Yesterday I posted a daylog where I likened the current situation over in the Middle East and a possible World War III to a big game of Risk, or even better, Axis and Allies. Recapping quickly if you don't want to go back and read that daylog, I basically said that if something were to happen that would spark that powder keg, like, say, Iran attempting to blow Israel off the map which their President has suggested he'd like to do, or Israel staging a preemptive strike against Iran to prevent it, a bunch of the countries of the world would start aligning themselves to prepare for war. I had suggested it would be mostly pro-West, pro-Israel countries vs. pro-Arab/Muslim and anti-West/Israel countries. I had mentioned that it was a strategic advantage for the U.S. to have Iraq and Afganistan and questioned the neutrality of Russia and China.
The purpose of this daylog is to post the interesting and educational responses I got from several other users. I had thought about just adding them to the bottom of the daylog like I would corrections or additional information to any other node, like I did with this one, but I was afraid that nobody would ever read them. (Who goes back and reads daylogs from the previous day??) So here are the great responses I got (thanks, guys!) below, preceeded by direct quotes from my daylog whenever necessary to provide context.
"The real questions for the game manufacturer to solve would be, where does Russia and China fall into all this? Or North Korea? There's probably just be another mini-war along side the main one. The Nutterbutter in North Korea will probably just go ahead and attack China while everybody else is attacking everybody else. Why not?"
izubachi says : "A minor geopolitical correction ot your prospective World War III: Best case scenario, Russia and China would remain neutral but probably fund Iran. They have distinct economic interest in preserving the current regime and they would both be extremely uncomfortable with the US and the EU winning the fight and having sway over the Middle East. Worst case scenario, they'd enter in on the side of Iran. Russia's really not so hot on its relations with Europe right now and might be seeing glories of empires past. China is just itching for a chance to throw its weight around. North Korea would, under no conceivable circumstance, attack China. China's what's keeping North Korea from descending into all chaos right now. North Korea would, however, be overeager to chip in on the Iranian side with a rapidly developed nuke or three. Best case scenario, China would restrain NK as part of its grudging neutrality policy by, say, shutting off ALL of their gas and electricity shipments if they get too fratchety, or worse case scenario let NK do its psycho thing. Japan might also get very, very nervous about this whole situation and remilitarize, which would drive China up the fucking wall."
Very good points, izu, you're a very smart lad, wise beyond your years! And now, moving on...
"But...with the head of Iran calling for Israel to be blown off the map, and Iran developing a nuclear missile, and Israel already having them (/msg and correct me if I'm wrong, please)..."
Well, there was kind of a correction there...
BrooksMarlin says : "Isreal is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and refuses to confirm or deny that they have nukes. But given their level of technological advancement and their experience in warfare, it's a pretty good bet that they do have nukes."
Thanks for that very interesting bit of information there, Brooks. I did not know that Israel never confirmed nor denied having nukes.
And here's one more interesting tidbit that I had not known of before...
futilelord says : "risk 2010 had little nuclear tiles that could be laid down on land masses making them usesless and unpassable."
Sounds like a fun game! I'll have to purchase that at some point.
DejaMorgana says : "Hiya. Wanted to let you know that some people do read daylogs from at least the last few days (it's the first thing i usually check out when i have reading time on E2). Also that Israel has a working nuclear reactor that does not supply power to anyone, and there are several nuclear units in the IDF that no outsider is exactly sure what they do aside from the fact that it's something nuclear. Also, common knowledge in the Israeli street is that there are nukes. Either there are, or it's the biggest and best bluff in military history."
I apologize to anybody who feels this might be superfluous, given that a good portion of it is rehashing, but again the comments I received I thought were very enlightening and I wanted to share them with you all in case your level of knowledge of the situation was at or less than mine was before today. Thank you for reading, and thanks for you comments izu, Brooks, and futile.