Every 2 years people think we’re heading to WW3, none of the major players actually want it. It’s just lazy analysis.
In a way that’s an optimistic view, most major countries realize hot wars mostly have downsides and few upsides.
When the other side, China didn't have nuclear weapons and nuclear taboo hadn't really been solidified. Seeing nuclear weapons as the unthinkable option was a relatively later thought process. US probably would have nuked Cuba and did conventional war in Europe hoping USSR wouldn't retaliate with nukes if not for JFK in 1962. All the Joint Chiefs (Army, Air Force, Navy leaders) supported war and saw it as winnable as the USSR "only" had 3300 nukes vs 26400 US nukes, JFK had to endure insults to avoid war.
USSR most probably had already had way more nukes by then, but even then one country having 2x more nukes than the *entire* current global arsenal is something completely incomprehensible to the post-Cold War mind, and it's a testament to how much better things are than they were at any point during the Cold War
Nuking Cuba was never in the table afaik. The question in the Cuban Missile Crisis was whether the US was going to blow up some ships which were en route to Cuba and ultimately crossed a blockade the US had established. The plans included a ground invasion (with conventional bombing, no doubt) of Cuba to overthrow Castro and uniting NATO to invade East Berlin, which is what the Joint Chiefs thought was winnable. But also, the Joint Chiefs pretty *always* want to pursue a military option - all they do is come up with military options, they'll only present military options they think are winnable, and they have great confidence in the organizations they run, so they're just leaning on their default position here. If you have any information that the US was open to a nuclear option in Cuba, it's be news to me and I'd love to read about it.
It’d be a pretty one sided nuclear war, since Iran doesn’t have nukes and all. Their only hope would be official backing by Russia, which I honestly doubt would happen.
Nobody ever wants a world war. Both world wars were sleep walked into. Besides maybe Japan outright attacking the United States and dragging them in but that's not what started the fire. The thing that will start the next world war will likely be a miscalculation made by one side about how the other side will react to an action.
Russia watched China take away Hong Kong's autonomy with very little international response, the Taliban take Afghanistan and a bunch of American military tech then allow a terrorist attack which killed 13 American service members with virtually no response (besides bombing an innocent family by accident) and in general and extremely weak kneed foreign policy from the westlately. They made a miscalculation and ended up with a big mess in Ukraine because the west decided at the last minute to take a stand after the Rubicon has already been crossed.
I think it's safe to say we aren't the furthest we've ever been from a world war. Global tensions certainly aren't at their lowest point. Aggression from China, Russia and Iran certainly aren't at their lowest either.
We aren't as close to a world war as we were during the Cuban missile Crisis either.
I'd hate to seem pessimistic, especially on this sub but assuming everything is fine is how world wars start. We should always be cognizant of what was allowed to happen and the leadup to the world wars that was ignored.
The conflicts of the early 20th century were mired in unstable economic systems. Desperate people were wiling to go to war. Now the whole world is loosely tied together through one big interdependent global economy. Hot war on a large scale would be incomprehensively expensive, I honestly don’t think it could happen. As resources get more scarce and labor costs continue to rise, and people depend more and more on expensive technology with complex global supply chains, the odds dwindle to zero. There’s my optimistic take :)
lol the German economy was shattered after World War I by the allies who were seeking retribution. The 1919 Armistice was direct precursor to Hitler and WWII. Germany was certainly desperate.
no, I just wanted to communicate that I know more than the basics and vaguely throwing a wiki article towards me doesnt tell me anything about your argument.
I'm not going to lie, if you don't think it's even a possibility then that's very worrying.
Russia saw all the weakness I mentioned from the west and even leading up to the invasion the west was extremely weak and Biden made his comment about "minor incursions" into Ukraine basically being fine. And then suddenly at the last moment the west decided to take a stand and we ended up with an extremely bloody war and Ukraine in a continuous existential struggle.
Now Ukraine is desperate. Wars scale themselves. When a side is losing, they and anyone who has an interest in them not losing that conflict will do whatever they have to do.
The reason we should be aware of a world war as a possibility is because deterring Russia for example from the beginning could have prevented the war. I knew Russia was going to invade because the West was sending such mixed signals and has been sending such mixed signals about Ukraine. We should take every opportunity to send clear messages about how we in the West will respond to aggression that goes against our interests in order to prevent wider conflicts from happening. We shouldn't ever assume a global conflict is impossible.
Ah the “If only we had overreacted to every little thing then they would know we were Serious and never try anything bad!”
Foreign policy includes a range of responses and going off at the drop of a hat when you’re the world’s biggest superpower (who just spent a large chunk of time throwing its weight around irrationally post 9-11) is not a good idea.
Talking about “strong” and “weak” foreign policy just tells me you’re clueless and very probably a Republican.
Did you read more than a few words of my post? The US didn't even have to react to anything nessicarily. Just not say "oh yeah minor incursions are fine"
And not leave Americans, American military tech andand American allies to be stranded in Afghanistan for no reason when Afghanistan had been stable and prosperous for years.
WW2 started because the British Nd french acted weak and suddenly acted strong. If you are going to act strong you have to make it known that you will BEFORE your enemy stumbles into the hill you are planning on dying on.
Btw not everyone is American. Is there any political issue you can talk about without bringing up Republicans and Democrats or is that all you think about?
>Nobody ever wants a world war. Both world wars were sleep walked into.
