Disintegration, Crises and Chaos. Wars

11th century unknown author, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

I haven't written anything for a few months - been busy with other things. Interestingly, a couple of people have subscribed to my newsletters during that time. It seems that my few readers encourage me to write less. Or at least shorter.

I looked through the news time after time, of course, and felt the world kept descending into chaos. Almost everything goes wrong in the US, in the world «under the leadership” of the US, and nobody knows why this happens and what to do. I've written once before that the main cause of what is going on in the world now is disintegration of everything in our civilization from micro-level (traditional family and businesses) to macro-level (different states and international organizations). We have built a global, cumbersome, unwieldy and highly interdependent civilization which could not function effectively and therefore is now disintegrating. The process of disintegration manifests as series of different crises (peace, democracy, cooperation, international institutions, different countries) and is perceived as chaos. Whoever tries to bring order to all that just adds to the chaos.
Nevertheless, chaos is a necessary stage of evolution and one of the forms of existence of matter. Our universe was born out of the chaos of the Big Bang. Any following relative order can appear only from previous relative chaos just because there is nothing else a new order can come from.

Now mankind is entering a zone of great turbulence and more chaos is going to come. This trend can be seen with a naked eye. We have ahead increasing man-made and natural disasters, diseases/viruses/pandemics, extreme weather, polluted environment, collapse of international organizations and different states (both democratic and authoritarian), shortages of water, food, energy and, of course, wars. Our civilization has passed the peak of its development and was turning in the opposite direction. People are returning to their millennia-old essence, which has not been changed by a hundred years of democracy, globalization and all the achievements of modern science and culture. Humanity basically remains scattered tribes of brigands, plundering civilians and feuding among themselves. Once these tribes grew into modern states. Now the reverse process is going on, when different states will collapse from internal contradictions and wars into warring smaller structures.

An almost perfect example of the above is the history of the modern Republic of Haiti, where earthquakes, cholera and people’s apathy have produced a total paralysis of the government, famine, widespread banditry and completely destroyed the statehood in the country.

Unfortunately, there is no good news for humanity. The Republic of Haiti is a picture of the near future of many modern states. I don't like this future either, but try to do something about it with democratic methods, and authoritarian methods are unpopular so far. Things are changing now and «the might of the right» is yielding to «the right of the mighty» and democracy is losing to authoritarianism. The energy of disintegration embraces humanity and manifests in the world in the form of various crises, chaos and increasing conflicts.

Wars.

War is a fight of nations and the reverse side of peace. Fighting occurs when it is impossible to resolve a conflict (real or manufactured one) by peaceful means.
Wars are just or defensive (on one's own territory) and unjust or invasive (on someone else’s territory).
We can say that peace in the history of our civilization is the time between wars.

Humans have not changed since the times of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. They constantly need more territory, resources, sex, freedom, wealth, fame and that is why there are quite a lot of armed conflicts in the world. The Rule of Law in Armed Conflict Online Portal classifies all situations of armed violence that amount to an armed conflict under international humanitarian law. Today, it monitors more than 110 current armed conflicts, some of which last for more than 50 years.

The impression is that World War III is already underway in the form of many internal and international wars that have been added recently. And all this exists despite the seeming victory of democracy in the world, "the might of the right" and the presence of the useless UN with its paralyzed Security Council, impotent NATO and International Criminal Court. International organizations are also degenerating and losing their influence, so there will be just more claims of countries against each other and more armed conflicts/wars.

Mexico vs. its drug cartels.

There has been a real war going on for quite some time between democratic state of Mexico and its own citizens working in the drug business.
This war kills tens of thousands of civilians a year and is a major source of the influx of illegal immigrants into the US. The Mexican drug cartels are growing in this war, getting stronger, and a couple years ago they expanded their business to the territory of relatively problem-free Ecuador. A similar war broke out there, and Ecuadorians fled their country, too. Mexico and many Central and Latin American countries are actively sliding into the abyss of banditry and soon we will see the power in these countries go to the bandits, i.e. become authoritarian in the worst sense of the word.

Ukraine vs. Russia.

The war of authoritarian Russia in democratic Ukraine has been going on for almost 2 years and there is no end in sight. The summer Ukraine’s offensive failed, and the US and EU were delaying about $100 billion in critically needed aid. It is sad to realize that money for Ukraine can be taken from Russia, but the West can't go against its rules and just give to Ukraine around $300 billion of Russia’s assets which are frozen in the Western banks.

There is a stalemate in hostilities for a while now — both sides are unable to dislodge the enemy from the positions and the front line is barely moving. Western sanctions against Russia work poorly - Russians circumvent them. The human cost of Putin's war is large for Russia, but Ukraine is suffering losses as well. Ukraine is already short of soldiers and needs to mobilize, which doesn’t help also since Russia is constantly conducting its covert mobilization.

Mobilization vs. mobilization is the quantitative equality in warfare which created the current stalemate. Ukraine's advantage due to Western weapons (superiority in quality) will likely not happen because the West is reducing the military aid. If that doesn't change, the Ukrainians unfortunately will have to make peace with Russians and cede the captured southeast. Mr. Putin will not accept Mr. Zelenskiy's peace formula because the first point in it is the expulsion of all Russian forces from Ukraine. That's not why Mr. Putin brought in troops. He wages a pure imperialist war of conquest, no matter how he justifies it.

