Germany War III?

[Metamorph]

The last two "World Wars" have been more or less between the U.S. and Germany. Russia and Iran are historic close German allies. I don't know why WWIII would be with Turkey or Syria or whoever when Germany is sitting there with a metaphorical target on its back again.

German-U.S. Ties Are Breaking Down

[Muddy]

Last time the US invaded Germany to overthrow the Nazis and this time we are going to be installing them back in.

[Metamorph]

Last time the US invaded Germany to overthrow the Nazis and this time we are going to be installing them back in.

I don't think it'll succeed, but I don't want it heading that way either. I'm translating West-Eastern Divan from the beginning now (as in, you will see sections on here besides the famous "Blessed Yearning" before tomorrow) because, besides the fact I love West-Eastern Divan, America is already on board with using Iran as a proxy for Germany and it feels very now-or-never to me. All my friends are either actually, ethnically, or made a career out of being an ambassador to Germany, Persia, China, Russia, or another minor Romantic Belt country so bleh. If anyone can stop this I can, but not alone obviously.

[Metamorph]

All I have to say is: if the US is going to refuse to acknowledge we're headed to war with Germany because rah rah we love Germany wunderbar Bavaria sehr schön Berlin, none of my German, Russian, Chinese, or Persian friends will let this happen. The WASPs are not going to be able to pull off a war everyone is strongly disposed against and was in denial would ever happen. WWII already required literally demonizing the Nazis like we are now all the time.

[Metamorph]

Hildebrandslied
Freely translated by D. L. Ashliman. Copyright 1997.


I have heard tell,
that two chosen warriors, Hildebrand and Hadubrand,
met one another, between two armies.
Father and son, the champions examined their gear,
prepared their armor, and buckled their swords
over their chain mail, before riding out to battle.
Hildebrand, the older and more experienced man, spoke first,
asking, with few words who his father was
and from which family he came.
"Tell me the one, young man, and I'll know the other,
for I know all great people in this kingdom."
Hadubrand, the son of Hildebrand, replied:
"Old and wise people who lived long ago
told me that my father's name was Hildebrand.
My name is Hadubrand.
Long ago he rode off into the East with Dietrich,
and his many warriors, fleeing Otacher's wrath.
He rode off into the East, leaving his wife at home
with a small child, deprived of his inheritance.
Dietrich, a man with but few friends,
came to rely upon my father.
His feud with Otacher grew more intense,
and my father became his best-loved warrior.
He was at the front of every battle, wanting to be in every duel.
.....
Brave men knew him well.
....."
"With Almighty God in Heaven for a witness,
may you never go to battle against your next of kin."
And he took from his arm a band of rings,
braided from the emperor's gold,
which the King of the Huns had given to him.
"I give you this in friendship."
Hadubrand, the son of Hildebrand, replied:
"A gift should be received with a spear,
point against point.
You are a cunning old Hun,
leading me into a trap with your words,
only to throw your spear at me.
You have grown old by practicing such treachery.
Sailors traveling westward across the Mediterranean Sea
told me that he fell in battle.
Hildebrand, the son of Heribrand, is dead."
Hildebrand, the son of Heribrand, replied:
"I see from your battle gear
that you have a good master at home,
and that you have never been banished by your prince.
.....
Alas, Lord God, fate has struck.
Sixty times I have seen summer turn to winter
and winter to summer in a foreign land.
I was always placed on the front lines;
I was never killed while storming a fortress,
and now my own child should strike me with his sword
and hit me with his ax, if I don't kill him first.
But if you have the courage, you can easily
win the armor from an old man like me,
and take away the spoils, if you have any right to them.
.....
Not even the worst of the men from the East
would turn down the the chance to fight with you,
with your desire to duel. Cost what it may,
let us see who will boast of this gear
and who will lay claim to these two suits of chain mail."
Then they let sail their ashen spears,
Sharp showers, sticking in their shields.
They came closer on foot, splitting each other's bright boards,
striking fiercely until their weapons shattered their shields.
.....

[Metamorph]

Germany’s difficult choice could be whether to alienate the US or China
The Bitter Reality of U.S.-German Relations

Also, remember when Obama tapped Angela Merkel's phone and was like "Sorry I tapped your phone. You're my favorite foreign leader Angela Merkel. Kissy kissy poo poo." This is not a Trump problem, even if it's way worse under Trump. It's an American denialism problem.

[Metamorph]

NSA Allegedly Spied on Merkel's Cell Phone for Over a Decade

Hoo boy, this one's going to be difficult to explain. A new document leaked to Der Spiegel by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden indicates the NSA had taps on German chancellor Angela Merkel's phone for over a decade.

[Socionics Is A Cult]

A country would have to be crazy to deliberately star World War III. That makes it difficult to predict.

Essentially, most likely it would be caused by a theocracy led by a fundamentalist, or an authoritarian regime led by someone insane.

According to the Global Peace Index, the worse scoring megapower is Russia - many people will no doubt find this contentious.

