Geopolitics of World War III
The wars in Gaza, Ukraine, the Red Sea, and ongoing Chinese harassment of Taiwan are all connected. An analysis of a prediction from 2021, thirty months later.
On the anniversary of D-day, June 6, 2021, The Hill posted our paper, “Could the United States Fight a Four Front War? Not Today.” We predicted that several autocratic powers would launch “simultaneous challenges” designed to diminish the power and influence of the United States. These seemingly distinct conflicts, when viewed from the perspective of Halford Mackinder’s Heartland thesis, should be perceived as separate fronts of a single war by autocratic, territorial powers – either in close cooperation or piggybacking on one or another’s challenge to the established order – on the dominance of the United States and its maritime partners and allies situated along the Eurasian littoral. We argued that the United States should rebuild its naval capacity, and by implication its military industrial capacity more generally. Specifically, we wrote: “If we are to avoid a multi-front war, the United States must be ready to fight and win conventional conflicts in several places simultaneously and must invest in strengthening our allies’ ability to defend themselves.”
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It seems to me that expanding our naval capabilities begs the question - does any modern navy survive more than 1-2 hours from the start of a truly aggressive global conflict? Ships cost $$Bs while anti- ship weapons cost $$Ms and this asymmetry increases going forward.