Flashpoints for War!

Rumble link Bitchute link I remember learning in school that the flashpoint for World War I was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Like most people, I never quite understood how the first-ever World War, involving over 30 nations and leading to almost 20 million deaths, resulted from a gratuitous murder by a handful of radical students. Apparently universities should keep a very close eye on student organizations! I later encountered the realist school of geopolitics, which argues that the Great War was a disaster waiting to happen. The actual cause of the war, according to realists, was not a random assassination, but the rise of German (and to a lesser extent Russian and American) economic and military power, which threatened the then-British-dominated world order. Realists say this pattern is not uncommon. A number one power, alarmed at the rise of a number two challenger, allies itself with the number three power, but ultimately fails to maintain its position. The shifting power dynamics, in which the number one power no longer has the economic and military might to back up its top ranking, produces a major war, whose aftermath establishes the new international pecking order. In the case of the two World Wars, which were really one war with two major episodes, the thalassocratic British empire exhausted itself fighting Germany, allowing the US to seize the number one spot. Today, the US empire is in a position not unlike Britain’s circa 1914. Having industrialized first, built a huge navy, and developed the necessary skills to “rule the waves” and colonize the wogs, the Brits had benefitted from a huge head start; but by 1914 the Germans, Russians, and Americans were catching up, and the Brits no longer had enough relative power to enforce unipolar world domination. Likewise, 2024 America is still coasting on the fumes of its gigantic post-World War II head start on the rest of the world. The US emerged from World War II with roughly 50% of global GDP. In 1960 it was still 40%. But the decline since then has been steady. Today the US only controls 13% of global GDP. But it still imagines itself as the global Goliath it was in 1960—or maybe even bigger, since the Soviet ideological challenger has disappeared, and the grandiosely narcissistic neocons have seized the helm of the ship of state. A major war that will reset power relations and take the US down several notches seems almost inevitable.* The question remains, where will the flashpoint be? The neocons, in their infinite wisdom, have made it difficult to guess, having alienated so much of the world that the coming take-down-the-US World War could break out practically anywhere. Russia and its borderlands…China and its southern sea and/or its errant province of Taiwan…and now, with the genocide of Palestine making the Islamic world even angrier than Russia and China, the whole middle belt of Eurasia and North Africa is equally hostile territory. But before we start globetrotting in search of flashpoints, why not begin imagining the transforming event a bit closer to home? If the assassination of heir-presumptive Archduke Ferdinand, attributed to allegedly state-supported radical fanatics, could set off World War I, could an assassination of presumptive 2024 president Donald Trump, attributed to radical Iran-supported fanatics, unleash World War III? Flashpoint Florida Imagine: It’s October 2024. Trump is leading in the polls 55%-45% nationwide, with a clear edge in all the swing states. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a drone swoops down on Mar-a-Lago, smashes through a plate glass window like a supermosquito on steroids, and stings Trump with its explosive charge just as he’s breaking open his seventh can of diet coke. (Cinematographically, we cut from a close-up of the pssssssst as Trump opens the can to a medium shot of the almost simultaneous explosion.) Fortunately, almost before what is left of Trump is declared dead, the media tells us who did it. A radical Iranian-Palestinian terrorist named Lee Harvey Atta is arrested on the seventh floor of the Palm Beach School Book Depository and accidentally defenestrated before he can be questioned. Luckily, on the floor of the book storeroom, authorities discover an Iranian-made Manlicher-Carcano drone control rig complete with instructions written in Farsi, signed by the Supreme Leader of Iran. President Biden, whose cognition has been revived to functionality thanks to an Elon Musk (TM) brain implant, appears on television extravagantly praising the late and much-lamented Trump, canceling the election, declaring that all Americans are united in their thirst for vengeance, and calling for an all-out war on Iran to be personally commanded by a certain Bibi Netanyahu, who will be Lear-Jetted and then helicoptered in from Tel Aviv to take charge in the White House Situation Room. With the mutterings of conspiracy theorists silenced by the new AI-driven censorship algorithms, the US and the world are off to the races. Other Potential Flashpoints The above scenario, or some only slightly-less-ludicrous variation, may not be quite as unlikely as it sounds. Removing Trump, inciting Trump supporters to war hysteria, and blaming Iran—a plausible patsy given its stated desire for revenge for the assassination of General Soleimani—would kill three birds with one drone. The neocons may even have thought ahead to such a scenario when they conned Trump into approving the murder of Gen. Soleimani. But don’t bet on Flashpoint Florida. It’s a big world out there, and—thanks to the neocons—most of it hates the US empire with a passion. The list of war-trigger possibilities is so long that guessing right would be like winning the lottery. In our new “Flashpoints for War” episode of False Flag Weekly News, Cat McGuire and I began with the latest crisis: more than 85 US attacks on Iraq and Syria, threats of more to come, and counterattacks from the Resistance. With geriatric Biden under pressure from his right to act tough, it isn’t hard to see how a miscalculation, and/or a false flag by Israel, could set the dominoes falling in the direction of global war. Another Mideast flashpoint, of course, is the Red Sea, especially the Bab al-Mandab. Yemen’s Houthi-led government, backed by everyone in the region, is continuing to attack Israel-bound ships in an effort to enforce the World Court’s anti-genocide order, despite the presence of a US armada unofficially known as Operation Genocide Guardian. US ships are sitting ducks due to the proliferation of advanced anti-ship missiles. Instead of the long-awaited Persian Gulf of Tonkin incident, one iteration of which was thwarted in 2007 by US 5th Fleet advisor Gwenyth Todd, we could see a Red Sea Gulf of Tonkin incident…only it might involve an actual attack, albeit a false flag one, as in “remember the Maine.” Another escalatory flashpoint could involve Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has demonstrated an ability to penetrate Israeli defenses to hit heavily-guarded military targets even under conditions of highest alert. The Israelis clearly want all-out war with Hezbollah, in order to drag the US into the ensuing war with Iran. Only a very firm “no” from the American side prevented Israel from going to all-out war with Hezbollah after October 7. Given subsequent US ineffectuality at restraining the mad-dog Zionists, it isn’t hard to imagine Israel getting its wish and setting off World War III via an all-out war with Hezbollah and the rest of the Resistance Axis and Muslim world. Flashpoint Palestine As the above examples suggest, there are many ways that the continuing Israeli genocide of Palestine could indirectly lead to World War III. But could Palestine become a direct flashpoint? The Palestinians don’t seem to have enough military power. But if the war goes badly enough for the Palestinian Resistance, other branches of the Axis of Resistance will escalate their support, with unpredictable consequences. Additio… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kevinbarrett.substack.com