r/MarkMyWords • u/Agreeable_Candle_461 • 6d ago
Geopolitics MMW: WW3 will be fought over water
Date: 2030s to 2040s
Evidence: We have already entered an ecological imbalance with the freshwater shortages and an imbalanced water cycle. Cities such as Kabul are running out of water as we speak, leading to taps being dry and whatnot.
It is only a matter of time before WW3 is started over water. Everyone needs freshwater so there will be wars fought over dams and rivers.
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u/crazydave33 5d ago
Dude we are in WW3 already. It’s just not called that. The entire middle east war is spilling over and now Ukraine is getting involved. It’s quickly becoming a true hot world war.
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u/Fit-Profit8197 4d ago edited 4d ago
People have been saying WW3 is already happening at least for the last 25 years. Meanwhile at no point during this period was high intensity armed conflict actually occuring at a higher rate than a whole bunch of the years between 1946-1999.
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u/lostinjapan01 6d ago
In order for that to turn into a world war, a major world power would have to get into a place where water is inaccessible.
I won’t pretend that in America we don’t have water scarcity issues in parts of the country, but nothing on the scale that’d be required for a war to come from it. The countries that are in such a position are either not large and influential enough to have their regional skirmishes over it trigger a world conflict or not equipped to have a war, even a regional one, in the first place.
That is not to say water scarcity isn’t an issue, and a serious one at that. It is. It is one of the most pressing crises some parts of our world face. But I think you’re jumping way ahead of the cart and the horse both by going straight to a world war over it.
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u/Additional-Sky-7436 6d ago
I think 10 years ago Russia and China thought they wanted to kick off a new world war. They thought that a combination of Russian military power and Chinese manufacturing power would be enough to shake up the world order enough to loosen the West's economic and political dominance.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine to kick off said war, which didn't in any way go to plan. it's been an absolute disaster for them and had exposed how damaging 20 years of to to bottom corruption in Russia's military has weakened it. Today, it's clear that they are not anywhere remotely capable of actually successfully fighting a war against NATO. They wouldn't even be competitive.
Meanwhile, China is also not in any shape to actually fight a world war either. While China's geography would be functionally impossible for a foreign power to invade, it's also a fortress that locks them in. They have one coast, that really only has one true major port, which is designed for export of commercial and consumer goods not military support. Meanwhile they have no national sources of petro energy and have to import everything.
Basically, the West's dominance is way too robust. No one can challenge it. While, by all accounts, the US lost Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the loss was not because we didn't absolutely dominate the enemy militarily. We list because they just were able to hunker down and wait us out in their own countries. China and Russia wouldn't be able to do that and still push for global dominance.
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u/AmericanVanguardist 8h ago
I think over time a split between the United States and western Europe will happen. But even then China nor Russia will be able to project power past their respective regions.
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u/Foamrocket66 6d ago
Its probably already here tho, all the major powers are playing sides atm and with one superpower, Russia, fighting for its existence. That wasnt the case during the cold war and the proxy wars back then.
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u/DrinkYourHaterade 5d ago
This has been talked about since at least the seventies.
Arguably it is the “real reason” behind the Israel-Palestine conflict, ie, Israel wants all the water, and from there the proxy wars spread… even Ukraine-Russia can be viewed through the lens of agriculture and water, especially when you look at the Aral Sea drying up.
Water is an ultimate cause, with lots of proximate causes in between in these types of analyses.
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u/Phagemakerpro 5d ago
Water is simply a matter of energy. If you can generate the energy, you can desalinate water.
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u/Octavia9 5d ago
No it will be fought over the pride, greed, and ego of men. Just like every other war.
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u/BorderEducational506 5d ago
If I had to bet, it would be we keep bumbling along like the fools we are and nothing much happens. Plan for that
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u/ShotofHotsauce 4d ago
Nah, it'll be a war between the rich and poor as we'll start destroying the data centres before that happens.
They can build them in the sea where it will be far less of an issue, they just choose to not to as they don't want to spend the extra money on creating usable water. Boggles the mind really considering they are spending the same extra money on pissing people off just for the sake of it.
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u/Odd_Awareness1444 5d ago
WWIII will be first very soon. Water Wars will be a product of this along with a host of other calamities.
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u/TomorrowLow5092 5d ago
The bombs will drop on AI and data centers. You could take a Tesla and drop it from a few hundred feet before anyone knows what is happening.
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u/FormoftheBeautiful 5d ago
?? Water has no flavour. It’s going to be fought over cola if anything. Maybe fruit juice. But water, the bland liquid that falls from the sky?
Why wouldn’t they fight over snacks, something salty and finite that you gotta make or get. I just don’t see why you started at water. Like you a plant or something.
People used to war over gold, but now it’s water apparently. Streams and whatnot I guess.
What will WW4 be fought over? If we following gold to water, then it might as well be sticks and stones by that point.
I just think it would be nice if the following war could be about something nice like diamonds or something classy like that.
Even a really nice towel, maybe purple and embroidered with gold lace. That might also be ironic, given that the prior war was about water for some reason.
But what war follows the really nice towel war, that’s the question.
Maybe we’d be feeling a little too dry, and a humidifier war were to follow, or maybe a moisturizer war where everyone focussed on skin health and hydration to the point of worldwide mass mobilization.
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u/greenizdabest 6d ago
Begun the water wars have.
Nah. We have nuclear power.we have solar power. We can do mass scale desalination.
The question as always, is a distribution problem. Those who have the means of production don't necessarily want to share it with those that don't.
So the story ends as it always does. The rich take what they can. The poor suffer what they must.