Before a volcano erupts, there are warnings. The earth shakes, it stinks of sulphur. Cracks appear.
The confrontation between the great powers enters its final phase. The leading media tell us that humanity should have learned a lesson from the twentieth century. There should be no more wars, in the world government (UN, G20, G8, EU, ASEAN, IMF, WTO, …) all countries are working hand in hand for a bright future. Rubbish! If there had been no nuclear weapons, World War III – a massive, mutual attack – would have started long ago. Globalization and world trade have a soporific effect on people’s consciousness. Nuclear weapons, on the other hand, have a sobering effect. Cruise ships sail happy passengers between hostile countries, other huge container ships transport goods on order, even if a stubborn president introduces tariffs once in a while. The world seems so intertwined and united by WTO that any conflict with weapons seems unprofitable and barbaric. Yet, it is the fleets of the great powers that “secure” this peace. Still, the tension between the powers is constantly growing. Have Americans, for instance, resigned themselves to the fact that China is growing like a yeast dough? That the Chinese dragon, fed by outsourced American economics, is slowly but surely swallowing Eurasia? The off-shore balancer always intervened in history when someone threatened his domination. Just as England once fought everyone (Spain, France, Russia, Germany) in Europe to preserve its hegemony on the Old Continent for decades, so too did the US fight Japan in the 1940s to secure its dominance in the Pacific. China is now expanding its influence in Southeast Asia. Australia is responding by buying American nuclear submarines, which were previously unavailable. In this way, the USA is trying to balance the equilibrium in the Pacific region. Australia was originally supposed to get the submarines from France but cancelled the contract and became entangled in the conflict with Paris, as these submarines could not have technically withstood the Chinese ones. Thus, rifts develop between countries that have had peaceful relations for years: France and Australia.
Do you remember the brilliant Japanese General Yamamoto and his famous appearance at the General Staff in Tokyo shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor? He defied his colleagues at the time and flooded them with data (steel production: USA produces 5 times more than us, aluminium production is 10 times larger than that of Japan, etc.), which was an argument for not starting the war against the USA. The decision-makers did not listen, and Yamamoto had to die for his homeland later. Imagine a Chinese general who now, at the end of 2021, wants to convince his colleagues of the superiority of the USA in readiness for war. They would laugh at him. After all, China has long since surpassed the USA in many areas that are most important for waging war. By the way, American weapons are based on electronics, and electronics are semiconductors and microcontrollers. Hence 20,000 US soldiers on Taiwan, where these parts are mainly produced. And ask yourself: how many days would it take China to occupy Taiwan? A new blitzkrieg on the horizon? How quickly can the current state of affairs be overturned?
Saudi Arabia is switching to Russian weapons, which is threatening the dominance of the petrodollar. Russians have been pushing forward for years with their icebreakers and exploration teams in the Arctic to take advantage of global warming to exploit the raw material resources that are there, while the Americans only go there with their nuclear submarines and “deter” them. Americans made themselves independent of Saudi Arabia long ago by switching to shale gas and oil. Afghanistan has therefore become a matter of indifference to them, and they are unlikely to want to intervene in the Persian Gulf unless Israel gets into trouble through direct conflict with Tehran. Alliances are changing and the world is entering new territory.
The earth is seething. There is a smell of powder. Countries maintain their hostile positions: Israel against Iran, Pakistan against India, China against Taiwan, against Vietnam, against Philippines, against South Korea, against India and against Japan (the very number of hostile countries of China should indicate a large-scale conflict), Qatar against Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia against Iran and Yemen, North Korea against all except China and Russia, EU against Russia. The whole UN, which has been unable to change this state of affairs for decades, is not even worth a penny. What if Serbia occupies Kosovo and Erdogan intervenes there? What if the Turkish lira falls and Erdogan, organizes Türkexit from NATO? What if Russians invade Ukraine to deliver it from EU evil and to punch Poland in the nose? Ships still sail across oceans, fleets guard the sea, supermarkets are full, but supply chains are already collapsing since the pandemic. The fault lines are deep, and they are emerging in new places, like the battle for water in spring 2021 between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The seismologists are not warning us and if they are, like on the Spanish island of La Palma, no one wants to believe until the last moment that it is really upon us. The leading media, the analysts, the political and economic experts do not warn us. They reassure us. We fall asleep. Inflation. Shortage of goods. Crisis. That’s for sure. And war? Something hangs in the air. Do you feel it?