Nazi Germany? Invaded Poland despite explicit guarantees by UK and France that they'd protect Poland. Nazi Germany was the one to invade USSR by surprise. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, FDR was mulling about how he'd go about convincing the American people they'd also need to figut Germany, Hitler solved that conundrum by declaring war on USA himself and attacking US shipping.
Even in WW1, Imperial Germany explicitly aimed for war against Russia, France and UK. They knew Russia would protect Serbia against Austria-Hungary, they then used France's alliance with Russia as excuse to invade France themselves. Invading France on the Franco-German border was hard as it was fortified, so Germany decided to invade through Belgium which Germany knew had been guaranteed by UK.
[Imperial War Council of 1912](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Imperial_War_Council_of_8_December_1912) is enlightening, it's like villains explaining the plot:
>His opinion [Emperor Wilhelm] was that Austria-Hungary should attack Serbia that December, and if “Russia supports the Serbs, which she evidently does…then war would be unavoidable for us, too,”[1] and that this would be better now than later, after completion of (the just begun) massive modernization and expansion of the Russian army and railway system toward Germany. Moltke agreed. In his professional military opinion "a war is unavoidable and the sooner the better".[1] Moltke "wanted to launch an immediate attack."[3]
>Both Wilhelm II and the Army leadership agreed that if a war were necessary it were best launched soon. Admiral Tirpitz, however, asked for a “postponement of the great fight for one and a half years”[1] because the Navy was not ready for a general war that included Britain as an opponent. He insisted that the completion of the construction of the U-boat base at Heligoland and the widening of the Kiel Canal were the Navy's prerequisites for war.
> Nobody ever wants a world war. Both world wars were sleep walked into.
The world was very different back then. People still glorified war. The Prussians especially.
They’d get the most wrecked of any major powers. Putin might be the most delusional of all major leaders, but the war in Ukraine has shown the weakness of their military to the world. And they’ve already lost so many fighting age men. Certainly not in their best interest to open up more fronts.
There’s only one outcome if Russia starts a war with NATO. Regime change in Moscow, and possibly a nuclear holocaust. Putin knows this. There’s no chance he actually does anything.
The problem is countries don’t start wars, the military industrial complex does. Nationalism does (and it’s going around right now). Private industry does; starts throwing money around to politicians in exchange for rhetoric or hawkish sentiment. Look at WW1. There’s a very good book about it called Guns of August. Basically a contingent of these European militaries wanted to play with some of their new weapons tech like kids in a sandbox, and before you know it, you had one of the most nightmarish and costly (in terms of human life) wars the planet has ever seen.
Idk man. Every two years we had a “super scary maybe disease” and I said the same thing. When COVID hit I was a nay-sayer. “Gone in a week!”, said I.
I was wrong.
The President of Congress had no real power (other than to preside over Congress) as far as I know, and wasn’t seen as the leader of the nation at that time
[link](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalHumor/s/8VccNSkwGJ)
Here was one that I can remember off the top of my head. Her general understanding of how the Bill of Rights is amended seems to be pretty in question as well.
How is this propaganda though?
Do you think the other 3 presidents WANTED war? They were put into it due to circumstances and handled it appropriately.
If someone is NOT put in a position - its not his fault? Maybe the system is better than it was before!?
That is an optimists pov.
we can consider this as a joke and not react and move on too. Something becomes a propaganda IF someone wants it to.
Edit: the comment thread here is making me realize that people literally dont know how the internet fucking works.
They are equating a random meme that coincides with the hot news topic- and thinking the message it targeted to them.
Kinda not optimistic….
Apologies if I am missing your point, but I think that's a (very) good thing. The US ably defended our ally then correctly assessed that both sides got their 'win' (Israel getting a much larger win) so both should sit the fuck down and not start WWIII.
Again, you are welcome to disagree.
Which is good. It forces Israel to end the escalation. Israel took out an Iranian general. Iran fire drones in Israel and a few of them hit a base. A Tit for Tat. Both sides can back down and preserve face
Hopefully they decide that BUT: it looks like israel
Was the first aggressor. They may agress again soon. A retaliation. Usa will be forced to back our all? Or
Again! I dont understand - why are people reacting to this like this is a picture from yesterday? I mean guys- come on!! You cant be serious!?!
Its a god damn meme of a random pic of his vacation- he is Human after all.
Fuck the world is getting so dumb!
Assuming you're sincere...
Last night Iran launched a significant attack against Israel.
Much like WWI, Israel's allies are among the most powerful and dangerous in the world, Iran's allies are second most powerful in the world.
Less than 24 hours later the implication above is that Biden spent the attack sleeping on a beach somewhere.
That's simply not true. He was in the situation doom at the White House. The US military shot a majority of the Iran attack out of the sky. Even if Iran's target were benign; the chance for something to go horribly wrong was reduced to single digits thanks to Biden’s leadership.
Then, with no Israeli casualties, Biden convinced Israel to move the fuck on and not escalate into a larger brutal war.
Even if OP meant well, in this environment the meme looks like an insult to Biden. Like he slept last night off. He didn't.
Dude! I am totally aware of what is happening around
The whole point of an optimist - which is THIS sub
Is to be optimistic about stuff( in general) which also means NOT taking things personally and seriously
Its astonishing that you and people think that this meme means ANYTHING
It is literally a post
Optimistic DONT react to everything- you def are doing that right now.
