Tracy Turner

I. Prelude to Catastrophe

This world today greatly corresponds to the precursor of World War I, featuring its complicated spider web of highly entangled multiple alliances, budding nationalism, and strategic miscalculation. The contemporary aspect addition of evolving technologies, internationalism, and the rise in non-state entities complicates and exacerbates even further the modern geopolitical fault lines, highlighting with urgency the requirement for a much deeper understanding.

II. Deep Structures of Doom

A. Great Powers and Complicated Alliances

Then, the intricate web of alliances among Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire set the stage for world war.

And then, a new axis emerges with the U.S.-NATO-Israel-Gulf States, an alliance established primarily for security (oil converted to food and military might) and economic motives (oil), confronting an alliance of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and Yemen's Houthi rebels, an alliance held together by their common opposition to the former alliance's power and actions.

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): China's BRI, a world-wide infrastructure development plan, has built strategic seaborne and overland corridors across the Middle East and North Africa, recalling images of pre-WWI Germany's schemes. While crucial to global trade, such routes are also hotbeds of local tensions as they can be easily cut off.

North Korea's Role: North Korea has become a key supplier of weapons to Iran and Russia, providing artillery, missiles, and advanced combat troops. It, in return, gains access to advanced military technology and economic support, increasing its own influence and power. World War III will be waged mainly on Oil and its transformation into Food.

B. Economic Warfare as Prelude to Hot War

Then, Britain's blockade of Germany by sea and Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare heightened tensions.
Now:

Sanctions: The United States has imposed extensive sanctions against Iran, Russia, and Chinese tech giants in an effort to harm their economies and military capabilities. Despite its nuclear capability, the United States has never been weaker (Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden and Trump, equivalent of 25 years of Presidents Buchanan, Jackson and Trump.).

Houthi Disruptions: Houthi forces, backed by Iran and Russia, have struck primary shipping routes in the Red Sea, upsetting global commerce and increasing tensions. A U-20 torpedoing of the Lusitania is imminent.

C. Nationalism as Tinderbox

Then, Serbian nationalism ignited the tinderbox of Europe.
Now:

Middle East: Israeli nationalism continues to undermine Palestinian sovereignty, and Kurdish aspirations threaten the territorial integrity of Iraq and Syria.
Iran's Role: Iran's support for various proxy militias in the area is comparable to Austria-Hungary's exploitation of Serbia, which could result in more significant conflicts.

Iran's 2025 Position: A Historical and Strategic Perspective
Iran's current position is a reflection of its imperial past, distinctive Shia heritage, strategic compulsions, and revolutionary vision. Ancient Persian empires leave a legacy of cultural pride and ambitions in the region. Shia Islam, created through the Safavids and consolidated by the Islamic Revolution of 1979, determines Iran's foreign policy, including its aid to Shia populations. Foreign intervention over centuries has fostered an intense hatred for foreign control, maintaining its self-reliant, anti-Western orientation. Cultural values of masculinity, self-reliance, and diplomatic cunning also control its tough yet cautious interaction with the world.

China's Nationalism: China's belligerent South China Sea and Taiwan policies are a manifestation of a regional hegemony like Germany's pre-WWI ambitions. The "Century of Humiliation" (c. mid-19th to mid-20th century) is one of the most powerful motivations of Chinese nationalism. During this period, China had vast tracts of lost land, occupation by foreigners, and internal instability at the hands of Western nations and Japan.

D. Arms Races and Technological Brinkmanship

Then, the advent of dreadnoughts and machine guns revolutionized war.
Now:

Advanced Weaponry: The development of hypersonic missiles, AI-driven combat systems, and drone swarms has transformed the art of war.

Regional Flashpoints: Beijing's naval encroachment into the Indian Ocean, Tehran's mining of the Strait of Hormuz, and Pyongyang's overflights by missiles into Japan have raised the risk of war.

III. Flashpoints: Powder Kegs in Waiting
A. Yemen and the Red Sea Crisis

Houthi Activities: The Houthi rebels have bombed strategic targets in Yemen, oil terminals, with heavy losses and economic damage.
International Involvement: America has conducted air raids against the positions of Houthi forces while Iran and Russia continue to support the rebels, aggravating the crisis and threatening regional stability.

