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Journeyman Overlording the Underworld from On a throne in a vault overlooking the Wasteland Since: Nov, 2010
Overlording the Underworld
#51: Feb 23rd 2012 at 3:25:24 PM

When the U.S. downgraded the efforts in Iraq from War to Peacekeeping, we withdrew a large amount of troops, and completely abandoned billions of dollars of equipment to the Iraqis. We didn't sell it to them, we GAVE it to them, to avoid the expense of bringing it home. Which means, somewhere in Iraq's back yard, there are billions of dollars in military hardware waiting to be fueled up and driven to war. . .

A soldier I knew in college stated that Iraq was not ready for Democracy. Someone would strong-arm his way into power. This could be good, or bad, depending on the person who did it.

Someone who loved his people and religion, and could see through the sect differences to care for everyone in his area might get away with a campaign or two to unite the areas around Iraq and end the fighting, even do a good security stance against the Islamists. You could justify any dealing with Kuwait by saying, "How else were we going to move this shit the Americans left here? We needed the oil!" As long as the regime weren't brutal like Hussein's, they might get away with a slap on the wrist in the current climate. Especially if they pledge support in putting down the other fights the Middle East has been going through lately.

If I were such a leader, I'd get cozy with the States, and get a student exchange program running. Send some Journalism students, do some exposes of Saudi Arabia, really work on dampening the U.S. alliance with the Saudis. If the alliance broke, I'd offer one to the Saudis to get them on my side, THEN hit Kuwait. For the oil. Keep what transport tech I needed, part out enough for spare parts to keep things in repair, and sell the rest to China or someone. Use the profits to improve things back home and maybe hire some Ghurkas as training cadre in the military academy. They're some of the best infantry in the world, after all.

My goal would never be to harm the world, so much as protect my own culture as best I could. We've all seen some of the more harmful side effects of Western Consumer culture, I'm sure.

Course, such a campaign, if it cuts off some of the oil supply, could spark issues in Europe, which COULD cause a major war.

MajorTom Since: Dec, 2009
#52: Feb 23rd 2012 at 3:48:16 PM

Which means, somewhere in Iraq's back yard, there are billions of dollars in military hardware waiting to be fueled up and driven to war. . .

Most of it is everyday things. Air conditioners, electrical equipment, pre-fab structures, stuff like that.

Things like tanks, rifles, bullets, artillery and fuel all get sent home.

Journeyman Overlording the Underworld from On a throne in a vault overlooking the Wasteland Since: Nov, 2010
Overlording the Underworld
#53: Feb 23rd 2012 at 5:56:19 PM

They showed a picture of a field full of transports. AF Vs, things like that . . .

MajorTom Since: Dec, 2009
#54: Feb 23rd 2012 at 6:13:01 PM

That's usually the media providing a sample picture, a picture of a pile of air conditioners isn't very exciting when talking military equipment.

Journeyman Overlording the Underworld from On a throne in a vault overlooking the Wasteland Since: Nov, 2010
Overlording the Underworld
#55: Feb 24th 2012 at 5:55:03 AM

Nevermind, new story: Iraq holds a yard sale!

MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#57: May 11th 2012 at 11:58:07 AM

"I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

What do you guys think of this quote from Einstein? How plausible do you think that WW3 would send humankind back to the Stone Age?

No one in Germany likes the military, and antimilitarism was on every single party's poster during the elections here in September.
Interesting. What conditions do suppose would allow for a resurgence in popular support for militarism/remilitarisation in Germany, then?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
MidnightRambler Ich bin nicht schuld! 's ist Gottes Plan! from Germania Inferior Since: Mar, 2011
Ich bin nicht schuld! 's ist Gottes Plan!
#58: May 11th 2012 at 12:12:55 PM

[up] Several decades - no, centuries - of woefully inadequate history lessons in German schools.

Anyway, I think we have to be careful with predictions that WW3 won't happen in the next 100 years based on the current balance of power. A lot can change in 100 years. Just look at the 200 years from the French Revolution to the fall of the Berlin Wall. I count at least five radical shifts in the balance of power during that period.