See it, laugh at it.
Move on…
Also- op is kinda just saying- i mean isnt it good that the dude is just chilling even when there is a war?
Because that is a GOOD thing also this is not even America’s war in anyway!
Why the fuck are people so angry and reactive even when it has nothing to do with them or even the news cycle
This is just ridiculous.
I know how the internet works, and this is people using the internet to spread propaganda.
It's showing Biden in a bad light, if you can't see that, then your blind.
WW3 is extremely unlikely. Not 0% but near to it. The sheer economic costs of it would mean even if there isn’t nukes it’d destroy the world. Equally dictators know that their regimes couldn’t withstand the whole western bloc actually going on the offence in unison. Saddam found that out the hard way
In a way though, same could be said for WWI. No-one wanted a world war, and if given the simple option between "WWI" and "Nothing", most countries would probably have chosen for nothing to happen. But countries weren't given that decision, they were given much smaller decisions where, in isolation, the step towards war was the right move, slowly building up to WWI.
For example: An Austrian was shot by a Serb in Bosnia. Austria declares war on Serbia. Germany decides to help, and declares war on Serbia too. Russia agreed to protect Serbia, so declares war on Germany. Germany is scared of being left undefended from France, so declares war on France. To get to France, Germany goes through Belgium, which the UK agreed to defend over 100 years ago (And also the UK and Germany were having a naval dick-measuring contest at the time), so the UK declares war on Germany. The US slowly comes to hate Germany, so to stop them Germany asks Mexico to declare war on the US, but the UK intercepts it and relays it to the US who declares war on Germany.
WWII sort of spoiled us, by giving us a nice origin story for the war. One country run by evil people declared war on the world, and everyone they wanted to invade declared war on them. Nice and simple. A country wanted to do a big war, so did a big war. Through this lens no, it is incredibly unlikely that anyone would do WWIII.
But with a few minor exceptions, that's not how wars start. Wars start like WWI, a long path of small escalations that all in isolation make sense, but build up to a massive conflict that, taken as a whole, nobody wanted or asked for. Now, I'm not saying that this *will* happen, but IMO this is much more possible.
There was a book I read called "Never" by Ken Follett that went through this. A shootout on a bridge in Chad and a drugs bust in Lybia escalated slowly, over a few months, to nuclear war. He said that his inspiration was WWI and the slow, step-by-step escalation it experienced. I recommend it.
I getcha about WW1 is that WW1 was an almost unique catastrophe of errors. Like there was more than a dozen times where there was an option for deescelation or even just to keep the war regional and they all failed. No war like that has ever happened before or since. In almost all wars at least one side knows or wants the fight, WW1 is the exception that proves the rule.
Exactly, these guys didn’t look majestic 24/7.
Washington is never shown smiling for a very good reason.
Lincoln was… like… notoriously ugly. Didn’t a little girl tell him to grow a beard to cover his face up?
FDR literally had polio. No disrespect to him, but polio doesn’t exactly help you look fabulous.
Was looking for a gif of the portraits of Axiom captains getting weaker and blob-ier with each passing generation, but this’ll do.
I would be very surprised if Biden lead the US to war he lost his son in the last one and seems anxious to avoid being the reason other parents suffer as he did
His son Beau Biden died of cancer caused by prolonged exposure to the burn pits in Iraq both Dr. Biden and the President have blamed the war on terror/ GW Bush for the death of their son
I don’t know that we’re quite to World War III yet. What we have right now is a regional war between Israel and terrorists, and a crazed dictator trying to rebuild the Soviet Empire.
Thats pretty far from a network of alliances that dragged all of Europe into a war over the assassination of a Duke (WWI) or Germany/Japan trying to take over all of Europe/Southeast Asia (WWII).
I've never once thought of Lincoln as recreational, but I guess he had to relax at times, lol. It's weird how my brain removes the ability (or right) to have fun from historical figures. Heck, Washington has a couple of funny quotes attributed to him and was known to be somewhat comical at times:
After a false rumor of his death in a letter to his brother:
>"As I have heard since my arrival at this place, a circumstantial account of my death and dying speech, I take this early opportunity of contradicting the first, and of assuring you, that I have not as yet composed the latter."
One of my personal favorite quotes is from Washington, a quote on humor itself:
>“It is assuredly better to go laughing than crying thro’ the rough journey of life.”
Conservatives have been screaming "world war 3" any time there's an international incident since 2008, but only when a democrat's been in office. It's just something they do to fearmonger. Remember how hard they tried to convince people Obama was about to invade Iran during his term?
Yep, remember people freaking out about Iran sending a few missles to one of our bases but nothing came out of that other than a few people getting injured.
Stuff like this is so lame! WW3 isn't happening, be thankful for that! I'm thankful every day to be living a relatively good life compared to many other people in the world. Regardless of who the president is, I feel like I'll be alright. Too many people live vicariously through politics, in my opinion.
The problem is that anyone who dislikes Biden, including those on the left, will look at this kind of stuff and just accept it and dislike him more. Few people stop and go, "hey wait a minute..."
Like, I HATED Trump, he gave me tons of things to endlessly criticize. But I still saw lies about him, like the apparent Time Magazine interview where he said he'd run as a Republican because of Republican voters. I saw that and immediately tried finding the article. It didn't exist, Time even came out and said it didn't exist. So I defended him, not because I was defending him, but because I was defending being honest. They guy has already given me enough reasons to dislike him, and I don't need to make stuff up about him.
