Backing into world war iii
Both regard the United States as the principal obstacle to their ambitions, and therefore both seek to weaken the American-led international security order that stands in the way of their achieving what they regard as their rightful destinies. As autocracies, both feel threatened by the dominant democratic powers in the international system and by the democracies on their borders. Both Beijing and Moscow seek to redress what they regard as an unfair distribution of power, influence, and honor in the U.S.-led postwar global order. For Russia, it means hegemonic influence in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, which Moscow has traditionally regarded as either part of its empire or part of its sphere of influence. That includes American influence withdrawn to the eastern Pacific, behind the Hawaiian Islands. For China, that means dominance of East Asia, with countries like Japan, South Korea, and the nations of Southeast Asia both acquiescing to Beijing’s will and acting in conformity with China’s strategic, economic, and political preferences. Both seek to restore the hegemonic dominance they once enjoyed in their respective regions. Although both have never enjoyed greater security from foreign powers than they do today-Russia from its traditional enemies to the west, China from its traditional enemy in the east-they are dissatisfied with the current global configuration of power. Are we three years away from a global crisis, or 15? That we are somewhere on that path, however, is unmistakable.Ĭhina and Russia are classic revisionist powers. The apparent calm of the postwar 1920s became the crisis-ridden 1930s and then another world war. Where exactly we are in this classic scenario today, how close the trend lines are to that intersection point is, as always, impossible to know. The most devastating war in history came four years later. In the first decade of the 20th century, the world’s smartest minds predicted an end to great-power conflict as revolutions in communication and transportation knit economies and people closer together.
The late 18th century was the high point of the Enlightenment in Europe, before the continent fell suddenly into the abyss of the Napoleonic Wars. History shows that world orders do collapse, however, and when they do it is often unexpected, rapid, and violent. And according to their Supreme Leader, Iran is not desirous of nuclear weapons, for he has said that even "the production, possession, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons are illegitimate, futile, harmful, dangerous and prohibited as a great sin." If we are thus serious about the Non-Proliferation Treaty which Iran has signed, I'd personally like to see a nuclear weapon-free zone across the Middle East, which would mean accounting for the Israeli arsenal.Americans tend to take the fundamental stability of the international order for granted, even while complaining about the burden the United States carries in preserving that stability.
The Iranian people, like the American people, are reasonable, but proud if they believe in a right to nuclear capabilities, it is because they feel they have the same national right as do the Israelis or Pakistanis, both of whom have already weaponized the region.