Just How Close Are We To World War III?

Just how close are we to World War III?

I think we are uncomfortably close to it.

First of all, look at where the current wars are

that are being fought.

So we already have a major land war in Europe,

the biggest one that we've had since World War II,

with the Russian invasion of Ukraine

that has killed probably hundreds of thousands of people

and has not ended.

We've already seen a major conflict in the Middle East

with the Gaza War and Israel taking action

in seven or eight countries.

And we see this state of war between the United States

and Iran that could lead to state collapse in Iran,

could lead to major refugee flows.

So we're two thirds of the way there

if you look at the map of World War II.

And now the third piece of this could be the Taiwan Strait.

China has made very clear

that it doesn't see Taiwan as separate from China.

They want to reunify Taiwan no matter what they have to do.

And the Taiwanese increasingly

do not want to be a part of China.

If China were to try to militarily take control of Taiwan,

then we'd really be in a situation where that entire map

of World War II, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, East Asia,

suddenly you do have conflict along those fault lines.

I think the bigger reason that I'm worried about this

is look at the collection of people who are in charge

of the most powerful countries in the world today.

Donald Trump in the United States,

Vladimir Putin in Russia, Xi Jinping in China.

You can throw in Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel,

Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey.

These are older men,

they are nationalists, they are strong men.

These are the kind of leaders that can get into conflict.

Now you might say, it seems like Trump wants

to avoid the war, doesn't seem like the Chinese

are looking for a world war, but that's always the case.

The problem is when you start to have

territorial expansion again.

A Russia trying to take land and Ukraine.

A United States that may try to take land in Greenland

or other places.

At China, they may try to take land in Taiwan.

Those big powers, they can bump into each other.

And given the fact that increasingly those countries are not

playing by the rules that were set

after World War II to prevent another world war,

that's why we set up the United Nations,

that's why we set up international laws.

As those rules and laws and institutions are being ignored,

I just think we are living with way too much risk

of the potential for another world war,

a conflict among the great powers.