“4th Generation war is the greatest change since the Peace of Westphalia, because it marks the end of the State’s monopoly on war. All over the world, State militaries are fighting non-State opponents, and almost always, the State is losing”.
William S. Lind
Director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism
The Timeline.
It all began with the second Iraq War in 2003. It was the result of American hubris when it was the single World Power.
Political scientist Michael J. Mazarr, of the Rand Corporation, a think tank, considers that: The Iraq intervention has “eroded U.S. credibility and legitimacy as an international leader” and calls it “America’s greatest foreign policy tragedy”.
It hit the foundations of the already shaky Middle East.
It was also equally damaging for the American Empire as the defeat of Marcus Licinius Crassus in Carrhae (modern Harran, Turkey), which is 400 miles from Baghdad, was damaging for the Roman Empire.
The second Iraq War named Operation Iraqi Freedom lasted from 2003 to 2010 with battles, bombings, killings, guerillas, terrorism, and the de facto dissolution of Iraq as a functioning State.
According to calculations by Brown University, the war in Iraq alone, and later in Syria, has cost the U.S. nearly $2 trillion to date. Total US spending on the global “war on terror” following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York is approximately $8 trillion.
On 15 October 2006, various Muslim Fundamentalist groups merged to form the Islamic State of Iraq. The whole Middle East became explosive.
Then, in 2008, the Great Financial Crisis came.
The great upheaval caused by this Crisis transformed it into a World Economic and Social crisis that tested many States, even the cohesion of the EU.
In 2009, in his first few days in office, Obama, understanding that this was a no-win game, issued executive orders directing the U.S. military to withdraw troops from Iraq and started distancing the US from the Middle East.
That was fortunate at the time for the US troops as the Arab Spring exploded soon after.
The Arab Spring erupted in armed conflicts that covered most of the Arab world. It started in 2010 and by 2012 it has deposed the rulers of Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen. The upheaval shocked almost all Arab Countries and is still, ongoing in various forms in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Sudan.
The Syrian disaster started as a Civil War in 2011 and after 2013 evolved until today into a full war by proxy.
As this was not enough, the already shaky Geopolitical situation between Russia and the West in Europe exploded.
In 2014 Russia took and annexed, temporarily bloodlessly, Crimea from Ukraine. Europe, at the time, opted for Ostrich behavior.
The United States opted for rigorous training and logistics preparation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The static conflict between Russia and Ukraine lasted until 2021 when it became dynamic.
Putin, feeling, perhaps rightly, that Russia was being encircled by the West, reacted as the useful idiot by swallowing the bait, hook, line and sink, by invading Ukraine militarily, hoping for a quick victory à la Crimea.
An ongoing refugee crisis began in Europe in late February 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Over 8.1 million refugees fleeing Ukraine have been recorded across Europe, while an estimated 8 million others had been displaced within the country by late May 2022.
As the graph below shows the World refugee situation is worsening every year.
The World’s conflicts
According to Geneva Academy, there are in the World at present the following armed conflicts:
In the last 20 years, the World has seen everything. Local Wars, Worldwide Economic Wars, Armed conflicts, Social Upheavals, Pandemics etc.
Only the 3rd WW has been avoided.
Not all of them are equally worrisome but a few can lead to Worldwide confrontations.
The Geopolitical situation at present.
The quasi-solid geopolitical situation of the World that lasted the second half of the 20th Century is being melted again in the crucible of War, to be recast in new shapes.
While it is impossible to predict the final shape of things to come, the tendencies can already be discerned.
The World’s upheaval will last for years to come.
Zbigniew Brzezinski’s view is that “without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire”.
Ukraine may lose some land but it will not be suborned and Russia not only will cease to be an Empire, if it ever was after 1991, but already lost the Baltic since Finland and Sweden joined NATO, which now thus is at Russia’s frontiers. Russia will slowly disintegrate in the post-Putin era, unable to control its Economy, its minorities and its Oligarchs’ lust for Power.
The principal confrontational arena will be Asia, both because of the imperialistic plans of China and also the instability that will be caused in the whole of Central Asia, following Russia’s collapse.
The decline of the West will take decades.
It is incalculable at present the time when the West will definitely decline.
Europe as an entity, will increasingly continue to be internationally irrelevant and geopolitically marginalized.
The emergence of China as the geopolitical equal to the United States is already established.
The increase of Chaos, the 4th Generation War, and the establishment of the new bipole, USA-China.
After the Peace of Westphalia (1648), the State emerged as the single actor that guaranteed internal order and the only one who could make War.
This state of affairs is collapsing now because of the emergence of Private Armies and the weakening of internal order in Western Societies.
From Blackwater in Iraq (2007) to the Wagner Group and other contemporary mercenaries, like those fighting for the UAE in Yemen or those in Nigeria fighting Boko Haram, Private Armies thrive unchallenged.
Prigozhin and Kadyrov, heads of Wagner and Kadyrovites private Armies challenge insultingly and unpunished directly the leadership and functioning of the Russian Armed Forces.
In this Century we saw the unbelievable charge of the mob to occupy the Capitol in Washington during Trump’s coup d’état attempt.
The violence of Police in many Western States and the emerging authoritarian regimes indicate the increasing inability of the State to keep internal Peace, Law, and Order.
All over the World, citizens become more aggressive and violently disobedient to Central or even Local authorities.
The firm establishment of China as the only other World Power other than the US.
In the increasing national and international disorder and the emerging chaos there is only one State which is coherent, with an imposed but relatively successful internal order and a growing Economy and Power, China
China, acting in a less manifestly violent, but equally aggressive way, than the United States, managed to emerge increasingly stronger in the 21st Century in spite of a lot of major difficulties.
Further to its Belt and Road imperial expansion and the politico-economic conquest of Africa, China now is the Principal foreign Power in the whole of the Middle East.
China understands that the number one paragon of State success today is access to data.
90% of internet data pass through cables at the bottom of the sea and all the Asiatic cables pass between China, the Philippines and Malaysia. Control of this sea gives China control of all the Asiatic internet.
Economic Warfare is the new confrontation between China and the U.S.
The great bastion to be attacked is the dollar.
China is methodically attacking it by imposing the Yuan as an international currency in its purchases, particularly in Energy, and by organizing the BRICS to create a new currency to be used in international transactions instead of the dollar.
The big question is how China is going to appropriate the geopolitical void that will be left by the crumbling of Russia.
The first step is already visible. China poses as a strong and trustworthy mediator in the Russia-Ukraine war. It is doing it slowly and if it succeeds to impose a cessation of hostilities then internationally, the US and Russia will be war parties, and China the Peacemaker.
Conclusion
The future of the World depends on the result of the United States – China confrontation which will be decided by very few people.
The World’s elites, frightened, clueless, and doomful, observe the events with short-sighted and egocentric apathy.
There is no reverse on the increasing instability of the World until a great disaster befalls all and the efforts to build a new and better World start again.
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