Storming into WWIII

With Israel launching major attacks on West Bank towns in the past 24 hours, Houthis blowing up oil tankers full of oil, and Belarus jumping into the fray in Ukraine with tanks and armored vehicles (and maybe its own troops?), and Putin adding 30,000 troops to the Kursk region and China flying a military recon plane into Japanese airspace for the first time since WWII, the nations of this world seem hell-bent on finding paths to world war.

Israel v. everyone around it

Israel’s situation is constantly becoming more complex. First, it was Gaza. Then it was the Houthis and others joining in on behalf of Gaza. Then it was attacks on Iran and counterattacks from Iran inside of Israel. Then it was provocative acts in the eyes of Muslims by Jews just being Jews on the Temple Mount where they swore to build their temple, much to the destruction of Islam’s shrine. Then it was close to becoming all-out war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and now it is multiple incursions to route out terrorists inside of the West Bank.

This is likely the greatest war we’ve ever seen in Israel since it became a state. So far, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 40,000 Palestinians have been killed. Even Yom Kippur and other famed ME wars did not involve any more nations nor were as long-lasting as this one. Iran is still threatening its reprisal, but the US must have convinced it the cost would be too great, as it appears to have stalled on that plan. Maybe not. No one knows, I suppose, but a few inside of Iran. Maybe they are just stalling because they still had a couple of weeks left to perfect their ability to deliver a nuclear bomb according to the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Wednesday said …

the military was "working intensively" in the West Bank refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarm to crush Iran-backed terrorist infrastructures. He accused Iran of trying to establish an eastern terrorist front against Israel in the West Bank….

"This is a war for everything and we must win it."

It has, indeed, evolved into an existential war for everything. Israel is determined once-and-for-all to rid itself of all the terrorist activities that constantly seek to destroy it.

The IDF's recent campaign in the West Bank is a response to Iran's attempt to establish a "ring of fire'' of its proxies around Israel, says Avi Melamed, a regional analyst and former Israeli intelligence official.

Given the likelihood Tehran-allied Hamas will lose control of Gaza after the war, "Iran has renewed its efforts to destabilize Jordan and the Palestinian Authority-controlled West Bank to serve as another front,'' Melamed said….

"Eventually, all strings lead back to Tehran,'' Melamed says, "and its imperialistic vision and aggression must be thwarted. It is not only a regional interest: it is a global necessity…”

“We must deal with the threat just as we deal with the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and whatever steps might be required. This is a war in every respect, and we must win it,” [Katz] wrote on the platform X.

Like the Ukrainian conflict, the Middle East war … will continue until Iran or Israel seeks to break the stalemate in a second phase that would make the Gaza campaign seem minor in comparison and be far more likely to draw in outside powers—especially if the United States appears feeble and unable to protect its traditional ally Israel.

Russia v Ukraine

As towns in the West Bank are locked down under siege, war rages wider and wilder in Ukraine and Russia where Putin is now desperately trying to put out a fire that has spread out of control, seizing a large region like a wildfire that jumped the fire line.

Belarus tanks, branded with white Bs, in the style of those from Russia that were once branded with Zelensky’s initial to make it clear they were coming for him and Kyiv, are now shoring up Russia’s weakened conventional forces, adding a whole new level of additional energy. Rows of tanks have amassed along Ukraine’s Belarus border.

Ukraine now holds 100 Russian towns and settlements under its full control, and attacks have begun moving onto the nearby Belgorod region.

Putin is hoping to force Ukraine's troops to back down with the threat of a new army, according to security think tank Atlantic Council.

But Ukraine has hit back in a scathing warning, telling Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko that “all troop concentrations, military facilities, and supply routes in Belarus will become legitimate targets for the Armed Forces of Ukraine".

