If you take a look at most of the violence in the Mid-east, almost all of it stems from local populaces reacting angrily to imposed dictatorships. Those are pretty much the fault of the Cold War.

Given that the cold war is over, I think we might see one to two decades of democratisation violence and then it'll be like how South America is like today.

edited 1st Aug '13 6:30:41 PM by breadloaf

Muslims really aren't going to start the next great war, unless there was first a radical islamic revolution that took over and reunified at least the Asian Near East (say, bringing the Gulf Monarchies, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan under one rule). Otherwise most of them have their own problems.

Only Israel could be the catalyst at this point, and it is slowly coming to a point in Israel that the ultra-orthodox who demand all this settlement noise are losing influence (they're finally being forced to join the military like all other citizens, for one)

The Salafists are the ones I worry about when it comes to Muslims. Salafism/Wahhabism is liquid poison to the rest of the religion.