Daily Telegraph editor Alistair Heath warns that a third world war is more likely today, arguing that new weapons and the West's failure to understand its enemies increase the risk of a horrific conflict.
In his article in the newspaper, Heath admits that humans have been lucky so far. Although they invented nuclear weapons 77 years ago, they have not used them to kill each other since the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.
He said that countries have avoided using long-range missiles to exterminate the cities of their enemies, adding that humans are tampering with genetic engineering, space travel, and exploiting artificial intelligence and some deadly disease-causing organisms, but they have not yet used any of these technologies in a collective war.
Nevertheless, reconciliation coupled with self-confidence to the point of arrogance and arrogance, the possibilities of a dangerous international conflict - the worst of which is the outbreak of another world war - are much greater than we realize, and these possibilities are increasing day by day.
The editor of the British newspaper goes on to say that no one knows the exact probability of such a conflict, but even with a 10% probability of a global catastrophe during this century would be "frightening", requiring all Western countries to take urgent and renewed attention to the matter to ensure that it is avoided. A war like Armageddon at the end of time, and that will only come "through effective deterrence, new alliances, massive investments in defensive weapons, and urgent engagement in diplomatic cooperation."
Countries’ race to arm themselves poses a great danger (Reuters)
Techniques and fears
But why this pessimism?
Heath asks and then answers by saying that pessimism is part of a numbers game, considering that the "fatal mistake" of the spread of advanced technologies, including nuclear weapons, lies in the ability of more countries to inflict serious harm on their enemies, and that geopolitics has become more complex than any A time has passed with the end of American hegemony in the world, raising the possibility of fatal misunderstanding or local conflict in Africa, South America or Asia spiraling out of control.
The author of the article asks again about the reasons that prevent the administration of US President Joe Biden from allowing Iran to become a nuclear state, considering that this makes the outbreak of a regional war an almost guaranteed possibility.
The Cold War was a simple struggle that we were fortunate to survive, according to Alistair Heath, who cited events of the era such as Vasily Arkhipov, deputy commander of a Russian submarine, refusing to obey the captain's orders to fire a nuclear torpedo on the United States in October 1962 in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis. .
Another example occurred in 1983, when a Russian military officer named Staislav Petrov ignored an early warning that the United States had launched a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union.
The North Korean regime is one of the parties that could cause a third world war, according to the author of the article (European)
complicated world
And in today's world that seems the most complex with tyrannical "paranoid" regimes - as is the case with North Korea - capable of causing massive massacres, it will be easier for countries to make a fatal mistake that ignites the fuse of all-out war, according to a Telegraph article.
"The fact that Russia's performance on the Ukrainian battlefield has remained so poor is good news, but it should not lure us into a false sense of security."
With the exception of Germany, the West has done well by supporting Ukraine forcefully but wisely, even though other countries such as India and Pakistan have ignored those efforts.
In the opinion of the editor of the Telegraph, many emerging powers would like to retain the option of invading one of their neighbors, stressing that the clearest flashpoint of tension now is Taiwan, and that these powers are no longer ready to submit to the will of the West.
worry and danger
The writer adds that the world has become more dangerous and not the other way around, and that "biological terrorism" has become a cause for growing concern, and that a major cyber attack or attack on the transatlantic marine communication cables may destroy the economy that depends on the Internet and may be seen as a declaration of war.
During the Cold War, the United States believed that it had succeeded in deterring the Soviet Union's use of nuclear weapons, but historians who have seen the declassified Moscow documents realize that this was an illusion.
Alistair Heath concludes his article by saying that the future of world peace looks more bleak than ever unless Britain, America and other countries raise their level of performance significantly.