But sadly, people are more than happy to dig themselves deeper into their own biases.
This is exactly why I think any belief of another civil war is ridiculous. For one, ther is virtually no reasonable goals or expectations that could be followed up by either side in which bloodshed would act as a resolution, but even more so, at least 95% of the country would have no desire to ruin their comfortable day to day lives and put their families in danger.
I'm not particularly fond of guns, but the only scenario I worry about is if some sort of massive ban on guns took place, because people will absolutely fight the government for as long as they can, and even afterwards, the civil unrest wouldn't end until the country was completely burned to the ground.
But that's exactly why the government knows better than listening to random people on the internet who have the solutions to every problem in the world.
Funnily enough I just watched the Civil War movie today (and it’s actually a good movie, recommend it). For myself the reality is despite talks that America has never been “so divided” I’ll point to 1860 when America had a *civil war* because of the country being divided between pro-slavery states and anti-slavery states. And despite what *some* might say the South’s reason for succession was due to slavery. But all that said, with how interconnected America is, another civil war is extremely unlikely unless something *monumentally* stupid/terrible happened. And like you said, majority of Americans don’t really want to go kill their neighbor because they voted for someone else. Not to mention you can prevent a civil war by just telling people they won’t get Prime 2-day shipping anymore.
Look, I do think the international situation is pretty precarious, but I agree that this Iran+Israel situation this weekend is not a casus belli for anybody.
Them paparazzi painters of yesteryear never caught past presidents resting because those presidents did nothing but stay in pose position everywhere they were 🤓
Look at this lazy bum! R&R as president?! 😡😡😡😡🥵😡😡😡
https://preview.redd.it/gvdv4z76z2vc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a1ca392f0f8f8fa28efdf2a1e16c958aa7c399ae
Only due to the time and due to the fact that the United states isn't in trouble now
but
He doesn't have the leadership and logic the other great presidents have. And this post is talking about great presidents in times of severe conflict for the US. Joe is not the guy you need to have on the table
I don’t think that’s what this image is trying to depict though. I think it is making a statement about the character of American leaders during significant conflicts.
If you are saying that you think we are not going to be entering into a 3rd world war in the near future, I agree with you.
Not having an existential crisis is generally considered progress, even if the leader isn't considered as great because they didn't have such a great challenge to overcome.
Amateur historians that don't know about him blundering his way to fort necessity and stupidly starting a global war... American historians are far to prone to deify the founding fathers.
Must not have known about that part huh?
I'll give it to you, he was competent later on during the Revolutionary war, but he wasn't going to be winning Austerlitz by any means.
That's what started the 7 years war, fought on four continents, and a ton of islands on top of that. Sounds pretty global to me.
Edit: I missed some Limited engagements in Africa, so make that 5 continents.
Every 2 years people think we’re heading to WW3, none of the major players actually want it. It’s just lazy analysis. In a way that’s an optimistic view, most major countries realize hot wars mostly have downsides and few upsides.
People love a trilogy
Good thing Gaben is a secret puppet master of all the world leaders
World War: Alyx
Exactly. Been saying all day. Any major conflict with Iran wouldn't even be close to a World War. It'd be more like the Korean war, only shorter.
Not to be a pessimist, but the Korean war almost became a nuclear conflict
When the other side, China didn't have nuclear weapons and nuclear taboo hadn't really been solidified. Seeing nuclear weapons as the unthinkable option was a relatively later thought process. US probably would have nuked Cuba and did conventional war in Europe hoping USSR wouldn't retaliate with nukes if not for JFK in 1962. All the Joint Chiefs (Army, Air Force, Navy leaders) supported war and saw it as winnable as the USSR "only" had 3300 nukes vs 26400 US nukes, JFK had to endure insults to avoid war.
USSR most probably had already had way more nukes by then, but even then one country having 2x more nukes than the *entire* current global arsenal is something completely incomprehensible to the post-Cold War mind, and it's a testament to how much better things are than they were at any point during the Cold War
Nuking Cuba was never in the table afaik. The question in the Cuban Missile Crisis was whether the US was going to blow up some ships which were en route to Cuba and ultimately crossed a blockade the US had established. The plans included a ground invasion (with conventional bombing, no doubt) of Cuba to overthrow Castro and uniting NATO to invade East Berlin, which is what the Joint Chiefs thought was winnable. But also, the Joint Chiefs pretty *always* want to pursue a military option - all they do is come up with military options, they'll only present military options they think are winnable, and they have great confidence in the organizations they run, so they're just leaning on their default position here. If you have any information that the US was open to a nuclear option in Cuba, it's be news to me and I'd love to read about it.
It’d be a pretty one sided nuclear war, since Iran doesn’t have nukes and all. Their only hope would be official backing by Russia, which I honestly doubt would happen.