B. Taiwan and the Shadow of Sarajevo
Taiwan's Status: The political status of Taiwan remains contentious with China staking its claim on the island and the U.S. maintaining a policy of strategic ambiguity.

Potential for Conflict: Any move towards independence by Taiwan would most likely incite China's military intervention, drawing in the U.S. and its partners, as in the alliances of WWI.
C. North Korea: The New Rogue Catalyst

Military Developments: North Korea's advancements in missile and nuclear capabilities, as well as its key allies, present a significant cause of threats to regional and international security.

Proxy Wars: Support by North Korea of proxy militias in various corners of the world, particularly in the Middle East, has compounded international relations further.

IV. Divergences: Why 2025 Is Worse Than 1914
A. Nuclear Arms

Proliferation: Spread of nuclear arms among various countries increases the threat of catastrophic war.
Tactical Use: The development of tactical nuclear weapons diminishes apprehensions about using them in local wars.

B. Asymmetric and Non-State Warfare
Proxy Wars: State-sponsored non-state actors engage in asymmetric warfare, complicating responses by traditional military forces.

Cyber Warfare: Expanding cyber capabilities allow for terrorist strikes against critical infrastructure, further destabilizing the region.
C. Globalized Economic Interdependence

Supply Chain Vulnerabilities: War in key regions has the potential to disrupt global supply chains, leading to economic crises.

Energy Dependencies: States' reliance on energy imports from volatile areas renders them more susceptible to geopolitical pressure.

V. Endgame Scenarios: Sleepwalk or Stampede?
Yemen Escalation: Houthi missile attack on a U.S. warship leads to retaliatory attacks, drawing in regional powers and spilling over into a broader conflict.

Taiwan Crisis: Chinese military response to Taiwan's declaration of independence leads to intervention by the U.S. and its allies, culminating in an all-out war.

Cyberattack Aftermath: A catastrophic cyberattack on strategic infrastructure in America or Europe triggers Article 5 of NATO, which forces a military response by Russia and China.

VI. A Warning in Echoes

The geopolitical environment today bears impressive similarities with the situation leading up to World War I, with entangling alliances, increasing nationalism, and strategic blunders. Yet, the presence of sophisticated technology, nuclear weapons, and non-state actors brings new complexities to the potential for international conflict. This hybrid combination serves to highlight the imperative of vigilance, diplomacy, and strategic foresight in ensuring history does not become even more catastrophic.

TIMELINE: WWI Precursor vs. 2025 Geopolitical Crisis

1. Strategic Hedging:
Israel is no longer the isolated David confronting Arab Goliaths that it once saw itself as. Instead, it navigates adroitly through diplomatic minefields:

Russia: Israel quietly has a deconfliction arrangement with Russia in Syria that permits its own strikes against Iranian assets without Russian protest. Yet it will not fully assist with Western sanctions against Moscow for Ukraine, secretly keeping relations with Russian oligarchs and avenues of influence alive.
China: While a close U.S. military ally, Israel has close trade and technology relations with China, notably in fields like artificial intelligence, cyber-surveillance, ports, and infrastructure — the same areas the U.S. regards as crucial to great-power competition.

The Gulf States: Post-Abraham Accords, Israel's ties with the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco prosper economically and militarily — yet are poor, transactional ones, founded on the Arab public remaining silent or powerless when it comes to the Palestinian issue.

Africa and South America: Israel actively wooing Sub-Saharan African nations (e.g., Chad, Sudan) with security aid and agricultural technology and lobbies hard for diplomatic recognition in South America, often using evangelical Christian backing rather than secular diplomacy.

2. The Iran Obsession:

Israel's foreign policy concerns isolating and neutralizing Iran the most. But by pressuring Tehran through America and Sunni monarchies while simultaneously negotiating with Moscow and Beijing — both of which consolidate Iran — Israel is engaged in a risk-high, double-edged game. Every diplomatic dalliance with Russia or China tars the unified anti-Iran front it purports to support.

3. Domestic Political Survival At The Expense Of Strategic Clarity:

Netanyahu's legal risk — standing accused of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust — rewards continuous foreign policy brinksmanship. Each new military action, each diplomatic "breakthrough," and each threat expands his reputation as Israel's indispensable protector. Israeli foreign policy now serves not only national security but Netanyahu's security of liberty. Netanyahu is Caligula with a Nuclear Football.

