World War 111 ?

All through the cold war we lived with the threat of a nuclear exchange between super powers America and Russia.  When the Soviet Union imploded that threat lifted but now the threat level is again rising with a standoff developing between China and the United States.

China looks to be heading towards a dictatorship.  Very quietly, term limits are being dropped and it looks like Xi Jinping will stay long after his term limit expires in 2023.  This news was suppressed to the Chinese people.  It was relegated to an inner pager story in the Chinese press and the rigid censorship expunged any comments from social media.

The flash point will come - sooner or later - over the South Chia sea.   China's claim to sovereignty because it has developed artificial islands has been rejected by the world court.  China will now enforce its possession by military means and it is fast heading towards parity with the United States military.

So far, China has imposed no restrictions on shipping passing through the South China sea or Aircraft traveling above it, but it sends warnings to US naval ships that they are " trespassing ".  This area of water is a world shipping route and any sort of Chinese embargo would be commercially crippling.

China's intentions are unclear.  Those islands have been developed into military fortresses with safe harbours for shipping and air strips to serve as unsinkable aircraft carriers.  They project force far beyond the Chinese mainland, but whether this is intended as defence or offense is an unanswered question.

So far, the mutual destruction likely in a nuclear exchange has prevented open warfare between the super powers and delivered war by proxy.   The hope of humankind is that the restraint of the second world war may stay the nuclear option the same way that poisonous gas use did not extend to that conflict.  Had gas been part of the bombing campaign, the wars death toll would have been close to total annihilation.

We now know that a nuclear exchange came down to the decision of an individual commander in a soviet submarine during the Cuban missile crisis.  He was not a king or a president, but simply a naval officer in charge of a nuclear torpedo.  The decision he made saved millions of lives.

The gamesmanship being deployed in the South China sea can very easily see a similar scenario develop where a forward position is out of contact with their superiors and facing just such a decision.   It is doubtful that the leader of any sane nation would deliberately launch a nuclear strike in the knowledge that there would be a similar reply response, but the need for a swift response to a perceived attack delivers opportunities for an accident.

The most likely start to a third world war could be misinterpretation of unfolding events in the South China sea.