World War III, the inevitable, the horrific

Am I not correct that history attributes the initiation of World War II to a single despot, Adolph Hitler? What Vladimir Putin is now doing will almost certainly result in World War III. No one is eager to face that prospect but perhaps it is unavoidable. The harsh reality of overt genocide being perpetrated on the gentle folk of Ukraine cannot be sidestepped indefinitely.

Despotism - or what polite folks term autocracy - seems to be on the rise. We even have an American version of it in the person of Donald J. Trump. Some things are just "in the cards".

I have to assume that the world's primary nuclear powers have long since smuggled atomic bombs into each other's major metropolitan hubs (perhaps disguised as refrigerators), ready to be remotely detonated. So for starters you can write off Moscow, Saint Petersburg, New York, Washington D.C., London, Paris, Delhi and likely dozens of others.

 

That's what the countries that coerced the unconscionable Treaty of Versailles on Germany claim.

Objective historians know that the unconscionable Treaty of Versailles is what created the conditions to allow someone like Hitler to gain power.

<Mod Edit>

 

1. I agree with @Mircea that the Treaty of Versailles had more to do with World War II than one person, Adolph Hitler. In fact, if you played that favorite time travel game, "would you go back in time and kill baby Hitler?" I wouldn't because the conditions that lead to World War II were not dependent on Hitler.

2. You are describing the plot of Reds 2.

3. Trump really? Hah, you can't quit him!

 

why?

 

[That comment was in response to my assumption about the secreting of A-bombs into the enemies' various hub cities.] Mircea, there is no way you can speak with confident certainty on my hypothesis. After all, it is the obvious strategy.

 

Hitler's rise was in part due to the global depression that was occuring, the French unwavering with the payments for the Treaty of Versailes, and that Hitler did a really good con job and came in secon inthe elections of 1931 or so. When Von Hindenburg died, that is when Hitler took over by virtue of the next chancellor and thus became dictator.

 

That's some of it for sure -- conditions have to be right. For example .. if folks are fat and warm they will be complacent .. political change difficult.

Hitler was one of the first people to use the new propaganda science developed by Edward Bernays something which had caught on fire. Adolf wanted to use Ed .. but he refused so Adolf used another "Public Relations" firm. PR is the rebranded name for propaganda .. as that term fell out of favor due to association with Adolf.

"Everyone" -- was on the Eugenics bandwagon in the 30's - espectially the elite class as this ideology justifies maintenance of the hierarchal status quo .. justifies hierarchal structure in society .. those above you are there because of their genetic superiority - and this is the "Natural Order" .. and you don't want to tamper with that .

Now Adolf didn't actually adhere to this idiology - as he would have put Jews in high places if he was doing so .. he cherry picked certain parts out and made up his own ideology on this basis.

Adolf used some age old and fairly well understood tactics .. the old "Scare em and Save em" .. a trick so well established it is taught to sales people .. something that has been used on you hundreds of times via direct personal contact and hundreds of thousands of times via advertizing.

The founders knew well the age old trick of getting folks to trade liberty for security .. on the basis of some fear of an external threat.

Stalin called his program "Security for the Motherland"
Adolf called his program "Fatherland Security"
Bush called his program "Homeland Security" - where upon it became your "Patriotic Duty" to give up liberty for security .. in this case, over a risk of harm 400 times less than the risk of harm from "Walking"

 

Many thanks for these responses.

 

If WW3 happens, don't forget about the effect it would have on you and your families.

Tax rates would go up and at the same time there would have to be huge cuts to government programs. Likely shortages of many consumer items, and price increases. Possibly the reinstatement of the draft. These could be your children and grandchildren, are you okay if they are sent off to die? People working in the military would have their lives in danger.

Then there is the future of the country, after the war. Deep in debt, the finances of the country would not be good.
Some of you are too stupid to know what that means.

 

Today's Russia is not the same threat that Germany was. Not even a little bit.

 

Putin is an elderly old man, he knows using nukes would be the end of Russia

 

Russia has a better chance of surviving nuclear war than the US does. They have bomb shelters in their cities and an electric grid hardenned against EMP. We can hit them with a lot more nukes, but they are a lot more spread out, and it only takes a handful (or just one according to some) of atmospheric nuclear detonations to collapse the power, water and food distribution for both of us. Theirs, in theory, will be back up and running by the time those that survived in their 5000+ bomb shelters they been building over the last 20 years emerge to continue the war. Meanwhile, our cities will have no power or water, and our military will be too busy trying to keep our survivors from destroying our cities with the innevitable civil disdorder to try to fight any war. Certainly both of us will be devastated... but Russia has prepared themselves to at least try to come back from it. We aint done **** about it here.

