cellio: (mandelbrot)
Monica ([personal profile] cellio) wrote2003-02-14 02:01 pm
Entry tags:

war question

A possibly-morbid thought experiment for a Friday afternoon:


Ok, suppose for the sake of argument that we were headed toward what historians will later label World War III -- US at war with Iraq and North Korea, much of the Arab world at war with Israel, Pakistan/India heating up even more, NATO divided, China perhaps taking the opportunity to go after Taiwan, terrorism abounding, serious consideration of nukes, etc etc. (Yes, I realize that not all events in this list are linked, but enough of them are that some subset of this could set off the rest, I would think.) So the question: at what point in time would the general consensus be that this is the case? When, for example, during the 1930s/1940s did the public (in the affected locations) generally realize that the events they were seeing were much, much bigger than a conventional war of limited scope? And how long before then did people who expressed such ideas get dismissed as paranoid?

(It's a thought experiment; do not read into this presumptions of my opinions of current affairs.)

[identity profile] the-never.livejournal.com 2003-02-14 04:11 pm (UTC)(link)
We are at T-Minus Neville Chamberlain.

[identity profile] buoren.livejournal.com 2003-02-14 04:21 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't think we have so much of a problem of a Neville Chamberlain, as much as we have a problem of a Cordell Hull.