By Sergio Rodriguez
Several readers have written to me, asking whether a third world war is imminent and inevitable. The dilemma established with the beginning of the nuclear age after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 has always been present. But today, it has been brought to the forefront of public concern of citizens of all parts of the world more than ever before in the last 80 years.
The truth is that that old notion becomes fully valid: One cannot know how the third world war will begin, but it is certain that the fourth will be fought with sticks and stones. The rationality that has indicated – since 1945 – that a new world war will necessarily lead to the use of atomic weapons, most likely meaning the end of the human species on the planet, has induced a rationality that has compelled us to avoid such a type of conflagration. During the Cold War, a logic of mutual containment prevailed that allowed the world to be kept away from such a possibility.
But the end of that period, the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the bipolar world and the unbridled triumphalism unleashed in the West after that idea that “history had ended”, has led the world to a phase of skepticism that has been escalating in the measure of the failure of capitalism as an instrument to generate stability and development on the planet. On the contrary, humanity has been headed towards an era in which the prolegomena of the end of Western hegemony and the United States, its main representative, seem to be manifesting themselves.
All of this exposes a situation of high uncertainty to the extent that the United States – as has been natural in the past with other powers – resists its decline and does so with the instruments at its disposal, the main of which is its military power, used as a tool of threat, blackmail, aggression, intervention, war, conflict, murder and death.
One can assume that rationality will eventually prevail, and the destructive specter of thermonuclear war will not occur. Unfortunately, the signals sent from the West in this regard are not encouraging. On the horizon of American and European leadership, there is a panorama of mediocrity, stupidity and ignorance that is sometimes frightening. These “qualities” taken together are what Professor Sergei A. Karaganov, honorary president of the Russian Foreign and Defense Policy Council, calls “strategic parasitism,” characterized by Western elites’ loss of the senses of history and self-preservation.
The facts point in that direction. When the United States Congress approved a budget of almost 100 billion dollars to escalate conflicts worldwide, they were pointing to the need to safeguard their economy – in crisis for more than 40 years – in the only way they can do: Trying to revive their main industry, weapons, for which they need wars or at least conflict in the world. Some will wonder what crisis I am talking about when on the contrary, what is observed is a wonderful reality of red carpets, long dresses, luxurious yachts and expensive jewelry that the imperial media transmits as an expression of the success of the system. In this regard, I am referring to the fact that all of this helps to cover the plight of an economy that has been sustained since the 1980s through the issuance of inorganic dollars that have flooded the world.
Clausewitz noted: “War is the continuation of politics by violent means.” In turn, Lenin said that politics is the concentrated expression of the economy”, from which it can be clearly deduced that all war pursues economic objectives. In this case, I repeat, it is about saving the United States and the capitalist economy from collapse.
This package of around 100 billion dollars is clearly aimed at generating conflicts and unleashing wars: US$ 61 billion for Ukraine (against Russia), US$26 for Israel (against Iran) and US$8.1 for Taiwan (against China). Three conflicts that the West is ostensibly losing without any certain possibilities of reversal being observed.
In the case of Ukraine, Russia is clearly advancing its plans, “slowly but surely.” It is not possible to imagine what Kyiv can achieve with the 61 billion, after it has already got 200 billion dollars in two years and had 500 thousand more combatants than today. (By the way, the amount they get is actually 25, because the rest will stay in the United States.) Ukraine today lacks the main mass of combatants, officers and soldiers who are experienced, young and with fervor patriotic. Zelenskyy has sent 500 thousand combatants to their deaths, just to satisfy the American Military Industrial Complex and European stupidity.
When we talk about irrationality, I am referring precisely to that: To the 500 thousand young Ukrainians senselessly sacrificed, although other examples can also be given. Let’s see:
- Germany gave up supporting its economy based on the cheap energy provided by Russia. It preferred to destroy its industry and subject its citizens to a huge increase in their fuel costs. Meanwhile, it became complicit in the destruction of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline (built by a German company) and then continued paying insurance coverage for that gas pipeline, since it is contractually obligated.
- While maintaining a deeply anti-Russian discourse and assuming sanctions against Moscow as a banner, Spain today imports almost double the gas from Russia than before February 2022. That is, while in 2021, 37,027 gigawatt hours of Russian natural gas arrived in Spain, in 2023 they obtained 72,690 GWh – practically the double.
- In 2022, the then Prime Minister of Latvia Krisjanis Karins, a country of 64.5 thousand km² and 1.8 million inhabitants that has an armed force of 5,500 regular troops and 8,500 in the reserve, emboldened by its membership in NATO, made a call to defeat Russia militarily as the only way to achieve peace.
- At the same time (between Sunday, May 26 and Tuesday, May 28), while Israel carried out new massacres in Gaza, causing almost 200 deaths and 500 injuries to add to the more than 36 thousand deaths and 81 thousand injuries that the Nazi Zionist invasion has occurred since last October 7, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby opined that nothing had happened to prompt the United States to withdraw US military aid to Israel because this country had not yet “crossed the red line.”
- Anyone with a minimum of military knowledge knew that holding a tiny beachhead in the settlement of Krynky on the left bank of the Donetsk River, under Russian sovereignty, and defending the cities of Avdiivvka and Artemivsk (formerly Bakhmut) at all costs, were a total madness from a tactical and operational point of view. The decision of the Ukrainian leadership to do so can only be understood as the need to obtain propaganda objectives at the cost of the unnecessary death of tens of thousands of young Ukrainian soldiers.
- Finally, lacking explanations to refute Russia’s actions in defense of its sovereignty, President Biden concluded that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin “was a crazy son of a bitch.” That is the argumentative level of the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet. We are in your hands.
These are just a few examples of what I call the “mediocrity, stupidity and ignorance” of the current Western leadership. In today’s world, these ingredients are gasoline for the fire of war. I return to Professor Karaganov: “Mass delirium is preventing reason from returning to the West.” Next, the prominent Russian academic asks: “How can the rest of the world deal with this madness? And what can the rest of the world expect?”
During the Second World War, antagonistically opposed from an ideological point of view, the leaders of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin; of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt (Harry Truman after the death of the previous one) and Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom met several times and articulated themselves to defeat Nazi fascism.
Today, that is impossible. On the contrary, given the possibility of reaching a prompt negotiation and an agreement that would have avoided the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, it was the British leader Boris Johnson himself who aborted that contingency after the illusory idea to obtain a military victory against Russia. Closing all possibilities for dialogue and negotiation, a law was passed in Ukraine that considers this alternative as high treason, leaving for Kyiv only the path open to a war with no chance of winning.
Hence, returning to the initial question, in the midst of so much irrationality and mediocrity, there are doubts about the possibility or not of a third world war breaking out. In fact, several Western leaders, in the United States, Europe and Israel, have called for the use of nuclear weapons in the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. Hence, we are not facing an unrealizable chimera.
All that remains is to appeal to the common sense that emanates from the need to avoid the destruction of life on the planet. It seems difficult, but not impossible. Against this, note that, as Karaganov says: “…the intellectual level of most elites has fallen sharply due to changes in moral standards and the deterioration of their higher education system, especially in Europe.”
For now, the task is to resist, to resist and overcome. I conclude once again with Professor Karaganov: “We must learn from each other to live in peace, respect and support each other’s cultures, develop our own culture and promote it around the world. But, above all, we must respect the uniqueness of each people and promote positive intercultural enrichment.” Like him, I am optimistic about the future, although we must be able to avoid a Third World War. “This is our common task.”