4. Undermining America's Patience:

Even if American political elites remain pro-Israel, frustration accumulates in the shadows. American intelligence agencies more and more perceive Israel as a "strategic frenemy" — a country that cooperates on intelligence even while it exports cyberarms (e.g., Pegasus spyware) to adversaries and flattering America's geopolitical enemies. Israel's growing trade with China, its selective equidistance in Ukraine, and its perpetual willingness to disregard American advice in Gaza and Lebanon are progressively "sanding down" the pillars of the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

Overall, although Israel's multivector diplomacy appears brilliant tactically but corrosive strategically, the candles it lights at four, five, or six ends have the risk of eventually setting its hands and hands alone on fire.

VII. The Gathering Storm: Unseen Catalysts of Collapse

A. AI Decapitation Strikes and the Death of Command

• Then, Assassinations (like Franz Ferdinand's) and surprise attacks threw nations into chaos.

• Now: AI-driven cyberweapons can paralyze or decapitate national leadership in minutes, without a single bullet fired.

• Example: In a 2025 wargame scenario, an AI virus ("Nemesis") compromises the communications of NATO's command structure, simulating false orders that almost trigger a nuclear alert. This simulation shows how a leadership vacuum can spiral into annihilation before human verification is possible.

B. Rogue Nuclear Proliferation and Stateless WMDs

• Then: Only the great powers wielded industrial-scale killing force.

• Now, Nuclear capabilities have spread to unstable regimes and potentially non-state actors. The line between "terrorist attack" and "state-sponsored first strike" blurs dangerously.

• Example: Intelligence leaks suggest Saudi Arabia, with tacit Chinese support, completed a covert nuclear weapons program in late 2024. Iranian-backed proxies in Yemen have received "dirty bomb" components, creating a lethal ambiguity that could justify mass retaliation by either side.

C. South American Collapse and the New Monroe Crisis

• Then, European empires collapsed under multi-front wars and colonial unrest.

• Now: Economic implosion in Venezuela and wider South America threatens to destabilize the Western Hemisphere itself.

• Example: In early 2025, Venezuela's government collapses. Colombian paramilitary forces clash with Venezuelan refugees along the border. Cuba, Nicaragua, and Chinese advisors flood the region, reactivating dormant U.S. Monroe Doctrine policies — while draining U.S. attention from Asia and the Middle East.

D. Final War by Miscalculation: The Red Sea-South China Sea Axis

• Then: The July Crisis spiraled from diplomatic failure, not deliberate war plans.

• Now: Autonomous escalation dynamics create "flash wars" — conflicts neither side initially intends to fight but are unable to de-escalate once begun.

• Example: After a Houthi anti-ship missile sinks a U.S. destroyer in the Red Sea, a retaliatory strike mistakenly hits a Chinese-flagged vessel supplying Yemen. China mobilizes in the South China Sea in solidarity, launching anti-ship missile attacks on U.S. carriers near Taiwan — cascading toward total war within 72 hours.

VIII. Israel Burning Multivector Candles at Once: A Diplomacy of Endless Ends

The State of Israel today practices a form of multivector diplomacy—an intricate, often contradictory strategy of maintaining simultaneous ties with mutually hostile powers. Israel's blunderbuss diplomacy is no accident. It is a deliberate policy shaped by decades of siege mentality and survival instincts and now, increasingly, by the personal political ambitions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a hardened right-wing Knesset coalition.

1. Strategic Hedging:

Israel is no longer the isolated David facing Arab Goliaths it once portrayed itself as. Instead, it dances fluidly across diplomatic minefields:

• Russia: Israel maintains a tacit deconfliction agreement with Russia in Syria, enabling its airstrikes against Iranian targets without Russian interference. Yet it refuses to fully align with Western sanctions against Moscow over Ukraine, quietly preserving ties to Russian oligarchs and influence channels.
• China: While a close U.S. military ally, Israel cultivates deep trade and technology relations with China, especially in sectors like artificial intelligence, cyber-surveillance, ports, and infrastructure — precisely the fields the U.S. views as critical to great-power competition.
• The Gulf States: Post-Abraham Accords, Israel's relations with the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco flourish economically and militarily — but these are fragile, transactional ties, dependent on the Arab public remaining silent or powerless about the Palestinian issue.
• Africa and South America: Israel aggressively courts Sub-Saharan African nations (e.g., Chad, Sudan) with security aid and agricultural technology while lobbying hard for diplomatic recognition in South America, often leveraging evangelical Christian support rather than secular diplomacy.

