How Russia could start another world war: A worst case scenario
World war III: how Russia could start another world war
It`s all over the news. Russia invaded the Crimea and there are plans by Russia to invade Eastern Ukraine. But what if Russia really invades Eastern Ukraine? What will happen? How will the west respond? And how likely will it be that a third world war breaks out by the hands of the Russians?
A recap
On November 21st 2013 an anti-Russian pro-European “revolution” broke out in Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine. The pro-Russian president Viktor Janukovitsch had to resign after mass riots broke out in the streets of Kiev and fled to Russia. As a response, Russia wanted to defend its fellow Russians on the Crimea because the revolution was mainly anti-Russian. As a response they invaded the Crimea and annexed it. Now the Crimea is autonomous republic under Russian governance (like Chechnya). Now the problem lays in Eastern-Ukraine. In this area there are also many ethnical Russians and these ethnical Russians want to be “liberated” from the Ukrainian regime.
What if…
What if Russia decides to do the same with Eastern Ukraine as they did with the Crimea? How will the west respond? Let`s say the Ukrainian forces invade Eastern Ukraine in order to defend its borders against the seperatists. Now Russia wants to defend its fellow Russians so let’s say Russia does invade Eastern-Ukraine. This will be an easy task for the Russian army because the Ukrainian army is not strong enough to take on Russia. Russia will now attack the west of Ukraine in order to punish the Ukrainian government and to show the west that sanctions will not work. The west condemns these actions of course. Now the west cannot just stand there condemning everything Russia does and do nothing. So the west puts pressure on Russia. They will cut all diplomatic and economic ties with Russia. The Russian currency will drop and the stock market in Moscow will be in crisis (it already is). Now it`s Russia`s turn to respond. They respond by closing all gas pipes that lead to western Europe and the gas price in Western-Europe starts to peak really quick because most western European countries are dependent on Russian gas. People will take to the streets and demand a solution for all this. Now western Europe is in crisis. Its people are on the streets and it comes over as weak. The west has to show its muscles and has to respond militarily. The problem here is that most Western-European countries cut in its army spending since the end of the cold war and is not well-equipped enough to organize a mass attack let alone a mass attack on Russia. Obama already condemned this, and told the European NATO members that it should start preparing and stop being so dependent on the US and Russia. So building a decent army will take a few years, but let`s say Western-Europe (or actually NATO in Europe) is well equipped and sends troops to Poland and the Baltics. Now Russia feels that it is being attacked and goes to war. Because the US is also a NATO country, they have to join their allies. This joining can happen in two ways. The first one is that the US starts to attack Eastern-Russia so it has two front war. This tactic will be very likely for several reasons, most of them are strategic. A disadvantage of this strategy is that China will join the war in order to protect its allies in the north. In this case the US and the whole of NATO will be at war with at least two nuclear powerhouses and North-Korea has a good reason to attack the US. The second case is that Russia attacks the US by attacking oil ridges in Alaska in order to put pressure on European NATO countries by attacking one of its allies. They will also do this in order to tell them not to tease Russia and to show the US their power. But this will be very unlikely to happen. This is a great way to start a two front war and no country wants this if they want to survive (e.g. the third Reich. If this country did not start a two front war, it would possibly survive a few more years) also if Russia starts a two front war, they will be at war with at least two nuclear powers in the west (Great-Britain and France) and the US in the east. Another scenario is that these conflicts will never take place and this war will be a cold war type of war with some tensions now and then.
And the winner is….
It is very hard to say who is going to win this war since it is just a scenario. If the Russian side (with maybe China and North-Korea) wins, this would mean the end of western dominance in politics and economy. In our timeline China will lead the world economy in less than two years experts say, China leading the economy is already inevitable. Also Russia now has shown its power and the US will no longer be the strongest country in the world. Of course the west could also win. If the west wins they will probably demand Ukrainian independence and they will also demand independence for several other Russian regions. They could do this by force or in a more diplomatic way. The Russian people will feel humiliated and will probably take to the streets and mass riots will break out in Moscow and other Russian cities. In a coming article I will go into more detail about the aftermath of this war.
Thanks for reading
This was my article about how Russia could start another world war. Of course it is just one of the thousands of scenarios that could take place and one single step in another direction could trigger a whole other scenario, but I think it is still not a scenario that should be completely ignored. What do you think? Leave comment on how likely a third world war will be and please answer my poll. Thank you for reading, commenting and answering.