Most probably, World War III will have Russia supporting some ally in the Middle East with nukes playing a big role. Maybe it would be an escalation from some lesser war.

Pakistan v.s. India could easily result in a World War with the US, China, and Russia backing one side or the other.

[Metamorph]

A country would have to be crazy to deliberately star World War III. That makes it difficult to predict.

Essentially, most likely it would be caused by a theocracy led by a fundamentalist, or an authoritarian regime led by someone insane.

According to the Global Peace Index, the worse scoring megapower is Russia - many people will no doubt find this contentious.

Most probably, World War III will have Russia supporting some ally in the Middle East with nukes playing a big role. Maybe it would be an escalation from some lesser war.

Pakistan v.s. India could easily result in a World War with the US, China, and Russia backing one side or the other.

Yes, but the way things are going now Germany is more closely allied with Russia, China, and Iran than with America, especially since Trump keeps deliberately widening the gap. Everyone knows the last two "World Wars" didn't start as America fighting Germany either, it just sort of turned into that. WWI started with Serbs assassinating Franz Ferdinand and before WWII started most Americans supported the Nazis.

A war with Russia, China, and/or Iran means a war with Germany and all the Americans with their lederhosen and beer boots are just in denial.

I'm optimistic because I don't think WWIII will happen. Most Americans really like Germany, Russia, Iran, and China (if not their current governments) and Trump has mostly been impeached now. I really don't want to be involved in my homeland going to war with my favorite cultures because, to be perhaps too blunt, it's Britain's bitch yet again. I'm smart enough not to be sent off but I already see signs of the conflict in my military family members' turning on me or I wouldn't even care.

[Metamorph]

Ein deutsch-amerikanischer Konflikt?


That's in German only and from 2017 but they're right about Germany being perhaps anti-democratic even today.


On a related note, here's something I got on my Facebook group Bookworms yesterday.

The hopeless struggle to make German gender-neutral

The German language is unsuited to modern sensitivities

Europe
Jan 18th 2020 edition
Jan 18th 2020
BERLIN

“In german, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has,” grumbled Mark Twain in his essay “The Awful German Language”. The rules governing gender in German are indeed baffling: why die Rübe (feminine) but das Mädchen (neuter)? Yet they are as nothing next to the complexities of importing modern gender sensitivities into a language plainly unsuited to them.

I've read multiple times that "social justice" is democracy. Well, then, screw democracy and modern sensitivities.

[Metamorph]

I don't think we'll have WWIII at all, and it'll be because Americans think Germany is Disneyland but real and refuse to go. All the bad press about Russia, Iran, and China can only go so far when everyone is driving to see the new Aladdin with Deutschland Mickey Mouse bumper stickers.

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Yes, but the way things are going now Germany is more closely allied with Russia, China, and Iran than with America, especially since Trump keeps deliberately widening the gap. Everyone knows the last two "World Wars" didn't start as America fighting Germany either, it just sort of turned into that. WWI started with Serbs assassinating Franz Ferdinand and before WWII started most Americans supported the Nazis.

A war with Russia, China, and/or Iran means a war with Germany and all the Americans with their lederhosen and beer boots are just in denial.

I'm optimistic because I don't think WWIII will happen. Most Americans really like Germany, Russia, Iran, and China (if not their current governments) and Trump has mostly been impeached now. I really don't want to be involved in my homeland going to war with my favorite cultures because, to be perhaps too blunt, it's Britain's bitch yet again. I'm smart enough not to be sent off but I already see signs of the conflict in my military family members' turning on me or I wouldn't even care.

It would take a lot for Germans to get involved in any future World War.

[Muddy]

It would take a lot for Germans to get involved in any future World War.

Ehh, people can easily be manipulated into supporting war, it's just a matter of the politicians and people of power willing it and having decent brains. Germany is still a supervised state of the anglo-west that is pressured into promoting pacifism to it's people to keep Germany as a nation docile and a non-threat. If nationalist were to force themselves into power and instruct institutions and the media to glory Germany's warlike past instead of shaming it, that 18% would begin rising rapidly. Geopolitics is extremely fickle.

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Ehh, people can easily be manipulated into supporting war, it's just a matter of the politicians and people of power willing it and having decent brains. Germany is still a supervised state of the anglo-west that is pressured into promoting pacifism to it's people to keep Germany as a nation docile and a non-threat. If nationalist were to force themselves into power and instruct institutions and the media to glory Germany's warlike past instead of shaming it, that 18% would begin rising rapidly. Geopolitics is extremely fickle.

Germany as a member of NATO actually has an obligation to spend 2% of its GDP on military spending. It "only" spends 1.2%.

[Muddy]

Germany as a member of NATO actually has an obligation to spend 2% of its GDP on military spending. It "only" spends 1.2%.

Well yes obviously the other NATO members want Germany to have at least some military so Russia or whoever can't just waltz into europe and so that they can contribute to NATO operations, that doesn't they are or least were kept on a leash. During the German reunification there was visible reluctance amongst several western leaders about letting it happen even though that meant communist East Germany falling which shows the was still clear desire to keep Germany suppressed and contained up to that point.

