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Greetings Friends, as we creep ever closer to annihilation I thought it might be worth loosely looking at the various scenarios of doom and gloom that are at least cumulatively likely to occur in the next 10-25 years. A lot of talk has been given to companies not being forward thinking leading to our present state (i.e. not planning for more than 5 years or even 3 months in the future) and while that has merit I'd suggest there's basically no reason to plan for any scenario beyond 25 years right now given the extraordinary likelihood of catastrophic failure of the global economy in that timeframe; this wasn't always the case and in a non Francis Fukuyama asinine optimism world post 1991 maybe this wouldn't have occurred but here we are.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................1. Regional Simultaneous Wars in Many Places which don't have a core alliance system connecting them. This is already happening; the short list of wars or very recent wars right now is Ukraine, Israel Palestine, Israel Lebanon, Israel Iran, Houthis Vs Shipping, Somalian Civil War, Sudanese Civil War, Congolese Civil War, Myanmar Civil War, Syrian Civil War, Armenia Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Ecuador Collapse of Society, Haitian Collapse of Society. Those are all already happening or have happened; so I think you just add Taiwan or South China Sea/Philippines to this and this is one of the more probably scenarios moving forward; I don't think this automatically leads to a World War and even a big conflict between the US and China direclty doesn't necessarily completely crash the global economy of its own volition. The main thing that it does is incentivize destroying the satellite network because of asymmetry...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................2. Nuclear Weapons Used in Space. The main reason this will happen is a significant enough lead for the US over all opposition so that even though destroying the vast majority of satellites causes great collateral damage the assumption is that it levels the information playing field and we get a war more similar to WW2 than WW1; ubiquitous information has led to stagnation of the frontline in Ukraine (though that's changing as we speak); but if you take out the satellites then maneuver warfare becomes viable again. Right now Russia benefits more from this in a expanded war in Europe scenario but I think China would also benefit eventually; particularly if they start with a beachhead in Taiwan that leads to stagnant expensive trench warfare; but if you negate surveillance through EWS and knocking out most satellites then you can levy more force advantages. This still doesn't necessarily lead to a world war but it does destroy the economic system and most internet/GPS systems as we know them....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................3. United States Civil War for Domestic Issues. The main corrolary here is the American Civil War of course, I guess the main issue with that direct comparison is that it's more likely to be a bunch of smaller organizations than entire states banding together at least presently; this could change over the course of 20 years though. But ultimately the point is at least a partial collapse of society due to infighting and the rise of populism; note Trump is probably too old to actually see this come to fruition or at least the conclusion so if it is centered around a particular leader it'll have to be someone new. This is one that's harder to grasp happening on a logistics level, it's a scenario that could happen but how and why and when it would happen are hard to foresee beforehand (Not unlike the Russian government having an upheaval at some point)..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................4. United States Civil War for Economic Issues. This is your 1917 scenario; the main reason this hasn't taken off is that the elite are able to keep people comfortable enough that they don't feel the need to contest economic inequality; but there is obviously a point where this doesn't hold true forever assuming the wealthiest control a greater and greater percentage of the baseline of society. If we had gone into a scenario of Corporate control of everything then this probably would never happen, but because Globalization (at least centered around the US instead of BRICS) is dying and State Foreign Affairs are clearly showing a superiority of control (i.e. companies are listening to the government for things like military buildup and not the other way around) the corporate control of society is also declining. I don't think this necessarily leads to more economic equality and it will probably lead to a spike in inequality eventually, the question is does that cause enough upheaval to lead to societal decline and the specific targetting of the wealthy for destruction; also hard to define the likelihood of this occurring but it should have clearer indicators as it gets closer to happening. The Rich already think it's going to happen and are building survival bunkers both in the US and New Zealand to try to avoid getting decapitated; Mark Zuckerberg being the poster child for this presently. If society completely collapses that probably won't wind up helping them in the long run but maybe it gets them 5-10 more years of security.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................5. Internet apocalypse. This is a theoretical scenario that gets wargamed a lot but no one actually knows if its possible; it would probably require the nuclear weapons in space scenario to happen first but the basic idea is that some team of hackers (probably nationalized) does sufficient virtual and actual infrastructure damage to the internet (which has always been kind of a hodge podge system) to make it cease functioning. The main thing this does is kill all fiat currency and thus at least temporarily destroy economic and trade systems either on a continental basis or worldwide; this kind of thing has happened before so you can figure out various scenarios but ultimately barter would return for a while and then eventually some kind of gold or silver standard. Fiat has led to infinite inflation so at some point it would probably collapse of its own volition in a non unified world scenario (though that's much longer term than the likelihood of modern society's survival). There was some thought that Russia would try to do this to Ukraine during its initial invasion but that did not happen, probably because of collateral damage fear and also overconfidence (thinking that the infrastructure would be valuable to them after victory)...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................6. World War 3 Based on Alliance Systems. I don't actually think this outcome is that likely but the main scenario is that Taiwan/South China Sea and the invasion of the Baltic States happen within 6 months or so of each other; Baltic States invasion is probably 10-15 years out and most Taiwan scenarios are only 5-10 years out so the odds of them actually lining up neatly and enough parties being interested in participating in a global conflict is pretty unlikely. There's also not much to point to Israel playing a role in this, more and more Israel is completely isolated except for a few countries in Western Europe and the US itself so it shouldn't impact a global conflict scenario at least in the forseeable future.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................7. Nuclear Apocalypse. This would likely happen as a result of something else happening above except for US Civil Wars, we are definitely closer to this happening that any point post Cuban Missile Crisis but it still seems pretty unlikely. The Nuclear Taboo being broken seems probable but not a massive dueling retaliation scenario; as conventional war is more and more normalized and expected in society I don't think pressing the Nuclear button becomes more likely; though if another deterrent system like a drone that is invincible and shoots down everything sent at it starts functioning then parallel deterrence systems become more probable. Alternatively we could have many small exchanges of tactical nuclear weapons that don't inherently lead to apocalyptic scenarios; this would mean widespread destruction in Eastern Europe but not in many other places; that seems fairly likely overall even in the absence of the taboo being broken. Note if the US, China, and Russia were all destroyed in this way it wouldn't necessarily lead to an apocalyptic scenario for the rest of the world and assuming secondary trading systems are in place by then the world might be able to continue on in a civilized fashion.
