It was always said that the “Third” World war will be fought over water, more specifically river water that is shared between two countries as a result of an increasingly dense population in certain parts of the world. The loss of thousands of square miles of forests leads to less rainfall, and shifting rainfall patterns, resulting in faster drying up of lakes and rivers; all freshwater sources.
We have gone deeper and deeper by drilling borewells/ tubewells, because of which the water table is getting harder to find. Even when we do, it is polluted because of improper disposal of wastewater, and not investing enough in wastewater recycling. We are talking about acid rains in parts of the world, where the rainwater is also polluted.
After all, we did see a water war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine not very long ago.
Historically wars were fought with hand-to-hand combat and then improvised using weapons like swords, and daggers. Later came the use of guns, bombs and machinery like artillery guns, Missiles, Jet fighters etc. The second world war ended when a nuclear bomb was dropped on Japan. Since then many countries have developed nuclear weapon capabilities, but mostly as deterrents. the military hardware has grown in sophistication, land, sea and air-based systems, with lots of investments going into it.
And then there was talk of a chemical war that would use a gas, a nerve agent like Sarin, which is widely speculated to have been used in a war of recent times.
More recently, there have been cyber warfare with cyber-attacks taking place on defence systems of other countries.
The warfare which alters the results and outcomes of elections is again speculated to have happened during the previous US presidential elections.
With the wide net that has been cast by the world wide web/Internet and the widespread use of computers and smart devices like phones, the social media giants have grown and are ubiquitous. It has become second nature to most of us to be using social media. These apps that are installed on your smartphones are collecting all your data, and privacy of your identity and all your transactions and behaviours are continuously stored, tracked and analysed. This is powerful enough for social media giants to trigger wars. They influence the opinions of the masses, and could potentially indoctrinate the minds of people, triggering a war.
Even as I write this article, I am sure I am being tracked, and there is only so much I can do about it.
Finally, we are all aware that we are in the midst of biological war. The Wuhan virus was nCOVID19 unleashed on humanity, just for achieving domination of one person, or one country over the rest of humanity?
Human beings are social animals, meant to live in peace and diversity. A Napoleon, a Hitler, a Mao, and a Xi, will come and go. We are all after all Human. Nature cannot be conquered.
I cannot but recall the song “We are the world”. I hope we all empathise with the theme of this great song.
@https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzW8BCDlWkY