[Protozoa]

To have WW3, it will require the use of nuclear weapons because otherwise we just do the Proxy War Anthology.

So we'll need a certain recipe. First there needs to be some kind of famine, so that the people are desperate enough to go along with a nuclear war as a hope to improve life. Second there needs to be fostered a prideful nationalism that greatly mistrusts other nations, and lastly you need at least one loony willing and able to launch nuclear weapons without anyone willingly stopping them. This is The Unholy Trinity.

So Germany only seems to be forming mistrust, but there needs to be more imo.

[RBRS]

x

[xerx]

This eccentric fella predicts that it'll be between an American-Polish alliance vs. a Turkish-Japanese alliance. It'll happen sometime around 2050 when Japan launches a sneak attack on American forces in space.

He believes that, sometime in the 2020-30s, the EU, Russia and China will either collapse or become insular and isolationist.

[Adam Strange]

@xerxe, I read his book when it came out. It seemed like a far-fetched fantasy to me. He didn't support any of his claims in any way which I could understand. He completely missed the rise of China as an economic power. His geopolitical players seem to be moved by his imagination, not by anything internal to those players.

Countries don't go to war for fun. They do it to either preserve their economies or to secure future wealth. Wars are expensive and are generally driven by large economic forces like food losses and overpopulation.

For example, the widespread planting of potatoes had allowed the population of Europe to grow tremendously between 1600 and 1900. In addition, large amounts of food were being shipped from North America to Europe in the 1800's. The caloric needs of the population of Europe eventually outstripped the calories derivable from solar influx (as is true today). From 1850 to 1914, as the population of the US grew, the amount of food shipped to Europe fell. This pushed many people in Europe to near-starvation levels of sustenance. When the population becomes too large to feed, wars break out. Politics are just an excuse to go to war, not a reason.
Interestingly enough, the British navy had just built it's first oil-powered warships and it's first action in WWI was to secure the oil fields of Iraq. Was that a political or an economic move? Did the British just hate the Iraqis?

Paying for Friedman's book taught me an important lesson. Just because a guy looks important and can bullshit does not mean that he knows what he's talking about. Nor does the fact that he can get interviewed frequently mean that he has anything intelligent to say.

When someone shows me an analysis of future population and resource trends, moderated by statistical disasters like crop failures and disease, then I'll give some attention to their predictions. Otherwise, it's all flatulence.

[xerx]

@xerxe, I read his book when it came out. It seemed like a far-fetched fantasy to me. He didn't support any of his claims in any way which I could understand. He completely missed the rise of economic power of China. His geopolitical players seem to be moved by his imagination, not by anything internal to those players.

If you think that's fantasy, he also made a prediction that a war between the United States and Japan would break out during the 1990's. The guy loves to predict wars.

While his predictions appear rather eccentric, IMO he does support them with a set of coherent axioms. He's a geographical determinist who believes that national policy is locked in place by geography, regardless of the ruling party's stated ideology. His write up on how Russia's unlucky geography makes it destined to be an authoritarian state with a planned economy, whether its government is communist, liberal, or tsarist, is actually pretty interesting.

Whether or not his predictions come true (I'm as skeptical as you are), he does get one thing right, at least in my opinion: the least likely outcome is for things to continue on the exact same trajectory. If you were alive in June 1914, the European empires would have seemed permanent as well. I recently read a book by the English historian Paul Kennedy, published in 1987, in which he dismisses the possibility of the Soviet Union's collapse and claims that Japan's rapid economic growth was unlikely to stop.

[Adam Strange]

@xerxe, George Friedman built a profitable business on making predictions that scare people but don't come true. I've often wished that guys making predictions could get a dollar for every time they are right, and be charged a dollar for every time they are wrong. That would take care of most of the bullshitters.

Carrying this one step forward, I dream of asking a forecaster if, in the event that his specific prediction does not come true, can we cut his balls off? There should be some downside to being wrong.

The best forecaster that I know of is this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qDy0jHo_DQ

His website is here: http://www.2052.info/

The world he describes is the ocean in which we will all swim. This is the context in which economic and political predictions should be made.

Here he is reviewing his predictions from 50 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykFXvUDnw9Y

[xerx]

@xerxe, George Friedman built a profitable business on making predictions that scare people but don't come true. I've often wished that guys making predictions could get a dollar for every time they are right, and be charged a dollar for every time they are wrong. That would take care of most of the bullshitters.

Carrying this one step forward, I dream of asking a forecaster if, in the event that his specific prediction does not come true, can we cut his balls off? There should be some downside to being wrong.

That would be fun.

The best forecaster that I know of is this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qDy0jHo_DQ

His website is here: http://www.2052.info/

The world he describes is the ocean in which we will all swim. This is the context in which economic and political predictions should be made.

Here he is reviewing his predictions from 50 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykFXvUDnw9Y

Never heard of this guy before; seems interesting, thanks. Will definitely check him out.