Beyond the military showboating and the exaggerated confidence in the media, all of these war-mongering nations are fully aware that the potential consequences of a large-scale war outweigh any perceived benefits.
Developed nations are products of practical side-taking. They know when to bark and when to bite, and they know very well the consequences of wounding what they can’t kill. This is the main reason Russia is still breathing.
Most of these so-called developed countries are hemorrhaging economically, and fatter defence budgets won’t only signal a domestic crisis but could also mark the end of their reigns as stable economies. There’s a possibility that most of them—especially those that partake in offshore balancing in exchange for US protection—know that investing in a bad war is a one-way ticket to poverty or becoming a sovereign beggar.
The last two world wars are reminders of the devastations of large-scale wars. The wars changed the polarity— the distributions of power—of the world. For instance, before the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire wielded considerable influence in Central and Eastern Europe, despite enduring opposition from rising nationalist movements within its diverse ethnic population. The war fast-tracked its disintegration, with the Serbs, Croats, Slovaks, and others pushing for their autonomy.
The Ottoman Empire too was the Muslim World’s superpower until its misadventures in the First World War, and it still hasn’t recovered from the defeat. Afterward, it was partitioned by the victorious Allies, leading to the emergence of modern-day Turkey and the loss of much of its territories in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. It took a century of self-adjustment—and apologising for their sovereign existence under Kemal Ataturk—for what’s left of the defunct empire to retain this illusion of influence in the boys’ quarters of Europe today. This is what war does to nations.
Before the Second World War, the United Kingdom was strategising to retain its place as the world’s ultimate superpower. It commanded the largest and most powerful naval forces in the world, which allowed it to project its influence and dominance in manufacturing, finance, and technology, an economic and industrial primacy fuelled by the First Industrial Revolution from the late 18th century.
After the Second World War, the almighty United Kingdom, once the largest and most powerful empire on the planet, left the stage for new world powers—United States and the Soviet Union. It didn’t end there. The UK, along with other Western European countries, ended up as charity projects of the United States, their former colony, under the European Recovery Program, simply known as the Marshall Plan.
This is what war does to nations. It diminishes them and paves the way for new powers, new economies, new realities, new poverty, and those developed states know the global balance of power as it stands today doesn’t offer them significant advantage to emerge from the war the same.
Now, whether they are willing to take the risk of wrecking their countries over another man’s war, in which the global public relations don’t seem to favour them even in their media, depends entirely on the mental state of those calling the shots, and I guarantee that those folks aren’t only sane but pragmatic. They know the cost of wounding what they can’t kill. The third world war would only occur if or when sub-clinical psychopaths gain power in developed nations.
*Kakanda is a presidential aide in Nigeria. This opinion article was originally shared on the author’s Facebook page.