The Economist argues that there are ominous parallels between the conditions which led to the first world war and today:
The United States is Britain, the superpower on the wane, unable to guarantee global security. Its main trading partner, China, plays the part of Germany, a new economic power bristling with nationalist indignation and building up its armed forces rapidly. Modern Japan is France, an ally of the retreating hegemon and a declining regional power. The parallels are not exact—China lacks the Kaiser’s territorial ambitions and America’s defence budget is far more impressive than imperial Britain’s—but they are close enough for the world to be on its guard.
Which, by and large, it is not. The most troubling similarity between 1914 and now is complacency. Businesspeople today are like businesspeople then: too busy making money to notice the serpents flickering at the bottom of their trading screens. Politicians are playing with nationalism just as they did 100 years ago. China’s leaders whip up Japanophobia, using it as cover for economic reforms, while Shinzo Abe stirs Japanese nationalism for similar reasons.
The New Republic points out that global downturns can lead to war:
As the experience of the 1930s testified, a prolonged global downturn can have profound political and geopolitical repercussions. In the U.S. and Europe, the downturn has already inspired unsavory, right-wing populist movements. It could also bring about trade wars and intense competition over natural resources, and the eventual breakdown of important institutions like European Union and the World Trade Organization. Even a shooting war is possible.
The Telegraph notes that the economic crisis in Europe is increasing tensions:
Tensions between European countries unseen in decades are emerging.
(Indeed, Europe is stuck in a downturn worse than the Great Depression.)
Well-known economist Nouriel Roubini tweeted from the gathering of the rich and powerful at the World Economic Forum in Davos last year:
Many speakers compare 2014 to 1914 when WWI broke out & no one expected it. A black swan in the form of a war between China & Japan?
And:
Both Abe and an influential Chinese analyst don’t rule out a military confrontation between China and Japan. Memories of 1914?
Paul Craig Roberts – former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan, former editor of the Wall Street Journal, listed by Who’s Who in America as one of the 1,000 most influential political thinkers in the world, PhD economist – wrote an article about the build up of hostilities between the U.S. and Russia titled, simply: “War Is Coming”.
Similarly, Ronald Reagan’s head of the Office of Management and Budget – David Stockman – is posting pieces warning of the dispute between the U.S. and Russia leading to World War 3.
Trend forecaster Gerald Celente – who has been making some accurate financial and geopolitical predictions for decades – says WW3 will start soon.
Investment fund manager and adviser Martin Armstrong has charted the “cycles of war” back to 600 BC … and says that we’ll have major wars between now and 2020. He has written pieces recently entitled, “Why We will Go to War with Russia“, and another one saying, “Prepare for World War III“.
Investment adviser Larry Edelson – who has long studied the “cycles of war” – wrote last month:
This year … we will also be hit by another ramping up of the related war cycles.
***
All part and parcel of the rising war cycles that I’ve been warning you about, conditions that will not abate until at least the year 2020.
Former Goldman Sachs technical analyst Charles Nenner – who has made some big accurate calls, and counts major hedge funds, banks, brokerage houses, and high net worth individuals as clients – says there will be “a major war”, which will drive the Dow to 5,000.
Veteran investor adviser James Dines forecast a war as epochal as World Wars I and II, starting in the Middle East.
Bad Economic Theories
What’s causing the slide towards war? We discuss several causes below.
Initially, believe it or not, one cause is that many influential economists and talking heads hold the discredited belief that war is good for the economy.
Therefore, many are overtly or more subtly pushing for war.
Challengers Give Declining Empires “Itchy Fingers”
Moreover, historians say that declining empires tend to attack their rising rivals … so the risk of world war is rising because the U.S. feels threatened by the rising empire of China.
The U.S. government considers economic rivalry to be a basis for war. Therefore, the U.S. is systematically using the military to contain China’s growing economic influence.
