Certain attitudes in societies and actions by politicians tends toward world war.

1. Russia is wrong to invade Ukraine; this war of aggression affects many nations, and could lead (indirectly, I think) or contribute to a third world war.

2. Ukraine has a right to defend itself, and other nations have a right and responsibility to aid Ukraine in its defense. Certain attitudes and actions are pressuring all nations to take one side or another. Sanctions by the US and EU include the threat of secondary sanctions against any nation, company, or individual who violates those sanction laws, even outside of the US and EU. This causes all nations to be compelled to decide whether to comply, and take action against Russia by refusing to buy or sell many goods and services, or to decide to refuse to comply, and continue doing business with Russia. Then, in the current globalized economy, few nations can say that they never buy goods or services from any of the large economic nations in the world.

The effect is to cause every nation to line up on one side of the war or the other. This obviously tends towards a world war, as the world becomes divided into only two camps, one on each side of a very bloody and devastating war.

3. The U.S. and E.U. have the right to make laws for themselves, and to refuse to buy or sell with certain other nations. Whether or not this is prudent, or whether it might be unjust in certain hypothetical cases (such as refusing food and medicine to a needy nation), is a matter of judgment of the circumstances. But it is generally lawful and just, given due circumstances and an evaluation of the consequences.

However, a nation does not have the right to make laws which propose to bind every other nation, without their consent, to comply with sanctions — under threat of economic or other punishments. US laws are made by duly elected representatives of the people, who make laws according to the democratic process (instituted by the Constitution), laws which are confirmed by the President, and with possible appeal to the judiciary. US laws are unjust, when they propose to bind the whole world, including nations and populations who have no representation and no possible part in the democratic process which resulted in those laws. The US and EU, and the Western nations as a group, have no authority over the entire planet, its nations and its peoples, outside their own nations. It is totalitarian and fundamentally unjust for the Western nations to compel other nations to bend to their will. This is contrary to the sovereignty of each nation, and the principle of government by, for, and of the people. It is anti-democratic.

If another nation or group of nations were to do the same to the United States, instituting severe economic sanctions against the U.S., our leaders and people would consider this to be an act of war. And someday the US and/or EU might be the on the receiving end of primary or secondary sanctions. See my previous article.

Threatening all nations with secondary sanctions tends towards world war, as this unjust oppression of sovereign peoples is an act of economic warfare. The good intention is to restrict Russia from money and goods in order to lessen their ability and will to continue a gravely unjust war in Ukraine; but a good intention does not justify an inherently immoral means, which in this case is forcing third-party nations to comply with our judgments and laws. And as a type of moral violence against the will and autonomy of other nations, this type of sanction law tends toward war.

4. The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Russia Federation President Vladimir Putin. See this news story and many others. The ICC has authority based on an agreement signed in Rome, to which the U.S., Russia, Ukraine, and China are not signatories. As U.S. President Joe Biden has publicly stated, the warrant is justified as grave crimes were clearly committed, but this has no standing in the U.S. at all. News commentaries have opined that it is unlikely Putin will ever be arrested or tried by the ICC.

How does this tend toward world war? The U.S. has passed a law discussed at Wikipedia here, allowing the use of force to oppose ICC actions against U.S. military personnel:

“The George W. Bush administration signed the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, (informally referred to as The Hague Invasion Act), to signify the United States’ opposition to any possible future jurisdiction of the court or its tribunals.”

The law states its purpose as:

“To protect United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the United States Government against criminal prosecution by an international criminal court to which the United States is not party.” [PDF]

Then the law text states a reason for protecting U.S. elected and appointed officials, including the President:

“No less than members of the Armed Forces of the United States, senior officials of the United States Government should be free from the risk of prosecution by the International Criminal Court, especially with respect to official actions taken by them to protect the national interests of the United States.”

“The President is authorized to use all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any person described in subsection (b) who is being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court” [Note that this includes both U.S. persons and allies].

So the United States takes the position that we may use “all means necessary” to oppose ICC actions, warrants, arrests, and prosecutions of U.S. government and military personnel and allies. This clearly includes military action, as military troops are a protected category of persons. This law was occasioned by the investigation by the ICC of alleged war crimes committed by US troops in Afghanistan. If the ICC were ever to arrest and attempt to put on trial U.S. government or military personnel, the U.S. would use military force, if necessary.

