Preparing for World War III: The Home Front
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/03/27/preparing_for_world_war_iii_the_home_front_1021112.htmlDuring an interview on Tuesday, March 5, 2024, Brigadier General Amit Sa’ar of the IDF disclosed that he penned a letter intended for Prime Minister Netanyahu just before October 7, 2023, cautioning “that Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah recognized an opportunity to attack Israel … due to internal conflict … as well as the level of readiness of the IDF at the time.” His reflection, which focused on military preparation, domestic politics, and international threats, should be taken as a warning for the United States.
On June 6, 2021, the anniversary of D-Day, the authors of this essay predicted that the major Eurasian autocratic powers—China, Russia, and Iran—would soon launch multiple opportunistic or coordinated attacks. Thus far, three of the four fronts of a new global conflict have emerged.
Given that the upcoming general election will likely provoke political instability, we believe the following warning must now be issued: Eurasian autocracies will see this election and any associated instability as a strategic opening for asymmetric and grey-zone attacks against the United States. At the same time, China will escalate its campaign to reincorporate Taiwan through blockade, invasion, or economic coercion.
Is World War III looming? How did this happen?
How did we get here?
The ongoing conflicts have strained the military and policy resources of the United States and its allies. The perception of these conflicts as disconnected, rather than as parts of one coherent conflict, has produced profound confusion among the American and Western polities. The piling-on by our adversaries has stretched the military and industrial capacity of the United States to the point that allies are running short of key warfighting materiel, such as artillery shells. The resources to fully support our allies are not available. None of the Western Powers have shifted their economy onto a wartime footing.
Several factors precipitated the Western Powers’ fall into this geo-strategic mess. First, military capabilities among many of our NATO allies have been eroded over the past generation. Second, adversaries across Eurasia came to believe that the United States would no longer defend partners and allies, following the debacle in Afghanistan. And finally, in the American corridors of power, foreign policy experts tend to be regional specialists. They believe that a local rout of American influence and armed force has consequences only for neighboring states – the wider picture does not come into focus. In this view, each front of this Eurasian war can be treated as a separate event, with only isolated, regional consequences.
It has been decades in the making. The Afghanistan withdrawal disaster is a major factor.