Competition for Resources Is Heating Up
In addition, it is well-established that competition for scarce resources often leads to war. For example, Oxford University’s Quarterly Journal of Economics notes:
In his classic, A Study of War, Wright (1942) devotes a chapter to the relationship between war and resources. Another classic reference, Statistics of Deadly Quarrels by Richardson (1960),extensively discusses economic causes of war, including the control of “sources of essential commodities.”A large literature pioneered by Homer-Dixon (1991, 1999) argues that scarcity of various environmental resources is a major cause of conflict and resource wars (see Toset, Gleditsch, and Hegre 2000, for empirical evidence).
***
In the War of the Pacific (1879–1884), Chile fought against a defensive alliance of Bolivia and Peru for the control of guano [i.e. bird poop] mineral deposits. The war was precipitated by the rise in the value of the deposits due to their extensive use in agriculture.
***
Westing (1986) argues that many of the wars in the twentieth century had an important resource dimension. As examples he cites the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962), the Six Day War (1967), and the Chaco War (1932–1935). More recently, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 was a result of the dispute over the Rumaila oil field. In Resource Wars (2001), Klare argues that following the end of the Cold War, control of valuable natural resources has become increasingly important, and these resources will become a primary motivation for wars in the future.
Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan (and many world leaders) admitted that the Iraq war was really about oil, and former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill says that Bush planned the Iraq war before 9/11. And see this and this. Libya, Syria, Iran and Russia are all oil-producing countries as well …
Indeed, we’ve extensively documented that the wars in the Middle East and North Africa are largely about oil and gas. The war in Gaza may be no exception. And see this. And Ukraine may largely be about gas as well.
And James Quinn and Charles Hugh Smith say we’re running out of all sorts of resources … which will lead to war.
Central Banking and Currency Wars
We’re in the middle of a global currency war – i.e. a situation where nations all compete to devalue their currencies the most in order to boost exports. Brazilian president Rousseff said in 2010:
The last time there was a series of competitive devaluations … it ended in world war two.
Jim Rickards agrees:
Currency wars lead to trade wars, which often lead to hot wars. In 2009, Rickards participated in the Pentagon’s first-ever “financial” war games. While expressing confidence in America’s ability to defeat any other nation-state in battle, Rickards says the U.S. could get dragged into “asymmetric warfare,” if currency wars lead to rising inflation and global economic uncertainty.
As does billionaire investor Jim Rogers:
Trade wars always lead to wars.
Given that China, Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa have joined together to create a $100 billion bank based in China, and that more and more trades are being settled in Yuan or Rubles – instead of dollars – the currency war is quickly heating up.
Indeed, many of America’s closest allies are joining China’s effort … which is challenging America and the Dollar’s hegemony.
Multi-billionaire investor Hugo Salinas Price says:
What happened to [Libya’s] Mr. Gaddafi, many speculate the real reason he was ousted was that he was planning an all-African currency for conducting trade. The same thing happened to him that happened to Saddam because the US doesn’t want any solid competing currency out there vs the dollar. You know Gaddafi was talking about a gold dinar.
Senior CNBC editor John Carney noted:
Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power? It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era.
Robert Wenzel of Economic Policy Journal thinks the central banking initiative reveals that foreign powers may have a strong influence over the rebels.
This suggests we have a bit more than a ragtag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences. “I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising,” Wenzel writes.
Indeed, some say that recent wars have really been about bringing all countries into the fold of Western central banking.
Debt
Martin Armstrong argued that war plans against Syria are really about debt and spending:
The Syrian mess seems to have people lining up on Capital Hill when sources there say the phone calls coming in are overwhelmingly against any action. The politicians are ignoring the people entirely. This suggests there is indeed a secret agenda to achieve a goal outside the discussion box. That is most like the debt problem and a war is necessary to relief the pressure to curtail spending.
The same logic applies to Ukraine and other countries.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Kyle Bass writes:
Trillions of dollars of debts will be restructured and millions of financially prudent savers will lose large percentages of their real purchasing power at exactly the wrong time in their lives. Again, the world will not end, but the social fabric of the profligate nations will be stretched and in some cases torn. Sadly, looking back through economic history, all too often war is the manifestation of simple economic entropy played to its logical conclusion. We believe that war is an inevitable consequence of the current global economic situation.
