Lessons Of History - World War III Could Be Coming

World War I and II did not start in a day.  Both wars were many years in coming until one day there was a spark that turned Cold War into Hot War.  As a former history teacher, I see the parallels with what is happening prior to the two World Wars with the Russian invasion of Ukraine today.  And, there are definitely two opposing sides that now exist.  The West led by the United States; but also including Israel, Australia, Japan, South Korea and perhaps India would be allied against the evil Axis powers of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.  So for the most part, it is democracies allied against dictatorships all with nuclear weapons.  

It is highly unlikely that the invasion of Ukraine can be contained because of actions both sides are taking today.  Sanctions and Cyber Terrorism are acts of war.  Putin has announced that under no circumstances would Russia tolerate Sweden or Finland joining NATO when in fact both countries especially Finland seeing what is happening in Ukraine might very well want to seek the protection of NATO.  China seeing a successful invasion of Ukraine if it turns out well for Russia will be emboldened to attack Taiwan.  It is no coincidence that Taiwan Semiconductor, the largest semiconductor company in the world is investing $35 Billion in five plants in Peoria, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix.  They must assume that one day Communist China will invade Taiwan so they are hedging their bets and production outside of Taiwan.  

The sanctions placed on Russia and their leadership will do great damage to the Russian economy.  The Russians are likely to respond with cyber terrorism since they cannot place meaningful sanctions on Western countries.  About the best they can do to hurt the economies of European countries is to redirect their oil and gas to China, which is likely.  Assuming Joe Biden stops being an idiot, which may not be possible, the United States can produce enough oil and gas to replace anything lost from Russia so that move alone would not be very effective.  Instead, the Russians will use cyber terrorism to shut down Western economies in response to our crippling sanctions.  If that happens, the United States will respond in kind.  We can turn off the lights in Moscow and every other city in Russia.  

Cyber terrorism is just as bad as nuclear war; and when it happens it could very well lead to nuclear war.  If Russia invades any NATO country, the US would be forced to use nuclear weapons against Russia because there are not enough troops on the ground to stop a Russian invasion.  One way or another cruise missiles would have to fly hitting targets in Russia and then all bets are off.  We are seeing a lot of things happening that preceded World War I and II except that now cyber terrorism and nuclear weapons are part of the picture.  History is always the best teacher.  It sure looks like history is being repeated.  Let’s just hope that leaders on all sides are smart enough to stop what could be coming.  Joe Biden is not the right leader for these times.