This is a mind-dump, sans edit
Pakistan-India “skirmish” is molting into actual war.
What is world war? Naturally, we might think of The Great War (later called World War I), and World War II.
These World Wars brought all the major players into high levels of commitment. Many countries were all-in. Do or die. Many countries died.
The land and seas are still there. The tides still come and go, rivers still flow. Borders were redrawn and many oligarchical structures were shattered. People who may have thought they were invincible were soon dead. Their gold, art, and women, carted away.
But those were far from being the first world wars in which all or most major players were ripping fur. Those were just the first two wars wherein we had more serious weapons, industry, and fast and heavy logistics. Large battlefields spread across all the non-frozen continents.
Routes and resources.
Very powerful weapons and delivery systems were fielded and for a moment in human history we all sat back and took a global gulp of what might and likely would unfold in the future.
But world wars continued to unfold. Inverted world wars. And proxy wars became common.
Inverted world wars are those wherein major players converge in local or regional battle zones such as Korean War, Vietnam War, Russian-Afghan War, and others such as both major “Iraq” wars. Dozens of countries either joined us in the Iraqi “parking lot” for a big fight, or facilitated the war from afar. Likewise in the coalition Afghan war after 9/11. These were inverted World Wars.
There are so many wars…nobody can remember or know them all.
And since World War II, the battle spaces, weaponry, and casualties were relatively confined. And so in the sense of battle space, these post WWII wars were local or regional wars. But in the sense of players, many were inverted world wars.
More accurately, the Iraq “wars” and Afghan “wars”, the Vietnam and Korean “wars”, were very large, very long, very expensive battles. What we call “wars” often are actually massive battles in a larger, unrestricted, undeclared, never-ending, world war.
At higher level, Grand Strategic level, World Wars I and II were massive battles in an ongoing war. Any war or battle you personally are in seems massive.
But on a Grand Strategic level, all the Israel dramas have been parking lot fights over vital terrain such as Suez Canal. The Six-Day “war” was a parking lot dustup. On the Grand Strategic level, barely makes a footnote. Made major due to the major players, vital terrain, and information war.
The current skirmish between India and Pakistan is morphing into actual World War-level. Potentially far larger than footnote.
As with Panama and Suez, all major players are at the table.
Major weapons are at the table.
Both India and Pakistan likely already have armed and prepared their nuclear weapons for delivery. Importantly, the major weapons don’t have to slip all the way through intact air defenses to deliver. Successive atomic weapons can be used to clear a path to delivery in a sort of atomic Bangalore torpedo.
If nuclear weapons are used, massive fallout, or fear of fallout, and the famines will follow, will create massive HOP. Human Osmotic Pressure. The push and pull of migration. Countries such as Thailand could suddenly be swamped. I personally checked on the ground routes from India through Bangladesh through Myanmar to Thailand. I personally went to India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Thailand, and looked. And I warned top Thais about this years ago. Be prepared. Any super-famines from South Asia likely will fill Thailand with escaping millions.
Container ships filled with escaping tens of millions can land Camp of the Saints style around Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Right up the Mississippi unless Americans grow some testosterone to say NO.
There is some dwindling daylight to end this before this morphs into existential monster. But as of today the situation appears to be molting into a real war. Obviously this could go high-order nuclear. This would create famines and huge HOP.
As per normal, “experts” are talking about numbers of jets and missiles and other distractions.
Reality check. Rules of War Prediction:
1) Wars Grow
2) Wars Grow unpredictably
3) War last longer than most people imagine — “troops will be home by Christmas is a farce”.
Yesterday during a morning stroll, the first human I met was a young man smoking a joint. In public. He literally was getting high at sunrise. Good chance he is a Doper Joe Rogan fan. The bong monkeys have no idea who just came across the border.
Sometimes I feel like a soldier in the dark shouting “Barbarians are over the wall!” to a village of deaf and distracted people.
But I know a few listen. Continue to prepare yourselves. Work on your human networks. Make your networks resilient.