Runaway Inequality
Paul Tudor Jones – founder of the Tudor Investment Corporation and the Tudor Group, which trade in the fixed-income, equity, currency and commodity markets – said this week:
This gap between the 1 percent and the rest of America, and between the US and the rest of the world, cannot and will not persist.
Historically, these kinds of gaps get closed in one of three ways: by revolution, higher taxes or wars.
And see this.
Distraction
Billionaire investor Jim Rogers notes:
A continuation of bailouts in Europe could ultimately spark another world war, says international investor Jim Rogers.
***
“Add debt, the situation gets worse, and eventually it just collapses. Then everybody is looking for scapegoats. Politicians blame foreigners, and we’re in World War II or World War whatever.”
Economist and investment manager Marc Faber says that the American government will start new wars in response to the economic crisis:
Martin Armstrong – who has managed multi-billion dollar sovereign investment funds – wrote in August:
Our greatest problem is the bureaucracy wants a war. This will distract everyone from the NSA and justify what they have been doing. They need a distraction for the economic decline that is coming.
War Is Destroying Our National Security, Our Democracy and Our Economy
We spent trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yet a top Pentagon official say we’re no safer – and perhaps less safe – after 13 years of war. Indeed, war only PROMOTED the dramatic expansion of even worse terrorists.
Never-ending wars are also destroying our democratic republic. The Founding Fathers warned against standing armies, saying that they destroy freedom. (Update). Perversely, our government treats anti-war sentiment as terrorism.
The Founding Fathers – and the father of free market capitalism – also warned against financing wars with debt. But according to Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, the U.S. debt for the Iraq war could be as high as $5 trillion dollars (or $6 trillion dollars according to a study by Brown University.)
Indeed, top economists say that war is destroying our economy.
But war is great for the bankers and the defense contractors. And – as discussed above – governments are desperate for war.
So it’s up to us – the people – to stop wider war.
Plantagenet on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 12:03 pm
I don’t know who writes “Washington’s blog” but he must be an utter moron to claim that “China lacks….territorial ambitions.”
China is aggressively moving to enforce its huge territorial claims in the westernmost Padific—CHina claims ALL the seafloor—right up to the coastlines of the Philippines.
China also claims all of Russian Siberia—right up to the Ural Mountains.
http://chinadailymail.com/2014/07/05/why-china-will-reclaim-siberia/
Don on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 12:32 pm
“China lacks the Kaiser’s territorial ambitions.” I just showed that to my Indian colleague, he got a good laugh.
As for us in the US, we’ve really got nothing to worry about, our dear leader is a Nobel laureate. He would never take us to war unless it was a war for peace.
Plantagenet on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 12:49 pm
God point Don—I forget India’s territorial claims and attacks on India in Kashmir.
But of course there is no chance of another wa involving the USr with obama steering the ship of state (not counting his wars in Libya, Iraq and Syria, of course)
GregT on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 1:41 pm
Obama is not steering the ship planter. Obama is shovelling coal into the boilers. He is doing exactly what he is being told to do.
Rodster on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 1:46 pm
“Trade wars, currency wars, world wars. When all else fails they take you to war”
– Gerald Celente
GregT on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 1:57 pm
“I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create money. And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of their hand the destiny of the people.”
Reginald McKenna, as Chairman of the Midland Bank, addressing stockholders in 1924
GregT on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 1:58 pm
“If my sons did not want wars, there would be none.”
Gutle Schnaper, wife of Mayer Amschel Rothschild and mother of his five sons
GregT on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 2:01 pm
“All Wars are Bankers Wars”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfEBupAeo4
GregT on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 2:15 pm
“Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – One World, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”
David Rockefeller- from his book ‘Memoirs’, page 405
penury on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 2:31 pm
Is there anyone out there that has not known for the last year at least that the aim of the U.S. is war? Any sane person who reads the propaganda in our media or watches TV knows what the agenda is/ NATO in the person of Breedlove, the State Dept in the person of Nuland or Pasaki or the U.N knows tha without a doubt war is the aim of this administration, if it were not these war mongers would have been sent packing a long time ago. Why do you think the U.S. financed the Maiden riots in Ukraine anyway? When Krugman and the rest of the Econoists started saying that what we needed to cure our economy was a war larger than WWII you knew what was coming.
