FOLLOWING OUR post on New Year’s Eve — which pondered whether 2013 had taken the world closer to Armageddon or not — this morning’s post is intended simply to share additional material with readers; the question is receiving considerable attention both in Australia and abroad, as comparisons between 1914 and 2014 are drawn: and a frightening incident off the Scottish coast shows how easily it could occur, even by miscalculation.
It’s not a very pleasant subject this one, to be sure, and — like most readers — I hope and pray it’s one that never advances in status beyond the hypothetical.
Even so, a failure to read the signs, sift the probabilities, or to evaluate the true state of international affairs is incredibly negligent, especially where governments, their advisors, relevant agencies and an investigative media are concerned.
Today, I seek to share some of what has been published — in Australia and beyond — over the past week; the objective isn’t to unduly frighten anybody, but given these matters are being postulated upon I feel it would be remiss not to continue to keep an eye on them.
Readers will know that a little over a week ago, I posted an article that in turn linked to an excellent piece by Tim Stanley, that originally appeared in The Telegraph in Britain; that piece theorised on the question of whether the world drew nearer to a nuclear apocalypse over the course of 2013.
Of course, for that to happen, their first must be a war, and it’s in this vein that I post the material to follow here today. As with my post on New Year’s Eve, I’m not going to comment to a great extent on these; the intention really is to provide additional material.
For those to whom the broad theme is of interest, however, most of these pieces are compelling reading.
First cab off the rank is the recent Brookings Essay, by Margaret MacMillan, entitled The Rhyme of History: Lessons of the Great War, an academic effort that draws distinct parallels between the pre-1914 world political environment, and the one that exists today.
This article — from http://www.news.com.au, of all places — contains some surprisingly good links to other pertinent material (and it is, I will confess, where I initially obtained the link to Dr MacMillan’s essay).
The Daily Mail‘s international affairs editor, Max Hastings, picked up the theme of one of the world’s present hot spots — tensions between China and Japan over a few uninhabited islands in the South China Sea — as a potential flashpoint for a conflict that could easily spiral out of control in this piece published in the Mail a week ago.
Even the Fairfax press gets in on the subject, in a rational and intelligent piece, touching on the same subjects but from the differential perspective of the economic drivers that may contribute to the ignition of any conflagration that might erupt.
Just in case anyone thinks I’m fearmongering for the sake of it, I also include this article — again, from the Daily Mail — which details a terrifying incident off the British coast, involving a Russian cruise ship with a full clip of nuclear-tipped SLBMs on board; the truly terrifying thing about it, as readers will see, isn’t even the fact that the Russians sailed enough nuclear hardware to blast the UK out of existence so close. It’s where the British naval response was parked, and had the Russians been on a live mission, it would have ended very badly, very quickly, with nary a shot fired in response.
This column is predicated on following politics and associated issues both in Australia and in the world around us, wherever they arise; that obviously covers military matters, although the bulk of what we discuss here involves the dour grind of retail and electoral politics, with a smattering of peripheral issues thrown in for good measure.
All that said, we will continue to observe matters that relate to any prospect of global military conflict, as we have done intermittently for some time.
I trust the materials included with this post are of interest to readers, and I will be keen for any feedback you may wish to offer — or any points in the attached articles that may merit further discussion within this forum.
