When Did the New Global War Begin?

This past week, Russia escalated its incursions into European and North American airspace. So far, they have targeted Estonia, Romania, Poland, Denmark and the United States (Alaska).

“Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow”
— T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

In response, Poland invoked Article 4 of NATO – the precursor to a full-out military call-up. Germany announced that their nation was no longer at peace. They stated this as Putin launched a massive conscription drive.

What happens when someone shoots down a jet? Nobody is kidding around anymore.

Meanwhile, in the United States, Donald Trump held an unprecedented gathering of generals where he declared his plan to use American cities as practice zones for the mightiest army the world has ever known.

It was a grim and dark promise of civil war. A war where only one side has the guns and the tanks.

As Trump attempted to win over the impassive faces, he tried to raise their spirits by claiming that he had broken Canada economically and that we would become a vassal state. It raises the obvious question:

If he is willing to send soldiers against San Francisco, why wouldn’t he be willing to send them after Canada?

“Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.”
— T.S. Eliot

So maybe now I can finally pose the question that has been keeping me up at night:

At what point will it become evident that we have entered a global conflict? A third world war?

This is clearly not another 1914 or 1939. However, the obvious differences may blind us to the strong similarities.

In 1914, global powers were attempting to play chess when they were actually playing chicken. The result was that the world stumbled into slaughter. In 1939, it was more methodical with the sudden Blitzkrieg storming across the border.

This new global war is a different beast.

This war is about the future of the democratic world and the rule of law that has existed since 1946. And our team isn’t doing so well.

It is a war for reality itself. One could go back to the Crimean invasion of 2013 and the massive disinformation campaign launched on the world by Putin’s machine—a disinformation storm driven now by the far right and AI Bots.

Once again, “the good guys” are scrambling and disoriented.

This has been a war against the international “rules-based order” and the treaties put in place to limit war crimes and widespread abuse of civilians.

On this front, the West simply capitulated. They fail to understand that we are not dealing with a return to the black and white Cold War but with gangster fiefdoms where the lives of civilians count for little.

The total abdication of the West to Netanyahu’s genocide machine has opened the door to the monsters. If the global war expands on the ground, you can now expect that vicious violence against civilians will become the norm.

Over the past year, I have made multiple comparisons between the current situation and key indicators from the 1930s. I have referenced the fall of Weimar Germany, the Reichstag fire, and the establishment of the first concentration camps in 1933-34, all of which compare with the Trump agenda.

In recent articles, I moved the literary clock to 1938 in describing Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin betraying the people of Ukraine as cynically as the Munich betrayal of Czechoslovakia.

However, this past week in The Guardian, Simon Tisdall advanced the historic clock: “Suddenly it feels a bit 1939.”

Tisdall was writing about how Putin and Trump have basically created a pincer movement against Europe in the same manner as the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement that made possible the Nazi onslaught into Poland.

Tisdall compared the Molotov-Ribbentrop deal to the work of the two gangster oligarchs – Putin and Trump – in carving up the world order and leaving Europe on its own.

There are key differences between then and now.

Hitler and Stalin were both focused on carving up Poland. Putin’s focus since 2013 has been to undermine Europe and break apart the European project. Trump seems more focused on waging war on his own people.

Putin must be howling with laughter.

Has the new world war begun? The bankers are already there.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon is warning bankers to get their heads around the brutal facts: “World War III has already begun. You already have battles on the ground being coordinated in multiple countries. The risk is extraordinary.”

The Russians have been operating on a principle of war by other means since at least 2013. But they, of course, blame the West for starting the war out of desperation. Recently, the Russian International Affairs Council released a report stating boldly that “World War III has already begun.”

These are very dangerous times. Such are the things that keep me up at night. I find myself a Cassandra in my 60s who spent my life believing in peace and disarmament. But this is the age of the monsters. Led by leaders who are little more than hollow men.

I am determined not to accept the fate that Eliot described:

“This is the way the world ends…
Not with a bang but a whimper.”

We need to be kicking at the darkness now more than ever.

Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

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