GregT on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 3:12 pm
“Is there anyone out there that has not known for the last year at least that the aim of the U.S. is war? ”
Indoctrination includes national identity. It is very difficult for individuals to break free from this indoctrination, as it has been hammered into their heads from a very young age. To admit to themselves that their nation is in the wrong, conflicts with their own personal identity. Cognitive dissonance. The propagandists are very well versed in psychology. For anyone that never bought into the indoctrination to begin with, it is very easy to see what is going on. For those that identify themselves with their owner’s flags, not so much.
Plantagenet on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 3:29 pm
@ GregT
Your “owner” has a flag? What? Has someone enslaved you?
How can we help you? Can we buy your freedom or refer your case to one of the charities who buys slaves out of slavery?
I suggest you immediately contact the following organization for help:
http://csi-usa.org/slave_liberation.html
GregT on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 3:35 pm
It is very obvious planter, that once again, you have absolutely no clue of what you are talking about.
As the saying goes; “You can’t fix stupid.”
BobInget on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 3:42 pm
The sharpest split is between the US, which had proposed a scheme for a phased lifting of UN sanctions in return for concrete Iranian actions to limit its nuclear programme, and France, which wants to offer only a symbolic easing of the punitive measures imposed over the past decade.
Diplomats say the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, telephoned the French delegation in Lausanne to ensure it did not make further concessions, and to insist that the bulk of UN sanctions could only be lifted if Iran gave a full explanation of evidence suggesting it may have done development work on nuclear warhead design in the past.
“We have been negotiating with Iran for 12 [years]. We shouldn’t be rushed into an agreement which will have to be comprehensive,” the French UN envoy, Gerard Araud, tweeted during the talks. “For France, any agreement to be acceptable will have to give concrete guarantees on all issues. We won’t bypass any of them.”
The French position is unacceptable to the Iranians, who argue they would never be able to prove a negative, and disprove evidence of a weapons programme they say is forged.
“They don’t like it. They say it’s a deal-breaker. They don’t want it at all,” said a European diplomat involved in the talks. But the diplomat added there was “no way” France would relax its position.
The US offer on sanctions is to lift UN sanctions in layers in return each “irreversible” step Iran makes to scale down and limit its nuclear programme. There would be mechanisms in place by which sanctions would “spring back” if Iran violated the agreement, without the need for consensus in the UN security council. It is broadly supported by the UK and Germany, while Russia and China, the other members of the six-nation group, would offer more generous terms.
Tehran is reluctant to accept sanctions relief based on milestones, but diplomats say the French position would be a complete deal-breaker. They say the Iranians would be very unlikely to admit past weapons work, which if revealed would demonstrate that the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, had misled the world. Better, US diplomats argue, to focus on limiting the current Iranian programme and worry about allegations about the past a few years down the road.
US and French officials have also clashed in Lausanne over contrasting briefings their delegations have provided to the press.
“Either there are real differences between the American and French positions or the French are posturing here in a way that is not helpful. So this meeting on Saturday will be helpful if it lets the Americans and French settle their differences,” said Reza Marashi, the research director at the National Iranian American Council.
“Either the French are going to have to budge or the Americans are. But if the Americans budge that increases the likelihood that the Iranians are not going to be able to get to yes as an answer.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/20/iran-nuclear-talks-adjourn-amid-sanctions-rift-between-us-and-france
If you are wondering why the French are taking such a harsh stance, here is a view in English taken from the local French press, the source they mention is credible:
French leaders think the U.S. president is dangerously naïve on Iran’s ambitions, and that his notion of making Iran an “objective ally” in the war against ISIS, or even a partner, together with Putin’s Russia, to find a political solution to the Syrian crisis, is both far-fetched and “amateurish.”