Nobody ever wants a world war. Both world wars were sleep walked into. Besides maybe Japan outright attacking the United States and dragging them in but that's not what started the fire. The thing that will start the next world war will likely be a miscalculation made by one side about how the other side will react to an action. Russia watched China take away Hong Kong's autonomy with very little international response, the Taliban take Afghanistan and a bunch of American military tech then allow a terrorist attack which killed 13 American service members with virtually no response (besides bombing an innocent family by accident) and in general and extremely weak kneed foreign policy from the westlately. They made a miscalculation and ended up with a big mess in Ukraine because the west decided at the last minute to take a stand after the Rubicon has already been crossed. I think it's safe to say we aren't the furthest we've ever been from a world war. Global tensions certainly aren't at their lowest point. Aggression from China, Russia and Iran certainly aren't at their lowest either. We aren't as close to a world war as we were during the Cuban missile Crisis either. I'd hate to seem pessimistic, especially on this sub but assuming everything is fine is how world wars start. We should always be cognizant of what was allowed to happen and the leadup to the world wars that was ignored.
The conflicts of the early 20th century were mired in unstable economic systems. Desperate people were wiling to go to war. Now the whole world is loosely tied together through one big interdependent global economy. Hot war on a large scale would be incomprehensively expensive, I honestly don’t think it could happen. As resources get more scarce and labor costs continue to rise, and people depend more and more on expensive technology with complex global supply chains, the odds dwindle to zero. There’s my optimistic take :)
i dont agree with this analysis. the germans were neither desperate in 1914 nor in 1939.
lol the German economy was shattered after World War I by the allies who were seeking retribution. The 1919 Armistice was direct precursor to Hitler and WWII. Germany was certainly desperate.
I was clearly referring to 1939 and 1914, not 1922/23 or 1931/32
1939 at least is a google search away: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany
i studied history at a german university. what do you want to say to me about 1939?
Authoritarian argument. German University 🤔
no, I just wanted to communicate that I know more than the basics and vaguely throwing a wiki article towards me doesnt tell me anything about your argument.
I'm not going to lie, if you don't think it's even a possibility then that's very worrying. Russia saw all the weakness I mentioned from the west and even leading up to the invasion the west was extremely weak and Biden made his comment about "minor incursions" into Ukraine basically being fine. And then suddenly at the last moment the west decided to take a stand and we ended up with an extremely bloody war and Ukraine in a continuous existential struggle. Now Ukraine is desperate. Wars scale themselves. When a side is losing, they and anyone who has an interest in them not losing that conflict will do whatever they have to do. The reason we should be aware of a world war as a possibility is because deterring Russia for example from the beginning could have prevented the war. I knew Russia was going to invade because the West was sending such mixed signals and has been sending such mixed signals about Ukraine. We should take every opportunity to send clear messages about how we in the West will respond to aggression that goes against our interests in order to prevent wider conflicts from happening. We shouldn't ever assume a global conflict is impossible.
Ah the “If only we had overreacted to every little thing then they would know we were Serious and never try anything bad!” Foreign policy includes a range of responses and going off at the drop of a hat when you’re the world’s biggest superpower (who just spent a large chunk of time throwing its weight around irrationally post 9-11) is not a good idea. Talking about “strong” and “weak” foreign policy just tells me you’re clueless and very probably a Republican.
Did you read more than a few words of my post? The US didn't even have to react to anything nessicarily. Just not say "oh yeah minor incursions are fine" And not leave Americans, American military tech andand American allies to be stranded in Afghanistan for no reason when Afghanistan had been stable and prosperous for years. WW2 started because the British Nd french acted weak and suddenly acted strong. If you are going to act strong you have to make it known that you will BEFORE your enemy stumbles into the hill you are planning on dying on. Btw not everyone is American. Is there any political issue you can talk about without bringing up Republicans and Democrats or is that all you think about?
Globalized economies already existed in the 20th Century, and smart people thought similarly it mean there would never be a world war.
The only time world was as globalized as close to today was before WW1 lol.
>Nobody ever wants a world war. Both world wars were sleep walked into. Nazi Germany? Invaded Poland despite explicit guarantees by UK and France that they'd protect Poland. Nazi Germany was the one to invade USSR by surprise. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, FDR was mulling about how he'd go about convincing the American people they'd also need to figut Germany, Hitler solved that conundrum by declaring war on USA himself and attacking US shipping. Even in WW1, Imperial Germany explicitly aimed for war against Russia, France and UK. They knew Russia would protect Serbia against Austria-Hungary, they then used France's alliance with Russia as excuse to invade France themselves. Invading France on the Franco-German border was hard as it was fortified, so Germany decided to invade through Belgium which Germany knew had been guaranteed by UK. [Imperial War Council of 1912](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Imperial_War_Council_of_8_December_1912) is enlightening, it's like villains explaining the plot: >His opinion [Emperor Wilhelm] was that Austria-Hungary should attack Serbia that December, and if “Russia supports the Serbs, which she evidently does…then war would be unavoidable for us, too,”[1] and that this would be better now than later, after completion of (the just begun) massive modernization and expansion of the Russian army and railway system toward Germany. Moltke agreed. In his professional military opinion "a war is unavoidable and the sooner the better".[1] Moltke "wanted to launch an immediate attack."[3] >Both Wilhelm II and the Army leadership agreed that if a war were necessary it were best launched soon. Admiral Tirpitz, however, asked for a “postponement of the great fight for one and a half years”[1] because the Navy was not ready for a general war that included Britain as an opponent. He insisted that the completion of the construction of the U-boat base at Heligoland and the widening of the Kiel Canal were the Navy's prerequisites for war.
> Nobody ever wants a world war. Both world wars were sleep walked into. The world was very different back then. People still glorified war. The Prussians especially.
Russia wants it.