Now it is clear that Russian personnel have committed war crimes in Ukraine, and the complicity and responsibility of President Putin is also apparent. One of the worst war crimes allegedly committed in Ukraine was described by the former President of Estonia, in an interview:

– At the beginning of the war, you wrote you felt such a wave of strong anger after the destruction of Mariupol as you had never felt before.

– It was a deliberate destruction of a city of 400,000 people with the single purpose of killing civilians. It was absurd. According to the latest estimates, 116,000 people were killed – about as many as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

– Is the situation in Mariupol still the most intolerable, or have there been even more shocking events since then?

– We don’t have much information about developments elsewhere. Of course, Bucha was a turning point for me personally, simply because it showed that nothing had changed since the Russians had done the same thing in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland in 1940-41. It shattered the illusion, “They’re different now, they don’t do that anymore. That was the Soviet Union. Now we’re talking about Russia,” was the political rhetoric of the last 30 years, but then it turns out that they behave the same way.

The war crime alleged by the ICC, according to an ICC statement, is that Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation….” The allegation is certainly very grave, but it is not as grave as the above alleged mass killings of civilians at Mariupol and Bucha.

In any case, an attempt, successful or not, to take Putin into custody, should he visit a nation that is a party to the ICC “Rome Statue” (as it is called), would be seen by Russia as an act of war — just as it would be seen by the U.S. and other non-parties to the Statue in the case of their leaders.

The approval of this arrest warrant by multiple nations in the West tends towards an escalation of the conflict between the nations supporting Ukraine, and those supporting Russia. And this is an unnecessary escalation, since no one thinks that the arrest warrant will result in a trial and judgment against Putin.

The International Criminal Court was set up with good intentions, but its implementation is problematic, as many nations, in refusing to be signatories, have indicated.

5. The Ukraine war has resulted in horrible damage to the people and nation of Ukraine, has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of troops on both sides, as well as many (perhaps a vast number) of civilian deaths. In my opinion, certain actions taken by nations on both sides have tended towards escalation and the possibility of a widening of the war beyond Ukraine. Supporting Ukraine in its self-defense is moral and just, as well as, for some nations, a moral obligation.

However, restraint is needed in public expressions by political leaders regarding the war. Such expressions might not help troops on the battlefield, and may tend toward escalation and a worsening of the war. Sending necessary weapons and munitions can be just. But these grave actions can have weighty consequences, and the circumstances, especially the consequences, must be carefully evaluated so as not to do more harm than good.

The Ukraine war could easily spin out of control, and result in a world war.

6. The U.S. has used the Presidential authority of a “drawdown” — taking military supplies stockpiled for U.S. defense, and sending it to an ally instead — 33 times as of early March 2023. We have sent Ukraine over 2 million artillery shells as well as many other weapons and munitions [U.S. State Dept. website, March 20, 2023]. We no longer have sufficient stockpiles of artillery shells to fight another Ukraine-level war, neither in defense of our Allies in NATO, nor other allies, nor even our own nation.

The U.S. and NATO as a whole is now vulnerable to a world war, having been weakened by our perhaps excessive and certainly LATE participation in the defense of Ukraine. NATO does not have the stockpiles or production capability to fight a world war at this time.

7. If the war in Ukraine worsens, such as by Ukraine defenses falling apart, and enemy troops advancing in multiple directions, the U.S. and other NATO nations would have to commit a large amount of troops, weapons, and munitions to all the NATO nations on the western border with Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.

This would leave the U.S. unable to give a full and effective response to an attempt by China to take control of Taiwan, whether by war or by an air and sea blockade. The U.S. is entirely unable to fight two major wars, as we did during World War 2 — one in Europe and the other in the Asia-Pacific region.

If China obtains control of Taiwan, they could and likely would issue primary and secondary sanctions against the U.S. and perhaps other nations, regarding semiconductors. Such sanctions would endanger the U.S. economy, military defense, and infrastructure. See my previous article. No nation today can fight a war without semiconductors. No economy today can function without semiconductors. All infrastructure requires semiconductors, in the factories that produce goods, or in the goods themselves. Modern communication is also dependent on semiconductors. And almost all semiconductors in Western nations are imported from Asia.

8. The Allies won World War 2 largely due to our alliance with the USSR under Stalin and China under Chiang Kai-shek. Even though Stalin was a brutal dictator, we made alliance as the need required, so as to avoid being conquered by the Nazis. Recall that Germany was attempting to design and build nuclear bombs, and they might have succeeded, if given enough time.