When Claude Angéli says that both France’s Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, and its President, François Hollande, have told friends that they rely on “the support of the US Congress” to prevent Obama from giving in to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, it is the kind of quote you can take to the bank.
French diplomats worry that if Iran gets nuclear weapons, every other local Middle East power will want them. Among their worst nightmares is a situation in which Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia join the Dr. Strangelove club.
French diplomats may not like Israel, but they do not believe that the Israelis would use a nuclear device except in a truly Armageddon situation for Israel. As for Egypt, Saudi Arabia or Turkey going nuclear, however, they see terrifying possibilities: irresponsible leaders, or some ISIS-type terrorist outfit, could actually use them. In other words, even if they would never express it as clearly as that, they see Israelis as “like us,” but others potentially as madmen.
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5391/france-iran-talks#.VQxdKSepRZw.twitter
The French position may also have another aspect to it, France has a strong relationship with Saudi Arabia and many Arab countries in general. Saudi Arabia awarded France a $3B dollar deal last November to arm the Lebanese army to make it a viable force against Hezbollah: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/04/mideast-crisis-lebanon-arms-idUSL6N0SU3TX20141104,
France can win on multiple fronts if it blocks a deal.
BobInget on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 3:49 pm
As I’ve written in the past, exploding nuclear infrastructure with conventional weapons is tantamount to nuclear war. (lost of ‘dirty bombs’)
Poster’s note:
I did not write above paragraphs.
This little article with far larger implications is authored by ‘Nawar’
http://www.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp?mb=4288&mn=173311&pt=msg&mid=14781279
Rodster on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 3:53 pm
According to Paul Craig Roberts:
“Washington has sent Victoria Nuland to Armenia to organize a “color revolution” or coup there, has sent Richard Miles as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan to do the same there, and has sent Pamela Spratlen as ambassador to Uzbekistan to purchase that government’s allegiance away from Russia. The result would be to break up the Collective Security Treaty Organization and present Russia and China with destabilization where they can least afford it.”
GregT on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 3:53 pm
It would be very difficult for the West to continue to murder hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, and to continue to destabilize the ME, if the people of the Middle East were capable of fighting back. Nuclear weapons are a deterrent. Every country knows that deploying them means certain annihilation, except for the one country that has actually used them on a civilian population. They continue to goad the other world superpower into a war that will end very badly for everyone on this planet.
BobInget on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 3:58 pm
Our best hope at this point is for Russia to step up to the plate, offer off site U reprocessing,
plus a nuclear umbrella for Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Venezuela and Syria.
Plantagenet on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 4:03 pm
@GregT
1. So that slavery thing is working out pretty good for you then?
OK, If you like what you call your “owner” thats up to you. Sounds like a bad case of the “Stockholm Syndrome” to me, but If you’re not willing to help yourself then so be it.
2. Your contention that the “West” is continuing to “murder hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians” is ridiculous. Obama himself clears the drone targets to make sure that there isn’t too much collateral damage. And the targets of the drone attacks—people in ISIS and Al Qaeda, are legally killed in accordance with declarations of war made by the US Congress.
Cheers!
Apneaman on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 4:04 pm
Lil Planter was a full time glutster
Crying BAU ain’t losing it’s luster
Thought he was being slier
Than a typical corny denier
But Glut Glut Glut was all he could muster
GregT on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 4:09 pm
Our best hope at this point would be to take back our countries from the globalist banker and corporate elite.
End the FED.
Plantagenet on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 4:14 pm
@apnea
You must suffer from apnea, since you understand so little.
I’ve never called for BAU. I’ve never denied the reality of Peak Oil
You are either lying or a dope.
Cheers!
GregT on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 4:18 pm
@lil planter
1. I’m out of here in less than two months. I plan on buffering myself from the system as much as possible. I will be removing my ‘investments’ and ‘retirement funds’ from the grasps of our masters before they have the chance to further erode my savings, or confiscate them entirely.
2. “are legally killed in accordance with declarations of war made by the US Congress” You have outdone yourself yet again planter. That is without a doubt the most ignorant statement that I have read from you yet. You are one seriously deranged individual.
