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Preparing for total war
Are we on the way to total war, as the latest issue of 'Foreign Affairs' magazine seems to suggest?
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Removed from power: A person waves a Syrian opposition flag as people celebrate at Masnaa Border Crossing, after Syrian rebels announced they had ousted President Bashar al-Assad, in Lebanon, on Sunday. (Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh)
A
s 2024 draws to a close, we are witnessing a volatile transition to a coming period of escalating conflicts, worsening climate disasters, frightening technology disruption and growing social protests. I was so absorbed by Donald Trump’s presidential victory that I missed the news that the German coalition government has fallen apart.
Politics has become so crazy that South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol declared an unthinking and unthinkable martial law this week, thankfully reversed by the more sensible Korean Parliament. In the same week, French Prime Minister Michel Barnier lost a vote of confidence, due to irreconcilable differences between the French far left and far right parties. Then President Biden pardoned his son, flaunting United States rule of law that we normally expect from banana republics. Such political pickles happen even as US markets and Bitcoin are hitting record highs.
What is going on?
The ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza have spread to Syria and Central Africa, as armed conflicts escalate toward more bloody, brutal total war. The First World War, which bankrupted Europe and weakened the British empire, lasted four years from 1914-1918. The Ukraine war is now finishing its third year, with a devastating impact on Ukraine, Russia and the future of European security.
Since Trump claimed that he can settle the Ukraine war within 24 hours, Russia may be using the winter hardening of roads to occupy as much territory as possible before Jan. 20, when Trump is inaugurated. In the meantime, Biden’s and the United Kingdom’s authorization of Ukraine’s use of their missiles to attack Russian targets has caused Putin to unleash new medium range missiles to retaliate, inching the war closer to nuclear weapons.
Are we on the way to total war, as the latest issue of Foreign Affairs magazine seems to suggest?
The 18th century Prussian strategist Clausewitz said that “War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds; as one side dictates the law to the other, there arises a sort of reciprocal action, which logically must lead to an extreme.” Violent war is an extreme extension of politics, applied when negotiations or diplomacy fail.