But they are making money hand over foot with the high trading price of crude oil right now. Why would they need to do a yard sale of all things?

In fact, most of Iraq's oil reserves were sold off to foreign companies after the invasion, effectively denying Iraq itself the funds it needed and needs for reconstruction.

edited 11th May '12 12:16:17 PM by MidnightRambler

Mache dich, mein Herze, rein...
TamH70 Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
#59: May 13th 2012 at 1:45:07 PM

World War III? Easy. That started the day after World War II finished, and stopped the day the Berlin War came down. We in the west won, by the way.

We lost a few matches. Vietnam highest amongst them, but still took the title.

World War IV started pretty much the next day. We are still in its early stages. Hell knows when it will stop.

#60: May 14th 2012 at 5:32:47 AM

[up] I'm inclined to agree with this.

As far as all-out total war like the OP probably meant, I'd say that in the short term it is pretty much impossible. The US is militarily capable of fighting the entire rest of the planet at once, and has strong alliances with most of the other major powers. The only other power with the global influence to fight a world war is China, and if China attacked the US tomorrow it would be a curb-stomp battle. On the other hand, the US has no political will to go to war with China as long as there is no existential threat to itself. Furthermore, neither China nor the US care enough about their allies to be dragged into a global war, so any local flareups would tend to stay local.

In the longer term, I could see WW3 being possible if either China or the US were taken over by radical factions who couldn't be trusted to act rationally, or gradual social changes shifted the balance of power.

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IraTheSquire Since: Apr, 2010
#61: May 14th 2012 at 6:43:57 AM

[up] And considering the very anti-expansionist nature of Confucianism which is very inherit within the Chinese culture, it will take a very radical and extreme faction in order to have China declare war on anybody, unless someone else declared war on her first.

MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#62: May 14th 2012 at 7:20:25 AM

I don't think many people take the "Cold War is World War III" interpretation seriously at all, and I agree with them.

[up] Ironic, given that the PRC did technically perform expansionist invasion of the then independent Tibet in 1951.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Inhopelessguy Since: Apr, 2011
#63: May 14th 2012 at 7:22:10 AM

Huh. It appears nobody seems to support the "China declares war on the EU" idea.

CANADA

Bros.

It's gotta be Canada. C'mon... they've been a pretty perfect country for the past 120 years or so.

They must be hiding something...

IraTheSquire Since: Apr, 2010
#64: May 14th 2012 at 7:23:55 AM

[up][up] First of all, Communism is not very Chinese (and that was the only expansionist thing that the PRC did, more or less). Secondly, China did used to own Tibet during the Qing dynasty (which was ruled by the Manchurians instead of the Han, where the Confucianist culture is) so it's not that unjustified to say "they are just taking it back".

edited 14th May '12 7:25:01 AM by IraTheSquire

Lock Space Wizard from Germany Since: Sep, 2010
Space Wizard
#65: May 14th 2012 at 7:29:45 AM

It's gotta be Canada. C'mon... they've been a pretty perfect country for the past 120 years or so.
Except for the point of being Canada.

First of all, Communism is not very Chinese.
Yeah, rather Asian.

...what?

Programming and surgery have a lot of things in common: Don't start removing colons until you know what you're doing.
#66: May 14th 2012 at 8:41:38 AM

In theory, Communism fits very well with Chinese ideals (I think it is called The Mandate of Heaven? The government must take care of the people?), but as was pointed out in practice it rather clashes with the non-interventionist attitude in Daoism/Confucianism (forgive me if I'm mixing things up: I'm not exactly an expert on Chinese philosophy).

Still, as was also pointed out, those ideals haven't stopped communist China from doing all kinds of expansionist stuff already, and totalitarianism is very deep-set in Chinese thought. If I had to put it into a gross oversimplification, I'd say that the US has the stomach for Interventionism, but not Totalitarianism, and China vice versa, and that it would take both in one to make a world war.