But today, the U.S. is sanctioning China with newly and sharply increased semiconductor sanctions. We are threatening China with serious consequences, if they supply weapons to Russia. (A meeting between Putin and Xi Jinping is scheduled for March 20 to 22, 2023, to sign agreements — on what, we do not yet know.) The U.S. is supplying billions of dollars of weapons to Taiwan. Then the Western nations are severely sanctioning Russia, and supporting Ukraine in the war.

All these things make it unlikely that Russia or China will ally with us in a third world war. And they might very well take the side of our enemies, supplying them with weapons, munitions, training, intel, etc. This makes a third world war more likely, as any opponent might evaluate that they could obtain substantial help from Russia and/or China, making the opponent more likely to start a war.

9. Iran is close to obtaining nuclear weapons. (It is even possible that they might secretly currently possess one or more nuclear bombs.) The Washington D.C. anti-nuclear proliferation think-tank, Institute for Science and International Security (Twitter: @thegoodISIS) stated the following in their analysis of the situation, with my emphasis:

“Iran can now break out and produce enough weapon-grade enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 12 days, using only three advanced centrifuge cascades and half of its existing stock of 60 percent enriched uranium. This breakout could be difficult for inspectors to detect promptly, if Iran took steps to delay inspectors’ access.

“Using its remaining stock of 60 percent enriched uranium and its stock of near 20 percent enriched uranium, Iran could produce enough weapon-grade uranium for an additional four nuclear weapons in a month. During the next two months, Iran could produce two more weapons’ worth of weapon-grade uranium from its stock of less than five percent enriched uranium, meaning that Iran could produce enough weapon-grade uranium for five nuclear weapons in one month and seven in three months.” [Institute for Science and International Security, Analysis of IAEA Iran Verification and Monitoring Report – February 2023, Albright et alia; March 3, 2023]

Producing enough Weapon Grade Uranium (WGU) for five (or seven) nukes does not imply the actual production of those working nuclear bombs, but only the uranium needed. Elsewhere the Institute has said that perhaps 6 months would be enough time to make the working nukes.

If Iran obtains nuclear weapons, the public announcement (or worse, the use) of these weapons would tend to cause extremists in the region to want to ally with Iran. Such an alliance would attract extremists who wish to have more power by association with a nuclear Iran. And this is attractive to extremist groups because they currently hold little power in that region of the world. If those nations are taken over by extremists, and they join together with Iran, they could raise an army of millions of troops and attack the U.S. and Europe with nuclear bombs as well as a massive invasion of troops. And this scenario is my speculation as to how World War 3 begins (in my eschatology writings).

With assistance from Russia, China, and North Korea, the Arab Muslim nations of the Middle East and northern Africa, allied under the leadership of a nuclear Iran, could present a grave and credible threat to the security of the NATO nations.

10. The possession of nuclear bombs by Iran directly and gravely threatens the security of the continental United States. Iran could send a nuclear bomb, even a crude one made with 60% uranium-235, on a commercial ship, and sail it into a harbor in New York City. The crew could detonate the nuke, causing massive destruction and loss of life.

Too many nations possess nuclear weapons today. But Iran is the most likely nation by far to actually use nuclear weapons in an unprovoked first-strike. The leaders of Iran are a very specific type of Muslim extremist; they are “Twelvers” who believe that they should start an apocalyptic war with the “infidels” and “apostates” in order to bring about the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam, and obtain a worldwide Islamic kingdom, by killing a vast number of non-Muslims.

* See my previous article here.

This is proposed by them to be obtained not only by a world war, but also by a requirement: convert or die. They propose that no one should be allowed to live except those who convert to their extremist version of Islam. Moderate peaceful practicing believing Muslims are termed “apostates” by them, for not believing in the extremist version of Islam. Believing and practicing Christian, Jews, and adherents of other religions are termed “infidels” (unbelievers) by them, as if belief in other religions were the same as absence of belief.

The Twelvers will fail to obtain a worldwide Islamic kingdom. But if they obtain nukes, they will become more dangerous than Russia and China combined. For they are convinced that they cannot lose a war with the West, and so they will not hesitate to make a nuclear first strike for the deliberate purpose of starting a worldwide war that will kill millions, tens of millions, or more.

Ronald L. Conte Jr.

Please understand that my writings about the future are speculative eschatology, based on study and interpretation, not based on knowledge that is absolute or certain. I have never received any private revelations myself.