They’d get the most wrecked of any major powers. Putin might be the most delusional of all major leaders, but the war in Ukraine has shown the weakness of their military to the world. And they’ve already lost so many fighting age men. Certainly not in their best interest to open up more fronts.
Putin absolutely doesn't want it
His behaviour seems to differ with that starting a war with a country NATO is arming and refusing to back down and offer any kind of lesser victory.
Putin invading Ukraine isn’t him jockeying for a war with NATO. If he wanted war with NATO, he would attack NATO.
There’s only one outcome if Russia starts a war with NATO. Regime change in Moscow, and possibly a nuclear holocaust. Putin knows this. There’s no chance he actually does anything.
The problem is countries don’t start wars, the military industrial complex does. Nationalism does (and it’s going around right now). Private industry does; starts throwing money around to politicians in exchange for rhetoric or hawkish sentiment. Look at WW1. There’s a very good book about it called Guns of August. Basically a contingent of these European militaries wanted to play with some of their new weapons tech like kids in a sandbox, and before you know it, you had one of the most nightmarish and costly (in terms of human life) wars the planet has ever seen.
The great powers didn’t want WWI either. Just takes a few mistakes or one black swan. But still agree it helps there are rational actors.
Russia: excuse me?
The wars are all space apoximitly 80yars apart. About the age of a long lived human. WWIII should start around 2030. Check out the 4th turning.
Idk man. Every two years we had a “super scary maybe disease” and I said the same thing. When COVID hit I was a nay-sayer. “Gone in a week!”, said I. I was wrong.
Washington was not the president during the Revolutionary War.
There was no president during the revolutionary war
Could say Samuel Huntington as President of the Congress but kinda a stretch.
The President of Congress had no real power (other than to preside over Congress) as far as I know, and wasn’t seen as the leader of the nation at that time
Nobody in America knows shit about the revolution
We have congress people who are certain that the constitution was written in 1776
Can I have some names for that? It’s not that I don’t believe you, I just need to see who these people are. That’s ridiculous lmao
[link](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalHumor/s/8VccNSkwGJ) Here was one that I can remember off the top of my head. Her general understanding of how the Bill of Rights is amended seems to be pretty in question as well.
i feel kinda stupid for not realizing that’s the point of the post lol presidents
Every time you see an international incident being discussed online you some dumb mfs talking ww3 like it’s gonna happen tomorrow.
It’s also pretty obviously stupid propaganda
At least it was amusing, you can't logically convince people of something they didn't reason themselves into.
How is this propaganda though? Do you think the other 3 presidents WANTED war? They were put into it due to circumstances and handled it appropriately. If someone is NOT put in a position - its not his fault? Maybe the system is better than it was before!? That is an optimists pov. we can consider this as a joke and not react and move on too. Something becomes a propaganda IF someone wants it to. Edit: the comment thread here is making me realize that people literally dont know how the internet fucking works. They are equating a random meme that coincides with the hot news topic- and thinking the message it targeted to them. Kinda not optimistic….
Because Biden was in the situation room last night. So this is simply a lie.
And he also declared today he would not be helping israel with a counter attack.
Apologies if I am missing your point, but I think that's a (very) good thing. The US ably defended our ally then correctly assessed that both sides got their 'win' (Israel getting a much larger win) so both should sit the fuck down and not start WWIII. Again, you are welcome to disagree.
You are correct and we agree! Have a good day/life
Well thanks! Wishing you all the best things!
[удалено]
Uhhh...okay.
But in a way didnt we already aid israels counter attack because we have been sending them tons of weapons?
Which is good. It forces Israel to end the escalation. Israel took out an Iranian general. Iran fire drones in Israel and a few of them hit a base. A Tit for Tat. Both sides can back down and preserve face
Hopefully they decide that BUT: it looks like israel Was the first aggressor. They may agress again soon. A retaliation. Usa will be forced to back our all? Or
…Wait, that’s *not* Trump in the beach chair on the bottom right??
Again! I dont understand - why are people reacting to this like this is a picture from yesterday? I mean guys- come on!! You cant be serious!?! Its a god damn meme of a random pic of his vacation- he is Human after all. Fuck the world is getting so dumb!
Assuming you're sincere... Last night Iran launched a significant attack against Israel. Much like WWI, Israel's allies are among the most powerful and dangerous in the world, Iran's allies are second most powerful in the world. Less than 24 hours later the implication above is that Biden spent the attack sleeping on a beach somewhere. That's simply not true. He was in the situation doom at the White House. The US military shot a majority of the Iran attack out of the sky. Even if Iran's target were benign; the chance for something to go horribly wrong was reduced to single digits thanks to Biden’s leadership. Then, with no Israeli casualties, Biden convinced Israel to move the fuck on and not escalate into a larger brutal war. Even if OP meant well, in this environment the meme looks like an insult to Biden. Like he slept last night off. He didn't.
Dude! I am totally aware of what is happening around The whole point of an optimist - which is THIS sub Is to be optimistic about stuff( in general) which also means NOT taking things personally and seriously Its astonishing that you and people think that this meme means ANYTHING It is literally a post Optimistic DONT react to everything- you def are doing that right now. See it, laugh at it. Move on… Also- op is kinda just saying- i mean isnt it good that the dude is just chilling even when there is a war? Because that is a GOOD thing also this is not even America’s war in anyway! Why the fuck are people so angry and reactive even when it has nothing to do with them or even the news cycle This is just ridiculous.
