To wonder what our Archduke Ferdinand moment is going to be?

[CredulousThickos]

You know, for when our three eyed, albino, telepathic descendants do their history gcse.

Brexit? Trump as US president, and the ensuing twitter row with North Korea? The upcoming Spanish Civil war? One of the recent terror attacks worldwide?

Just musing really as DD was doing ‘causes of WW1’ for homework.

I don't know.

I've got one DC doing the causes of WW1 and the other doing the Cold War at the moment. They both have chilling similarities to current world politics. You can't help feeling something is about to happen....

I think it actually all started with the Arab Spring.

The roots of the causation are in the rise of free market capitalism. Yes, tax havens, low wages, no job security, advances in technology meaning many peoples jobs will be obsolete. Big businesses are essentially lawless these days and Trump et al. are just a side show.

Or equally 9/11.

But the this led to that narrative of history is massively over simplified anyway.

Surely it's the egotistical maniac Trump being voted in, he's only been in office since January and everyone's on their toes already.

I don’t think it’s actually started yet. The Chinese have no love for the North Korean regime; they just don’t want millions of half-starved refugees at their border if it collapses.
The problems will start with resource wars. Climate change will make parts of the world very difficult to inhabit, and fresh water will become a commodity to fight over. With Peak Oil becoming an issue too, and China becoming seriously involved in obtaining all the resources they can (in Africa and beyond), I think that’s where the flashpoint will happen.
It’s not a great time to be leaving one of the major world trading blocs...

The assination of Ferdinand was not a cause of WW1, no matter what children's textbooks tell them. It was simply an excuse.

Plus everything has roots. 9/11 has its roots in the CIA funding of the Mujahideen during the Russian war in Afghanistan; the Arab Spring can be traced back to European middle eastern policy post WW1. The North Korean situation dates back to the start of the Cold War, when both sides fought each other using proxies.
It’s rare for something to suddenly happen out of a bright blue sky.

The assination of Ferdinand was not a cause of WW1, no matter what children's textbooks tell them. It was simply an excuse.

Yes, more of a trigger event.

But I think that was the OP's question. What could trigger WW3 now?

And by the way, 9/11 was 16 years ago. That won't be a trigger for WW3 at all.

Perceptive comments on this thread. I don’t know whether there will be just one defining moment.
I think free market capitalism has resulted in the unpredictable Trump as president. It has also affected climate change, which is accelerating, resulting in more migrants and a scramble for resources.
ISIS is still radicalising people - that all goes back to the Cold War with Bin Laden and co. in Afghanistan being funded by the USA to fight the Soviets.

9/11 was our Reichstag Fire, not an Archduke Ferdinand moment.

kuniloofdooksa

All that need be said.

Women going to work during ww2

Led to increased equality across sex and race lines and eventually barack Obama which led to 'white' backlash and onto trump, which will at best take us to civil wars across usa and europe

It'll be when Britney shaved her head.

I don't think we'll ever see the major powers fight directly with each other again. Nuclear weapons have rendered that a suicidal course of action. Instead the focus will be on non-military forms of conflict such as espionage and cyberwarfare.

Depends who wins doesn't it? Victor always writes history.

In my own opinion I think it's quite likely that as far as Europe is concerned the 'tipping point' may well be when the EU turned from a mutual trading organisation concerned with peace and cooperation with some centralised legislative powers to an organisation focused on federalism and aggressive expansionism which provoked it's neighbours.

I think the Eurozone crisis and the refugee crisis' and the exposure of inequalities in power within the EU that exposed (e.g. Germany has a lot more power than everyone else because they hold the purse strings) will also be key.

I suspect that the deliberate movement of the centre of politics further left since the 90s creating a lack of real centrist parties will be seen as creating a reaction which drove many to the far right and the ultimate cause of much of the strife we will face will be left/right conflict.

I think the growing gap between rich and poor and falling living standards in Europe will cause huge issues in Europe which will further drive people to the extreme left/right.