American Idiot on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 4:53 pm
Everything’s pointing to Putin to show some maturity among brain-dead monkeys.
I just hope he doesn’t blink and take the bait.
Makati1 on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 6:38 pm
An good article consolidating what I have been saying for months. A shooting world war is coming and to a neighborhood near you, not in some 3rd world country thousands of miles away. The UFSA government wants it so bad they no longer have diplomats, just war mongers, in the State Department. A country who’s only exports are war materials, ‘Charmin’ currency and lies cannot survive in a world of peace.
Does your refuge have a bomb shelter? Duck and cover!
Apneaman on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 6:41 pm
Lil Planter
I put Apnea as the first part of my handle and you have deduced that I have the sleep disorder know as “Sleep Apnea”? Your fucking brilliant Shurlock! Why it’s almost as if it was spelled out for you.
Since you brought medical disorders into it, let’s talk about you having one of the autism spectrum disorder. I’m guessing Asperger’s syndrome based on patterns you exhibit.
Solarity on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 8:09 pm
IMHO, the scariest parallel comparing today with past conditions which led to war is a world leader intent on securing peace in his time (until the end of his term in office; see Neville Chamberlain). History seems to have proven that this formula guarantees war in the future.
welch on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 9:47 pm
Half the people in that article have been predicting world war for the better part of a decade. Just sayiin’. Anyway, what can you do besides vote and protest? It’s goingvto be a beautiful spring weekend.I’m going fishing.
Apneaman on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 9:51 pm
What other historical examples/leaders do you have that demonstrate this “formula”?
Apneaman on Fri, 20th Mar 2015 9:54 pm
The opposite of Neville Chamberlain was Adolf Hitler. How did that “formula” work out?
PrestonSturges on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 12:06 am
What a steaming load of neocon bullshit.
Northwest Resident on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 12:20 am
I keep saying it, and I’m going to say it again. There will be no war with Russia. Ukraine, the sanctions, the beating war drums, all the rhetoric — it is all just scripted performance, a show for the masses, one big world class propaganda campaign.
The real goal as I’ve asserted many times is to drive Europe and Russia closer together — to force them to realign their trade and security agreements with each other, to wean them from American economic and security assurances.
And why would they do this? Because, in the world we’re heading into, international trade as it currently exists is going to cease to exist. America is not going to have an international military presence for a whole lot longer — too expensive, not enough gas to power it, and there will be plenty of problems right here on the American continent to keep what military and security we do have preoccupied with issues much closer to home.
Here it is, another act in the scripted performance:
Vladimir Putin Proposes “Eurasian” Currency Union
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-20/vladimir-putin-proposes-eurasian-currency-union
Makati1 on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 1:35 am
NWR, you can only dream that your scenario is the correct one. War is the last gasp of a failing empire. This one will be nuclear. You can pretend that the psychos in DC are not going to get their way but you are betting your life on it.
WW1 began with a relatively unimportant assassination by an indoctrinated teenager. WW2 started because, after WW1, the West created a climate in Germany that Hitler could use to come to power. WW3 is going to come about by the same West wanting to keep their power and wealth at ALL costs. How many hot points are they beating the drums of war in today? Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, etc.
WW3 could be over in less than 24 hours. Will Russia strike first, Israel, or the Empire? Only a total collapse of the world economy and financial system can prevent it. I see a hot summer in the works.
Kenjamkov on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 3:23 am
One small difference between 1914 and today, 19 000 nukes.
Davy on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 6:40 am
NR, War pigs will practice their arts which is war. There is a fine line between training and practice then war. There is a fine line between a skirmishes, battle, then full blown war. As we seen yesterday on this forum with the feverish feeding frenzy of the anti-Americans. You get more than two together and they start talking and acting as bad as the bad guys. That is how war works. It is a snow ball and it is self-fulfilling.
