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Everyone's always quick to declare the beginning of World War 3, to pass every event through that lens. Inadvertently, it provides cover for the fact that Cold War 2 already started.
I don't think anyone is seriously "declaring" WW3. It's just an acknowledgement that there's a lot of unrest in many different regions.
A global conflict in 2025 would be very different to WW2.
Cyber attacks could decimate a country's ability to make war.
I fear at this point the two are not even incompatible.
Cold War 2 is not so much the superpowers vying against each other, but desperately attempting to retrench their power over the global south and their own citizens. The adversarial stance is largely political theatre to manifest the narrative of great powers locked in competition, while in reality Moscow and Washington meet in private to decide the fate of Ukraine and Iran. (I’m also counting China here)
Did the Cold War ever really end? I feel like the names of the players may have changed, but the board is still there and the pieces are still moving.
There was a bit of a moment after the USSR dissolved where the US was just kinda spinning its wheels without any clear purpose. We still had all the institutions for weapons manufacturing, intelligence gathering, financial strong-arming -- they were still doing their thing, but without an overall narrative to give a unified sense of purpose.
You can almost imagine 9/11 being somewhat of a relief -- like, oh thank god a clear external enemy, now we don't have to struggle justifying our continued existence. And, of course, now our leaders can't agree on weather we're in existential conflict with Russia or China or both. This go round, we are the crumbling gerontocracy.