2. The Iran Obsession:

Israel's foreign policy is mainly focused on isolating and neutralizing Iran. Yet by lobbying America and Sunni monarchies to pressure Tehran while at the same time dealing with Moscow and Beijing — both of whom strengthen Iran — Israel plays a high-risk, double-edged game. Each diplomatic flirtation with Russia or China undermines the unified anti-Iran coalition it claims to champion.

3. Internal Political Survival Over Strategic Clarity:

Netanyahu's legal jeopardy — facing charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust — incentivizes constant foreign policy escalation. Every new military operation, every diplomatic "breakthrough," and every threat inflates his image as Israel's irreplaceable defender. Thus, Israeli foreign affairs now serve not just national security but the security of Netanyahu's freedom.

4. Eroding America's Patience:

While American political elites remain pro-Israel, frustration builds behind closed doors. U.S. intelligence services increasingly view Israel as a "strategic frenemy" — a state that shares intelligence while simultaneously selling cyberweaponry (like Pegasus spyware) to rivals and courting America's geopolitical enemies. Israel's deepening trade with China, its selective neutrality on Ukraine, and its frequent disregard for American advice in Gaza and Lebanon are slowly "sanding down" the foundations of the U.S.-Israeli alliance.

In sum, Israel's multivector diplomacy may seem brilliant tactically but proves corrosive strategically. The candles it burns at four, five, or six ends may soon leave it with molten wax and ashes.

IX. Dividing the Anti-Autocrat Front:

Israel's "transactional realism" — dealing with autocrats, kleptocrats, and enemies alike — normalizes fragmentation of the world. If Israel is selling arms to Azerbaijan, technology to China, or concluding energy deals with European right-wing nationalists, it is sending a message that alliances are interchangeable, loyalty is for sale, and values are optional. This Roman Candle Transactional-ism tacitly undermines the tattered Western consensus against authoritarianism.

2. Inducing Regional Arms Races:

Israel's normalization deals with the Gulf States include high-tech arms sales (e.g., air defense, cyberwar capabilities). But arms races are catching. Iran intensifies its proxy militarization; Turkey expands its ambitions; Egypt and Saudi Arabia attempt to nuclearize. Israel's short-term security hedges thereby generate long-term regional instability.

3. Creating a Geopolitical "Fog of War":

As similarly intertwined alliances made WWI unavoidable after some crisis broke out, Israel's counterintuitive diplomacy blurs lines between allegiance and hostility. States will be confused in some future conflict (over Taiwan, Ukraine 2.0, or Israel-Iran), where Israel is — and miscalculations snowball. Will Israel stand firmly with America? Hedge towards China? Negotiate with Russia over Syria or Iran? Nobody really knows — maybe not even Netanyahu himself.

4. Weaponizing Chaos for Domestic Control:

A domestically crisis-driven government tends to create it internationally. Netanyahu's reliance on perpetual war — outside threats, judiciary oppression, "emergency" powers — is symptomatic of a broader authoritarian trend globally. In peddling volatility under the guise of national security, Israel joins a grim procession with Russia, China, and others who view turmoil as a tool and not a goal.

5. Conclusion: The Candles Consume the House:

In an era when the world stumbles toward systemic war, Israel's hyperactive, often irresponsible diplomacy tosses accelerants rather than firebreaks. Multivector diplomacy purchases tactical gain, but it erodes the strategic architecture of peace. The irony is brutal: a nation born to ensure Jewish survival in an unfriendly world now helps make the world more unfriendly — to itself and all.

X. U.S. Hegemony: Two Centuries of Power, One Achilles' Heel of Peace:
For nearly 200 years, the United States performed — sometimes clumsily, sometimes savagely — the gravitational center of global order.

From the Monroe Doctrine through the Marshall Plan, from Bretton Woods to NATO, America projected force, finance, and ideology beyond its borders, leaving a world where peace was not natural but achieved by domination, deterrence, and dollar supremacy.