We have the anti-Americans on here tell us how much a victim Russia is. It is OK if Russia is being militarist now, you know, they are threatened. Putin was so tough claiming he had his NUK force readied. That is great for national consumption but demonstrates what a dangerous man he is. Putin is honest and wants peace I hear. Cat Piss, Putin did not get to the top with all his riches being honest. You Putin lovers are so deceived. Putin sounds so like Hitler’s war tone in WWII. No, Putin is not Hitler but he is a one man country like Hitler and he is practicing the arts of Hitler. He is obviously a tough guy wanna be. I think he has a short guy complex so he acts tough with the shirt off and the Judo. He loves to be seen with guns hunting and being macho macho man.
The neocons globalist NWO folks in DC are worse because they are a pack of thieves in a powerful den. The thing about DC though there are power centers and not all are war motivated. Like NR mentioned many see no gain with the foreign adventures. There is a strong streak of isolationism in America especially with ordinary people that see no gain it for them. The anti-Americans give these folks no space in their steady diet of agenda. It is all about the bad and never any good of America.
This is what an agendist does and this is the selective fact usage of propaganda. Propaganda has to use truth to promote lies. These anti-Americans are playing the same game by excessive extremist views of the people that are likewise extremists. This is what builds war up to a feverish pitch with excitement and fantasy of a win.
War is at best a gamble for any party. Just because you have advantage in numbers of position physical or abstract is no guarantee of a win. As short said and I have said BAU is finished with war cold are hot. This current cold war will destroy BAU on a slower time frame. A hot war will be a swift death. Global JIT and distribution will quickly break down with a contagion effects of disruptions that will render all locals globally exposed and in crisis. Food insecurity and social unrest will be within a few weeks.
I see the Russian people as more animated towards nationalism now than the Americans that are more interested in isolationism. The American public could give a shit about Ukraine and the rest of the world for that matter. We live a local life here. It is a big country to get lost in. It is only the neocon globalist NWO pigs pushing this global ambition. They are doing this with the reluctant support of the public because there is no price being paid. What until a price is paid and then let’s see the support.
The pentagon is reluctantly going along being torn by militarists and realists. It is the realists military folks that have been experiencing the deaths they know about tar babies. The American MIC is lovin it and pushing it. The global MIC for that matter loves it. The umber 2 and 3 MIC nation are Russia and China. You can be sure their fascist military industrialist love the war rhetoric. War is a growth business for MIC folks.
Yea, we have the build up to what has always been the prelude to war. This Mag article uses the worn out WWI analogies. This is just how war has always been and will be. It is the human nature of snowball of the complain then blame game that ratchets up to the rock throwing then the clubbing. Blood eventually gets shed then people look back on it and say how frig stupid was that after the destruction.
We are at a dangerous front on all fronts not just the geopolitical. I am hoping we have a BAU wide crisis soon so focus is on economic crisis. If this happens I doubt there will be war because the resources will dry up for it. We were not interconnected then like today. Like Short said this is not WWII with a huge industrial inventory of resources around. Sure more weapons now but much less of the energy to run them. The complexity of BAU will end quickly rendering vital resources stranded. Economies will seize up quickly putting a stop to the war pigs. I can only hope this happens before a shooting war.
Northwest Resident on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 1:29 pm
Thieves fight and steal from each other until a strong outside force threatens to destroy them all. Then they band together for as long as it takes to survive the common threat. The band of thieves are the nation states. The strong outside force that threatens them all is peak oil combined with the entire list of dire consequences that come with it. There is NOT enough energy (oil) to fight any kind of a major war. Makati1 of course feels certain that TPTB will all just simultaneously give in to the urge to let the nukes fly, but that POV derives from Mak’s twisted frame of reference, not from a logical appraisal. Big wars have always been fought for profit, for plunder, for glory, with a million justifications that obscured the true reasons. The world is just about out of gas, and there is no more plunder or glory to be had — just hanging on to what one has. There will be war and plenty of it, no doubt, but those wars will not be WWII scale wars with tanks and battleships and thousands of sorties. They will be local, light infantry, putting down rebellions, trying to keep the starving hoards at bay, that sort of thing. For now, the big players are banding together, clearly seeing that there is no sense and no profit in major war, and realizing that their only chance of long term survival is trying to work together. Europe, Russia, China — the whole Eurasian continent is going to go its own way sooner or later, and they best get going on learning to live and trade and provide common security on their own. That’s what we see happening, though it is not apparent. That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.