 

Sounds like paranoia to me.

 

True, Hitler also used racial politics to a new level that would have made Southern Democrats even blush. He did it with the Jews, Easter Europeans, Gypsies, Homosexuality, and Communists.

As for the Patriot Act, my feelings are mixed. A majority of the bill were modern day improvements for law enforcment to use and to make sure that due process was involved with intelligence sensiitive information that should never be released to the general public. There were a few provisions that were controversial and should have never been in the bill. Furthermore, although the bill had good intentions, some people used the bill more as an excuse much the same way as NYPD used stop and frisk as an excuse, aka lazy police work, and trying to get the law of averages on their side.

 

If WW3 were to happen, you won't have to worry about tax rates or tax cuts, or anything else because quite frankly, you will be dead, dying, or dying slowly of radiation poisoning.

 

"Russia has a better chance of surviving a nuclear war than US"???

Oh please....how much was paid out to say that?.....couldn't have been in rubles.

That's as funny as someone mentioned here once that Moscow can safely accommodate all 10 million of its citizens in underground bomb shelter. Sure...they could....only that they failed to mention that after 30 mins they would start to cannibalize one another in such conditions.

Pentagon has every square mile of RF territory mapped out for blanket nuclear coverage....nobody/nothing will survive.....or very few at the least.

 

How is Russia going to take on the whole world, when they can't even defeat Ukraine?

 

Big wars between big powers don't happen anymore for one simple reason: Mutually assured destruction, generally in the form of nuclear weapons. We also have a range of economic and diplomatic tools available that make it far easier to avoid resorting to war than it used to be, and modern mass communication and direct communication between nations are also a world apart from what we had 80 years ago and more, making international misunderstandings less likely to occur and easier to clear up. Given all of this, I view hand-wringing over a hypothetical World War III to be hysterical. In fact, "World War III" will likely be defined by future historians as the ongoing ideological conflict and extended cold war between the democratic west and the axis of totalitarianism formed by Russia and China and their smaller, weaker allies. Such a war will not generally be a hot war due to M.A.D. and the other factors I have mentioned, but with all of this vying for economic dominance and regional and global influence, the new cold war is likely to continue for a long time -- basically indefinitely, in fact, for as long as these divisions exist.

This will mean that an unending war of a kind will continue for a very long time, barring some radical change, and that is certainly unfortunate. The Cold War should have ended in the 1990s, but neither side handled the situation well enough, and now Russia is back under an authoritarian regime, albeit one that has significant differences from its predecessor.

It will be interesting to see whether Putin survives his Ukrainian folly and whether authoritarianism in Russia survives his reign.

 

Thats hardly a refutation. Just because you dont like it doesnt make it untrue. Theres around 10K nukes between the US and Russia and around 10M square miles of land. If we both detonate all our nukes on eachother, we can wipe out all of eachothers large cities, but very little of eachothers actual land. Of course fallout will be a problem, but thats more of a long term problem. In the short term, Russia has prepared to bring a far larger chunk of its work force and infrastructure through to the other side than we have. Sure our govt and corporate elite will come through fine, but they've made no preparations for the rest of us, so basically America will be left to them and the preppers, and neither will be going to Russia to make war. Russia has the bunkers (no not for everyone) and the hardenned grid, we have the population that riots when food stamps are late.

 

It IS a refutation....nothing to do with liking it or not....couple hundred detonated nukes in the Russki hinterland and you've got nothing for 3000+ years....

This thing about "in short term,Russia has prepared itself is a fallacy.....judging by the sad state of affairs their military is in....it's a safe guess everything else is too.

Russia has bunkers....so do others.

They'll be cannibalizing one another in 2 hrs or less.

 

Good grief.

 

One thing to consider, most of the US population lives near the coast, whereas that is not true for most of Russia's population.
If you live near the coast it makes you more vulnerable to attacks from submersible ships.

Moscow also has a very deep subway tunnel system that was designed to be able to serve as an underground bunker in case the city were attacked.

 

WW3 "unavoidable???............ of course it is avoidable.............but is there enough motivation to prevent it?? And what will it take??

Who would benefit the most from WW 3???........and in what way??

 

Germany was viewed as weaker then france back then to.
it was a shock when france fell.

 

That's a mighty fine answer/question. In a way, WWIII is already underway. Humanity's prevailing sentiment has always and should always henceforth be that the moral high ground ought prevail over criminal behavior. (I think we term that the "liberal" sentiment.) Putin's moves in the past decade or so have been criminal, so he (and his ruthless kind) ought to be stopped. It's plain on its face. Aggression for the purpose of thievery ... violating all covenants and accords - that behavior needs to be punished for all to see. Leastwise, that's what I'm thinking.