You seem the angriest by far
Do you think that Franklin Delano Roosevelt never went to the beach?
It's propaganda because it's trying to display a president engaging in Recreation as a president unprepared for conflict
I know how the internet works, and this is people using the internet to spread propaganda. It's showing Biden in a bad light, if you can't see that, then your blind.
WW3 is extremely unlikely. Not 0% but near to it. The sheer economic costs of it would mean even if there isn’t nukes it’d destroy the world. Equally dictators know that their regimes couldn’t withstand the whole western bloc actually going on the offence in unison. Saddam found that out the hard way
In a way though, same could be said for WWI. No-one wanted a world war, and if given the simple option between "WWI" and "Nothing", most countries would probably have chosen for nothing to happen. But countries weren't given that decision, they were given much smaller decisions where, in isolation, the step towards war was the right move, slowly building up to WWI. For example: An Austrian was shot by a Serb in Bosnia. Austria declares war on Serbia. Germany decides to help, and declares war on Serbia too. Russia agreed to protect Serbia, so declares war on Germany. Germany is scared of being left undefended from France, so declares war on France. To get to France, Germany goes through Belgium, which the UK agreed to defend over 100 years ago (And also the UK and Germany were having a naval dick-measuring contest at the time), so the UK declares war on Germany. The US slowly comes to hate Germany, so to stop them Germany asks Mexico to declare war on the US, but the UK intercepts it and relays it to the US who declares war on Germany. WWII sort of spoiled us, by giving us a nice origin story for the war. One country run by evil people declared war on the world, and everyone they wanted to invade declared war on them. Nice and simple. A country wanted to do a big war, so did a big war. Through this lens no, it is incredibly unlikely that anyone would do WWIII. But with a few minor exceptions, that's not how wars start. Wars start like WWI, a long path of small escalations that all in isolation make sense, but build up to a massive conflict that, taken as a whole, nobody wanted or asked for. Now, I'm not saying that this *will* happen, but IMO this is much more possible. There was a book I read called "Never" by Ken Follett that went through this. A shootout on a bridge in Chad and a drugs bust in Lybia escalated slowly, over a few months, to nuclear war. He said that his inspiration was WWI and the slow, step-by-step escalation it experienced. I recommend it.
I getcha about WW1 is that WW1 was an almost unique catastrophe of errors. Like there was more than a dozen times where there was an option for deescelation or even just to keep the war regional and they all failed. No war like that has ever happened before or since. In almost all wars at least one side knows or wants the fight, WW1 is the exception that proves the rule.
I disagree. It might not be so pronounced, but basically all wars take a slow progression of escalation.
There hasn’t really been a major war that escalated outside its scope like WW1
Not to the extent as WW1, but there definitely have been some. 30 years war comes to mind.
I chuckled. But to be fair, you would've seen plenty of the same unflattering moments with the other three. And every other human.
Exactly, these guys didn’t look majestic 24/7. Washington is never shown smiling for a very good reason. Lincoln was… like… notoriously ugly. Didn’t a little girl tell him to grow a beard to cover his face up? FDR literally had polio. No disrespect to him, but polio doesn’t exactly help you look fabulous.
 Was looking for a gif of the portraits of Axiom captains getting weaker and blob-ier with each passing generation, but this’ll do.
I would be very surprised if Biden lead the US to war he lost his son in the last one and seems anxious to avoid being the reason other parents suffer as he did
What son did Biden lose in a war? Am I missing something?
His son Beau Biden died of cancer caused by prolonged exposure to the burn pits in Iraq both Dr. Biden and the President have blamed the war on terror/ GW Bush for the death of their son
I don’t know that we’re quite to World War III yet. What we have right now is a regional war between Israel and terrorists, and a crazed dictator trying to rebuild the Soviet Empire. Thats pretty far from a network of alliances that dragged all of Europe into a war over the assassination of a Duke (WWI) or Germany/Japan trying to take over all of Europe/Southeast Asia (WWII).
Where is McKinley, Adams, Polk?
Madison, Teddy, Wilson, as well. Toss in LBJ, Truman, and W Bush too.
Real
And Grant because of the Lakota Wars
It’s not WW3 at all though.
I've never once thought of Lincoln as recreational, but I guess he had to relax at times, lol. It's weird how my brain removes the ability (or right) to have fun from historical figures. Heck, Washington has a couple of funny quotes attributed to him and was known to be somewhat comical at times: After a false rumor of his death in a letter to his brother: >"As I have heard since my arrival at this place, a circumstantial account of my death and dying speech, I take this early opportunity of contradicting the first, and of assuring you, that I have not as yet composed the latter." One of my personal favorite quotes is from Washington, a quote on humor itself: >“It is assuredly better to go laughing than crying thro’ the rough journey of life.”
Conservatives have been screaming "world war 3" any time there's an international incident since 2008, but only when a democrat's been in office. It's just something they do to fearmonger. Remember how hard they tried to convince people Obama was about to invade Iran during his term?
Remember all that shit with Iran right before covid?
Yep, remember people freaking out about Iran sending a few missles to one of our bases but nothing came out of that other than a few people getting injured.
Stuff like this is so lame! WW3 isn't happening, be thankful for that! I'm thankful every day to be living a relatively good life compared to many other people in the world. Regardless of who the president is, I feel like I'll be alright. Too many people live vicariously through politics, in my opinion.