BobInget on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 1:35 pm
First, let’s get a handle on what a ‘world war’ truly is, in the 21st century.
Here’s a recent definition:
world war
noun
a war involving many large nations in all different parts of the world. The name is commonly given to the wars of 1914–18 and 1939–45, although only the second of these was truly global.
To throw a global world war we need tangible enemies and some terrible affront to our ‘homeland.’
Our ‘enemies’ are those who would block
steady, cheap oil supply for Americans. That fact reminds of Florida Governor (Rick Scott) who forbid the use of certain climate terminology that might have a negative impact impact on Florida’s economy. (don’t mention it and ‘it’ will go away)
Not mentioning true reasons for a world
(resource) wars dooms success.
Today,dozens of SMALLER nations in torment,
while larger, more powerful pull strings.
Most easily exemplified in and around the ME
and North Africa.
(Libya, South Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Iraqis are doing the suffering) Here’s a question:
How many times in recent news bulletins, discussions, do we ever hear any mention of ‘motive’? All we hear about are religious, racial and perhaps economic inequality as casus belli.
Today, it appears Iran emerged as the primary
power in the ME. Will Saudi Arabia and Israel
tolerate DIRECT confrontation with Iran? OR
continue as before using proxy forces.
As we revel in our ‘oil glut’ few suspect
our friends and allies efforts to involve the USA
in a continuation of endless Mideast war.
GregT on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 1:51 pm
No matter how it is spun by the ‘historians’:
“All Wars are Bankers Wars”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfEBupAeo4
They could give a crap about resources, or their debt slaves. They have been playing this game for a very long time. Long before oil and gas, and long before the industrial revolution. The only enemies, are those that threaten the Bankers’ control over the masses.
“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.” -James Madison
“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes… Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.” – Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, 1815
BobInget on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 2:03 pm
The US is withdrawing its military personal from a base in Yemen because of increasing insecurity there, Yemeni sources say.
About 100 troops, including special forces commandos, are leaving al-Anad air base near the southern city of al-Houta, the officials said.
The city was stormed by al-Qaeda fighters on Friday, although they were later driven out by the Yemeni army.
The US military has not confirmed the evacuation.
It comes a day after suicide bombers killed at least 137 people in the capital Sanaa. Militants allied to Islamic State (IS) said they carried out the attack.
There are mounting tensions between various powerful, armed elements in Yemen, including Houthi rebels, al-Qaeda and IS.
Driven back
US troops at al-Anad air base have been training Yemeni fighters to launch attacks against al-Qaeda operatives.
On Friday, al-Qaeda fighters took control of al-Houta, near to the airbase. But the militants were later driven back by the army.
The US closed its embassy in Sanaa in February after Houthi rebel forces took over the city.
Makati1 on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 9:01 pm
FYI:
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/20/a-family-business-of-perpetual-war/
” Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan have a great mom-and-pop business going. From the State Department, she generates wars and – from op-ed pages – he demands Congress buy more weapons. There’s a pay-off, too, as grateful military contractors kick in money to think tanks where other Kagans work, writes Robert Parry.”
GregT on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 11:30 pm
“U.S. urges allies to think twice before joining China-led bank”
“The United States urged countries on Tuesday to think twice about signing up to a new China-led Asian development bank that Washington sees as a rival to the World Bank, after Germany, France and Italy followed Britain in saying they would join.”
“European Union and Asian governments are frustrated that the U.S. Congress has held up a reform of voting rights in the International Monetary Fund that would give China and other emerging powers more say in global economic governance.”
“It’s not an accident that emerging economies are looking at other places because they are frustrated that, frankly, the United States has stalled a very mild and reasonable set of reforms in the IMF,” Lew said.”
“The reforms would double the fund’s resources and hand more IMF voting power to countries such as the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/france-germany-italy-join-china-002209014.html
Will Wall Street go down gently, or will they kick start another global war? My bet is on War. It has already begun.