Wednesday, December 7, 2011

The Next World War

With the Eurozone teetering on the verge of collapse and the export-led Chinese economy facing a disastrous crash, it is more than likely that the world will slip into another Great Depression. That will require national elites to recalibrate their perks and priorities, setting off furious power struggles that could, as in the 1930s, tumble the world into a global war.

The epicenter of the war will be in Afghanistan where, in fact, it has already begun. Arrayed behind the current confrontation between the United States and Pakistan are all the major Powers of the world, albeit without much clarity of declared purpose.

We can expect the lack of clear ideological lines to continue, for like the First World War, the coming conflict will be widely seen as a confused power struggle undisguised by Good versus Evil ideologies. However, the stakes are high, for the struggle will pit Britain, China and Pakistan, nations that have an established record of subverting and opposing democracy, against the United States, India and Russia. (Moscow is a founding member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that aims to exclude extra-regional players from Asian geopolitics but it has moved quietly into the democratic corner as the crisis in Afghanistan has deepened.)

The rest of the world will play a secondary but important role. Most of the nations of the Asia-Pacific will support the democracies; the recent summit in Bali showed the depth of regional misgivings about Beijing’s increasingly brusque use of power.

Africa will also support the democratic side, for neocolonial Europe has been in retreat across the continent for two decades, and as the recent anti-Chinese tenor of elections in Zambia indicated, there is growing outrage at Beijing’s predatory version of “South-South cooperation.”

Despite the efforts of al Qaeda in Brazil (where it has taken root in the sizeable Arab minority), and the pro-British drug cartels of Colombia and Mexico, Latin America will also be on the side of the democracies.

Iran’s recent confrontation with Britain shows where that important nation is likely to line up; and the inchoate struggles of the “Arab Spring” will probably be decisive in determining the alignment of the rest of the Middle East.

 It looks like an unequal struggle until we factor in Britain’s enormous corrupting influence as the primary manager of the global black market. Not only does it give the Axis Powers command of organized crime groups and terrorist movements around the world, it gives them the hidden support of elite groups in every country that have hidden their “black money” in British run tax havens. Powerful interests in the United States, India and Russia will thus be primed for treachery.

In addition, British propagandists, by far the most accomplished in the world, will be able to blur perceptions about the true nature of the struggle and create confusion globally. In that, Britain will be able to count on the reach of its own media organizations and of proxies in most of the democratic countries. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s pose as an “Islamic” champion will continue to confuse the Ummah and Beijing will be able to mobilize the support of “Leftist” sympathizers in many places. India will have to contend with all three factors.

Although New Delhi has wisely rejected the concept of anti-China military cooperation with the United States and Australia, it would be folly to ignore the realities of the current situation. In a period of supposed relaxation of tensions, China has been building up its forces all along our northern border; it now has a permanent presence in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. The thaw in relations between Islamabad and Delhi is in the context of American pressure on Pakistan; it is unlikely to lead to anything meaningful. Britain continues its long-standing effort to subvert India through its political, corporate, media and Naxal proxies.

In dealing with the coming crisis, official India is handicapped in many ways. The most serious problems are the lack of strategic direction in our fractured political culture and the subservience of much of our “elite” media to British interests. In combination, those two factors have created a sense of national drift and growing disillusion. Unless our political class mobilizes to meet these and other challenges that lie ahead, the country will be in great danger.

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