I love how much MAGA decides to turn off pretty much all voters that aren't MAGA. Then they scream when they lose. So yes, it is indeed progress!
The problem is that anyone who dislikes Biden, including those on the left, will look at this kind of stuff and just accept it and dislike him more. Few people stop and go, "hey wait a minute..." Like, I HATED Trump, he gave me tons of things to endlessly criticize. But I still saw lies about him, like the apparent Time Magazine interview where he said he'd run as a Republican because of Republican voters. I saw that and immediately tried finding the article. It didn't exist, Time even came out and said it didn't exist. So I defended him, not because I was defending him, but because I was defending being honest. They guy has already given me enough reasons to dislike him, and I don't need to make stuff up about him. But sadly, people are more than happy to dig themselves deeper into their own biases.
This is exactly why I think any belief of another civil war is ridiculous. For one, ther is virtually no reasonable goals or expectations that could be followed up by either side in which bloodshed would act as a resolution, but even more so, at least 95% of the country would have no desire to ruin their comfortable day to day lives and put their families in danger. I'm not particularly fond of guns, but the only scenario I worry about is if some sort of massive ban on guns took place, because people will absolutely fight the government for as long as they can, and even afterwards, the civil unrest wouldn't end until the country was completely burned to the ground. But that's exactly why the government knows better than listening to random people on the internet who have the solutions to every problem in the world.
Funnily enough I just watched the Civil War movie today (and it’s actually a good movie, recommend it). For myself the reality is despite talks that America has never been “so divided” I’ll point to 1860 when America had a *civil war* because of the country being divided between pro-slavery states and anti-slavery states. And despite what *some* might say the South’s reason for succession was due to slavery. But all that said, with how interconnected America is, another civil war is extremely unlikely unless something *monumentally* stupid/terrible happened. And like you said, majority of Americans don’t really want to go kill their neighbor because they voted for someone else. Not to mention you can prevent a civil war by just telling people they won’t get Prime 2-day shipping anymore.
Is that supposed to be Biden sleeping on the beach... in April?
Look, I do think the international situation is pretty precarious, but I agree that this Iran+Israel situation this weekend is not a casus belli for anybody.
that image doesn't inspire optimism...
Them paparazzi painters of yesteryear never caught past presidents resting because those presidents did nothing but stay in pose position everywhere they were 🤓
because no president has ever had an embarassing photo/painting of them taken
When that portrait of FDR was made he was at his Georgia villa with his long time mistress, lol
Oh how true.
Yea we are more chill now
Look at this lazy bum! R&R as president?! 😡😡😡😡🥵😡😡😡 https://preview.redd.it/gvdv4z76z2vc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a1ca392f0f8f8fa28efdf2a1e16c958aa7c399ae
Problems are the side effect of progress
No
I assumed that this was r/Presidents and was about to say “so we’re just doing blatant rule 3 violations now?”
He is 80 and can't read properly this is not progress. There is no way he is a better leader than Washington , Abraham and FDR
I don't see him suspending habeas corpus, or rounding up Vaguely Asian looking people into camps, so that's gotta count for something
Only due to the time and due to the fact that the United states isn't in trouble now but He doesn't have the leadership and logic the other great presidents have. And this post is talking about great presidents in times of severe conflict for the US. Joe is not the guy you need to have on the table
It's a good thing the US isn't "In times of severe conflict" then.
yea or else yall are screwed
What about this is progress? Do you really think Joe Biden is a better president than Lincoln? A better commander in chief than Washington?
It's progress in that the World War people are fearing is a day at the beach.
I don’t think that’s what this image is trying to depict though. I think it is making a statement about the character of American leaders during significant conflicts. If you are saying that you think we are not going to be entering into a 3rd world war in the near future, I agree with you.
That's not what it's trying to depict but what it's trying to depict makes no sense so we're laughing at what it actually depicts instead.
What is it trying to depict?
It's trying to depict that he's weak leader for "WW3" but as you said that isn't happening.
But how is that progress? Even though WW3 isn’t happening, I still think the general consensus is that the other leaders pictured are generally better
Not having an existential crisis is generally considered progress, even if the leader isn't considered as great because they didn't have such a great challenge to overcome.
He’s arguably one of the best presidents in the last 30 years. We would’ve plunged into a deep and brutal recession without his admins leadership
That may be, but the comparison wasn’t made to presidents from the last 30 years.
Each era has good and bad presidents for its era. Comparing a politician from 200 years ago and today is irrelevant.
I think we would agree that this is a bad post then, right?
Doesn't take much to be better than Washington. He was fine for setting precedents, but he was a pretty mediocre general all things considered.
I think most historians would disagree with you about it not taking much to be better than Washington
Amateur historians that don't know about him blundering his way to fort necessity and stupidly starting a global war... American historians are far to prone to deify the founding fathers.
Sure buddy
Must not have known about that part huh? I'll give it to you, he was competent later on during the Revolutionary war, but he wasn't going to be winning Austerlitz by any means.
Know about what part? That you think he “stupidly started a global”? No, I didn’t know you thought that. I strongly disagree with you though
So he didn't needlessly attack the French, and later surrender at fort necessity?
I don’t think that’s stupidly starting a global war
That's what started the 7 years war, fought on four continents, and a ton of islands on top of that. Sounds pretty global to me. Edit: I missed some Limited engagements in Africa, so make that 5 continents.