A Third World War?

For centuries, the organizing principle of civilizations has been war. The great empires of history, such as the Roman, Mongol, Spanish and British, based their development and expansion on the basis of war and the concentration of territories to exploit them commercially. Many experts agree that most wars in history have two things in common: religious or commercial disputes. The War of Independence in the United States was caused by a battle between the British and French over commodities and trade routes. And although over the years this war was given a patriotic sense of the United States’ desire for freedom against the Europeans, at its core it was a trade battle.

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The British invasion of India began with the East India Company in the 17th century, taking the commercial rights that the Mongols had ceded to them, an action that was taken advantage of by the English who, faced with a weakening Indian Empire, invaded it to gain control of raw materials such as spices, textiles, precious stones and opium.

The Opium War between the Chinese and the Englishwhich occurred in the years from 1839 to 1842, was nothing more than the reaction of the British to the refusal of the Chinese to continue importing this drug into their country, which meant the loss of important income for the Empire. The American Civil War focused on the abolition of slavery. The background is the demand that cotton and other agricultural products had caused, giving an extreme dependence of the economies of the southern states on these products.

Before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, it was preceded by the embargo that the United States and other nations had placed on the Japanese Empire from supplying them with more oil, metal and food product assets in South Asia. The attack on Pearl Harbor was Japan’s effort to get the US out of the war and access basic goods.

At the beginning of World War II, Germany and Russia signed a non-aggression pact. However, as the war progressed in Germany, it became increasingly difficult to obtain oil, so they decided to invade Russia to gain access to Ukrainian grain and Russian oil wells.

In 1990, after Iraq accused Kuwait of stealing its oil, it invaded that country as an attempt to gain control of the country’s vast oil reserves., stop its oil production from Kuwait and thereby increase world oil prices in order to pay the debt it accumulated by financing its war with Iran. The United States’ reaction to declaring war on Iraq was to control the oil of both countries.

You know, the first French intervention in Mexico, the famous “Cake War”, was the claim of a French citizen named Remontel, who accused the Santa Anna government that in 1832 a group of army officers had eaten some cakes without paying for them, for which he demanded compensation. France’s response was the invasion of Mexico. Yes, for some cakes.

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The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has raised fears that World War III could break out. The event occurs after Iran’s attack on Israel with drones and missiles. Iran declared that they were exercising self-defense, and Israel, for its part, declared the opposite. The world is alert that this does not escalate, but the threat is latent. The dynamics of the war between Israel and Iran have entered uncharted territory. The potential for misperceptions and miscalculations is at an all-time high, and one mistake can unleash what we all fear: global conflict and the use of weapons of mass destruction.

We are, therefore, facing a geopolitical framework that since the 70s has been protecting the world from a nuclear holocaust. So the much feared Third World War would be nuclear and, of course, as Einstein stated, when he was asked what weapons a third war would be fought with, he said: “I don’t know what weapons the Third World War would be fought with, but I assure you that the fourth world war will be fought with sticks and stones.”

@marcosduranfl