Israel vs. Hamas.

The old war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement «Hamas» has erupted with renewed vigor since October 7, 2023. What Hamas has done then is appalling, but it is needed to see the whole picture. There is another point of view on the outbreak of this war. I have read somewhere that Turkey and Saudi Arabia initially rightly pointed out that the one who controlled the territory was to blame for any conflict. Israel has full control over Gaza Strip and West Bank, which means that it is also responsible for events on its land. This view is shared by some intellectuals in the West, and South Africa recently sued Israel at the International Court of Justice, accusing it of genocide of the Palestinians. I wonder why South Africa has remained silent about Mr. Putin's genocide in Ukraine, even after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest in March 2023.

This war seems to go on forever. It is a good example of the current situation in the world, when there are no good solutions to a problem, just bad and very bad ones.

Houthis vs. Israel and the West.

A new and seemingly small local war has recently broken out, immediately dividing an already divided world into conventional good and evil. Yemeni Houthis have been attacking ships in Gulf of Aden in protest of Israel's war with Hamas, blocking Saudi maritime traffic as well and generally the passage of goods through Suez Canal to the Mediterranean. The Americans had sunk their boats several times, warned them repeatedly, and on January 11, together with the British, they hit the Yemeni capital Sana with missiles.
President Biden has explained that “… These strikes are in direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea — including the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles for the first time in history. These attacks have endangered U.S. personnel, civilian mariners and our partners, jeopardized trade and threatened freedom of navigation.”

All countries and global organizations immediately divided into "for", "against" and "abstained" ones. NATO, Canada, Western European countries, Bahrain, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea supported the strike against the Houthis. The UN, Saudi Arabia, UAE, China were concerned, i.e. "abstained". Turkey, Iran, Russia, Hezbollah and Hamas condemned the attack.

Houthis vowed to keep attacking ships in the Red Sea.
The US carried out another series of strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen on January, 18.

Russia's future war against the collective West.

This war now seems unbelievable just like Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine did before February 22, 2022.

Mr. Putin and his propaganda often say about being at war in Ukraine against the collective West. Yes, Russia is deeply entangled in the war in Ukraine, its human, military and economic potential has to be depleting.
However, Germany is taking Mr. Putin's words seriously and is preparing for a possible Russian attack on NATO's eastern flank in 2025. German Ministry of Defense has developed a scenario of future events, and newspaper Bild shared it with the world.

The scenario involves mobilization of 200 thousand people in Russia in February 2024, a spring offensive and defeat of the Ukrainian army in summer 2024, large military exercises in Belarus in September 2024, redeployment of Russian troops to Kaliningrad Oblast and capture of Suwałki Gap (which runs along the border of Lithuania and Poland) to connect Belarus with the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia. This is planned to take place after the US elections sometime between November 2024 and January 2025, before the new president (Mr. Trump?) takes office.

Interestingly, Bild newspaper in its article «So könnte Putin die Ukraine vernichten» of December 4, 2021 warned of Russian plans to invade Ukraine in late January/early February 2022. Bild was slightly wrong in the date - the war started on February 22, but actually the newspaper's prediction was correct.

So, is there another war coming soon?
And this time in prosperous Western Europe?
And again Mr. Putin with his Russians?
Will NATO really have to go to war with Russia over Lithuania and Poland?

The West had a unique chance to defeat Russia on the battlefield by the hands of Ukrainians just by helping Ukraine timely with right weapons, sanctions and money (including $300 billion of frozen Russian assets).
The West did not take this chance and preferred to "cut off the tail by pieces" either because of its inborn love of rehabilitating the criminals or because it was afraid of a nuclear response from them ... Anyway, that is why, in particular, several hundred thousand of Russians and Ukrainians have already died in this war. We will soon find out if that was the right decision of the West. If Mr. Putin goes to war with NATO according to the latest scenario of the Bild newspaper, Poles, Lithuanians and many other people are going to die, so it will turn out that it would be better to "cut off the tail at once." It’s not long to wait - this war should start according to Bild during the next presidential re-election campaign in the US, i.e. between November 5, 2024 (the US Election Day) and January 20, 2025 (the US Inauguration Day).

China's future war for Taiwan.

This war seems very likely to happen because China feels incomplete without Taiwan just like Russia does without Ukraine.

«The United States ended its preferential economic and trade treatment of Hong Kong in July 2020 because it was no longer able to distinguish Hong Kong as a separate entity from the People's Republic of China.”
Thus, by mid-2020, China has quietly absorbed Hong Kong and West democracies remained silent. The Chinese is apparently going to do the same with Taiwan now. Several top US military officials have assessed that China will invade Taiwan by 2025 or by 2027. 

However, this time it looks like the US will stand up for Taiwan. Ok, but how? Will Americans gather a coalition of Western states and start military actions like they are doing now in Yemen? Or will they convene an urgent UN Security Council meeting, where China is a permanent member? Thus, there is a probability of another dangerous international conflict, which involves first world nations.


The quantity and quality of armed conflicts is increasing, exacerbating crises and chaos not only in the participating countries, but around the world due to created global economy. There are no good solutions for humanity now, just bad and very bad ones.
On the other hand, choosing between the bad and very bad is much easier than choosing between the good and very good. In this way, Mother Nature helps humans to make correct decisions together, because we have completely forgotten how to do that.