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MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#67: May 14th 2012 at 8:45:10 AM

Doesn't China's support of the Communist forces in the Korean War and Vietnam War via arms sales, military training/advisors, and such things count as interventionism?

edited 14th May '12 8:45:53 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
#68: May 14th 2012 at 8:55:37 AM

Yes. Like I said, the fact that their values seemingly go against it hasn't stopped them from doing it at times, just as the US's values in favor of freedom and democracy haven't stopped us from supporting dictators at times.

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Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#69: May 14th 2012 at 10:00:29 AM

Support? China didn't just send advisers, they fought right alongside the North Koreans.

To my knowledge, China hasn't tried to outright annex any country but they have fought with India and invaded Vietnam within the past 50 years.

edited 14th May '12 10:12:14 AM by Parable

#70: May 14th 2012 at 10:10:39 AM

Tibet is arguable, but really, nobody has annexed anything in the last 50 years (with a very few exceptions like the Russia-Georgia incident). It's just too hard to get away with and economic/political dominance is easier.

<><
MidnightRambler Ich bin nicht schuld! 's ist Gottes Plan! from Germania Inferior Since: Mar, 2011
Ich bin nicht schuld! 's ist Gottes Plan!
#71: May 14th 2012 at 11:47:40 AM

First of all, Communism is not very Chinese.

Yeah, rather Asian.

...what?

Communism is definitely a French-German collaborative project.

Mache dich, mein Herze, rein...
somerandomdude from Dark side of the moon Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: How YOU doin'?
#72: May 14th 2012 at 1:18:04 PM

"Several decades - no, centuries - of woefully inadequate history lessons in German schools."

I wouldn't call it "woefully inaccurate." The antimilitarism stems almost entirely from the Nazi era, and at any other point in history no one can truthfully claim that the Germans were any worse than their contemporaries. And besides that, militarism was the least fucked up thing about the Nazis; it's just what they showed off the most and thus what became most associated with them. (They stole half their military procedures from the Prussians and Romans, anyways.)

You also have to remember that, as foreign and way-back-when as World War II seems to us young 'uns, many, many Germans still remember Dad's or Granddad's stories of the Nazi era, and many of the people in the old folks' home experienced it personally.

edited 14th May '12 1:18:22 PM by somerandomdude

ok boomer
MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#73: May 14th 2012 at 1:41:28 PM

Would a major wave of attacks by terroists (especially if they were Western Terrorists from European neighbours), or a insurgency in a neighbouring state spilling over into German soil with massive bloodshed on the German side as a result, that could've been easily averted/fought off had the German military not been so comparatively impotent, provide a proper impetus for discarding the antimilitarist attitude? Especially if the problem more or less repeats itself (e.g. one neighbouring insurgency after the other spill over into Germany)?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
MidnightRambler Ich bin nicht schuld! 's ist Gottes Plan! from Germania Inferior Since: Mar, 2011
Ich bin nicht schuld! 's ist Gottes Plan!
#74: May 14th 2012 at 1:45:32 PM

[up][up] First, I said 'inadequate', not 'inaccurate'. And second, I wasn't saying the memory of World War II is a good or sound reason for the Germans to be so anti-militaristic, I'm just saying it's a reason, and a pretty strong one at that.

As long as the memory of World War II (and, to a lesser degree, World War I and the Interbellum years) is kept alive in Germany - in schools, museums, memorials, books, documentaries -, and may it ever be, the Germans will never be very enthusiastic about war again.

[up] I don't know, but anyway, Germany has plenty of Western Terrorists of its own; there is significant political violence from right-wing and left-wing extremists. While nowhere near as bad as in the Weimar years, it's still a real problem.

edited 14th May '12 1:48:28 PM by MidnightRambler

Mache dich, mein Herze, rein...
#75: May 14th 2012 at 2:10:59 PM

[up][up][up] When we rebuilt the German education system after world war 2, we specifically designed it to prevent future generations of Germans from being psychological capable of supporting a new Reich. If they ever did, it would mean that the system we set up had failed.

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