And so the war is widening into Russia and may soon spread into Belarus. It is accomplishing Zelenky’s objective of siphoning forces out of Ukraine and grabbing land he hopes to trade with Russia to get his own country’s lands back. So far, it is unclear if Belarus’s leader, Lukashenko, has done any more than the West has done by starting to move his own arms into Ukraine to shore up Putin’s invasion. There is no evidence reported that his own soldiers have joined the fight. If he does, then Belarus becomes a war zone, too.

It is somewhat unclear whether this is a show of force meant to push back Ukraine or a more serious indication of involvement by Belarus in the ongoing war.

Minsk claims the tanks are merely completing combat training.

Putin is scrambling to fight back against Ukraine after weeks of mass surrenders and embarrassing losses against Kyiv troops.

Ukraine’s push into Russia is the largest attack on its own soil Russia has experienced since WWII. One article claims the combined dead and wounded on both sides may be approaching one-million.

Currently, Ukraine is running out of manpower, given its losses, draft problems, and a quarter of the population having fled the country. Russia has suffered twice as many casualties as Ukraine and faced blows to its military prestige. It has so far found no tactical or strategic pathway to absorb Ukraine as it intended with its February 2022 surprise attack on Kyiv.

China v Taiwan

So, we have what is arguably in many ways the biggest war on Israel’s soil since Israel became a nation after WWII and the biggest war on Russian soil since WWII. Meanwhile, the conflict between China and Taiwan and the Philippines has grown to teasing Japan with recon flights inside of its airspace. It seems everyone is hell-bent on igniting as much war around the world as possible right now.

And these frays, just like in WWII, are not unconnected, which makes it a true world war that appears to still be getting up to speed:

China has stepped up its harassment of Philippine forces and its rhetoric. It has upped its intrusions into Taiwanese airspace and waters while cementing strategic partnerships with Russia and Iran, even as it courts India and Turkey….

As for the third, still-bloodless conflict: China envisions strategy globally rather than regionally. It helps to fuel the stalemate in Ukraine, on the grounds that its traditional rival turned temporary friend Russia is hurting the West by consuming its money, weapons, and attention—while conveniently hurting itself in the process.

China is openly aiding Iran, not because it is especially friendly to radical Islam (cf. its treatment of the Uyghurs) or innately hostile to the Jewish state. Instead, it simply welcomes these tensions that cause radical domestic upheaval and political dissension inside America, while drawing U.S. naval and air assets far away from the South China Sea.

China’s operating principle seems to be to watch and wait for the outcome of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, given that both tax Western powers. It is eager and patient to see how the conflicts end, especially whether Russia achieves by force its apparent goals, and whether Iran and its proxies permanently redefine the future of the Middle East. These outcomes will serve to indicate the level of potential Western resistance to or intentional condemnation of its own planned annexation of Taiwan.

In conclusion, we are entering a very dangerous five-month period.

The author is thinking five months until the next president is elected, but that isn’t likely to change the arithmetic enough to avert global war. Even if Trump wins and pulls the US out of every conflict, that would just mean China storms in on Taiwan in superheated conflict, making it a full hot war; while Europe fills in for the US with greater support to Ukraine to keep Russia from nibbling away at its eastern edges and possibly with its own troops. Eastern European nations will never take the chance of Russia doing the same to them as they see in Ukraine after having spent decades under Russia’s Soviet imperial oppression. They will fight to the last man, woman, or child standing, even if all they have is rocks, to avoid going back under the Russian imperial thumb again. And, as for Israel, if the US removed itself completely, that certainly would free Iran and other nations to move in with less concern of being destroyed inside their own homelands; while, for Israel, the conflict is now already existential. They will fight like a cornered animal if they sense they are starting to lose and have been left alone. You will have never seen a more intense conflict.

While I certainly don’t want to see the world go this way and hope true peacemakers can find pathways to lasting peace, and will applaud their efforts if they make them justly and wisely, I just don’t see it happening. The determination in all these nations to fight it out right now is too strong, and none of the sides involved anywhere appear at all willing to concede anything … even without the US.

The “Year of Chaos,” indeed.