But in this Pax Americana there was a fatal weakness — an Achilles' heel exposed now that the system is being pushed to the point of rupture: American-led peace was never truly consensual; it was conditional, contingent, and, in its very nature, coercive.

1. Hegemony by Consent, or Exhaustion?
For nearly the entire 20th century, the United States had a winning proposition: protection guarantees, access to American markets, and a share of rising prosperity — in exchange for alignment with Washington's strategic interests.

But in the 21st century, this deal came apart:
Rising powers (China, India) no longer felt they were so desperately dependent on American markets.

Middle powers (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel) gained strategic independence.

Even allies (Europe and South Korea) grew tired of American capriciousness. Support for U.S. leadership thinned, and it was replaced by fatigue, distrust, and global desire for multipolar alternatives.

2. The Myth of "Rules-Based Order":
Washington recited ad infinitum a "rules-based international order," but the world saw selective enforcement:

NATO intervention without UN sanction.
Drone wars across sovereign borders.

Financial sanctions are used untrammeled.
A post-9/11 world where torture, rendition, and detention without limit were the new norm.

The credibility gap widened: why should others play by the rules if America wouldn't?

3. Economic Dominance as Golden Shackles:
The U.S. dollar remains the global reserve currency — but at a price:

Financial sanctions (e.g., Iran and Russia) prompt nations to seek alternative arrangements (e.g., BRICS currencies and China's digital yuan).
American financial policy, designed domestically, triggers global crises (e.g., the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and 2022 food price shocks).

Friends even resent dollar dependence, perceiving it as an American control mechanism rather than a cooperative system.

Thus, U.S. economic dominance gives rise to resentment — a smoldering acid corrosively eating away at the very fabric of peace that it previously stabilized.

4. Military Overreach, Strategic Decline:
Endless wars — from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan — corroded America's reputation as a philanthropic superpower:

The fall of Kabul reflected the fall of Saigon: an icon of a spent empire.
The Pentagon budget ballooned, but victory went up in smoke.

The "pivot to Asia" never happened; the Middle East and Europe remained the center of attention. Meanwhile, challengers adjusted:
Russia used energy and propaganda as weapons; China used commerce and infrastructure; Iran and North Korea used asymmetric proxy war as weapons.

Even absent the raw brute power, the U.S. military now fights ghosts, shadows, and protean coalitions it no longer actually knows.

5. The Fragile Future: Multipolarity Without a Pilot:
As American dominance fades, there is no visible successor:

China builds power through trade, not ideology.
Russia unsettles but cannot replace.

Europe remains divided and isolationist.
India and Brazil dream but delay.

The next multipolar world promises not harmonious equilibrium but chaotic entropy — spheres of influence clashing, norms dissolving, and conflict radiating in power vacuums.

Without a stabilizing center — imperfect as it may be — peace itself is bereft.
The U.S.-dominated order's weakness was that it never taught the world how to be peaceful without having American power looming behind every treaty, every alliance, every unstable consensus.

As that power fades, the world is poised on a ledge that it does not know how to navigate.

A deepfake-ridden campaign of disinformation contains a hidden algorithm that sends a fabricated nuclear alert in South Korea, generating panic, martial law, and a resulting unplanned military conflict with the North.
The fog of war, previously man-made, is now automated—spinning the wheels of apocalypse independent of human action.

The future normal isn't World War III. It's worse.

It's world war simulacrum — a visionary horror in which any state is simultaneously aggressor and victim, all noncombatant a casualty in a war algorithm, and all peace accord stagnant before it can be signed.

The August guns now hum with silicon and whisper across fiber optic cables.

Will someone listen before the cloud rains blood again?

World War I movies are replete with a strange nostalgia, big horse drawn Howitzers, rivers of blood in trenches. Compared to multiple Nuclear Caligulas, Word War I ran on candle wax. World War III will run on blowing up one another’s oil fields and leveling apartment blocks, globally, with nukes. World War III is inevitable, our (U.S) Eugenicist’s favorite wet dream. Trump recently railed against pennies. To Trump, Netanyahu, Putin, the only thing worth less than pennies are human beings.

The New Archduke Moment, How 2025 Merges with 1914 with Nukes, Networks, and Non-State Nightmares

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© 2025 Tracy Turner www.olivebiodiesel.com