Basically I think in Europe it will end up like every other war where attempts to build a European Empire fail (as per usual) because they cause rising nationalism. And also because of conflict between left and right wing ideologies.

And loads of us will get killed then we'll all realise how stupid war is and agree to have some nice middle of the road sensible policies we don't have to fight over.

And we'll carry on like that until the generation who actually remember how awful that war was are nearly dead and the next generation of idiots start the whole cycle again.

But yes, Empire building in Europe and high levels of conflict between extremes of left and right never ends prettily on this continent.

And it will be a world war because we will get dragged into a China/USA/Russia conflict sparked by North Korea which is the real deal, not N Korea itself.

organisation focused on federalism and aggressive expansionism which provoked it's neighbours.

That reads as a very Russiancentric view.
Aggressive expansionism?

The EU was talking recently about expanding membership to Serbia and Albania. Russia's already made quite clear that it's not happy about the EU expanding East, particularly to areas with high Russian populations and strong Russian links. Like the Crimea and, er, Serbia.

Anyone with half a brain could see that any sort of EU interference with Serbia is going to kick off a (further) European war.

I think the deployment of troops to Catalonia might do it.

A violent uprising on the European continent would rip apart the EU, which would either demonstrate it's complete flaccid pointlessness through trying to ignore it or inflame the situation by intervening.

Collapse of the EU leading to market crashes, creating defaults across the world. In the chaos non-state actors add fuel to the fire while the nastier regimes seize opportunities for the own crackdowns on minorities. Then one of the big powers will invade someone on peace-keeping or human-rights grounds, another power will act to defend it and events spiral from there.

It will get nasty. I doubt it will go nuclear, but cyberwarfare (or a big EMP) will probably cause some states to collapse.

Surely Serbia should be self-determined.
EU expansion is not "interference" with Serbia. Only from a Russian point of view.
The EU isn't forcing anyone to join them. Unlike the Russians who are blackmailing countries, cutting energy supplies and anexing territories.

A awful lot of the problems we're currently facing are due to Western expansionism into buffer zones around hostile countries.

N Korea is a buffer zone for China which is why China will defend it if the US attacks.

Eastern Europe is a buffer between the EU and Russia. Many problems in the ME extend from the West attempting to expand influence there, often creating conflict with Russia again.

I don't think these countries are being entirely unreasonable being worried, particularly as Western countries have made it very clear they want to expand their method of government and economic systems worldwide over the last 20 years.

I think anybody who thinks they're living in a lovely peaceable bloc of Western countries who aren't aggressive and couldn't possibly be the aggressor is completely deluded.

Great thread.

Surely climate change should be added to the mix.

And if we look at birth rates, the UK could be an Islamic State in 100 years (if we make it that far).

"Western expansionism" of democracy?

There's a lot of resentment in those buffer zones against Russia. They shouldn't be pawns or kept out should we upset Putin.
Putin and Russia are the problem. Not "Western expansionism".

Surely Serbia should be self-determined.
EU expansion is not "interference" with Serbia. Only from a Russian point of view.
The EU isn't forcing anyone to join them. Unlike the Russians who are blackmailing countries, cutting energy supplies and anexing territories.

The Russians don't see it that way. They're looking at it defensively and feel threatened. Plus, I think their experience in the Ukraine tells them that if Serbia is self determining that it wants to keep ties with Russia, the EU will simply agitate to undermine that including promoting and fomenting pro-EU revolutions which overthrow democratically elected governments.

And while those countries are kept as "buffer zones" and out of any meaningful economic cooperation, Western coutries will have to deal with a migration flux from them.

NK is not a problem created by the west, but by themselves. Kim needs foreign enemies to stay in power, and he's been pushing the envelope.
China are on a different ball game to be concerned about NK as a buffer zone, although they don't want any upsets in the area.

"Western expansionism" of democracy?

Yes, it's been going really well this expansion of Western Democracy hasn't it? Look at Afghanistan and Iraq. Beacons of peaceful ordered democratic societies who's populaces were just waiting for the west to free them and welcomed them with open arms!