A sense of history (and observation)

[The Beatles]

I find it interesting the sheer number of people who predicted at least one Middle East war back in early 2001. The Onion was a good example, though tongue-in-cheek. There were also people in the conspiracy-theorist or fringe community predicting it. Of course, the signal-to-noise ratio in such channels is abysmal, but if you correlate to individuals, it can increase. For instance, here is an article ostensibly written in January 2001 (although by examining the index page in archive.org, probably no earlier than December):
http://web.archive.org/web/20011201064521/http://www.totse.com/en/conspiracy/the_new_world_order/162417.html

I know that many kooks predict the future in such wide spectrum -- prophecies being a dime a dozen -- that you are bound to hit something, statistically. Nevertheless, is there reason to believe, for those who understand the military aspects of this better than I do, that the warning signs cited in that article were visible to careful observers before 9/11?

[Death]

You have to remember that not only do people predict things in a wide spectrum, there are insane numbers of people doing it.

I predict that by the year 2500 there will be a war consisting of at least 10 countries. Nostradamus and man.

[windhound]

http://www.totse.com

[Freenhult]

I think its kinda obvious there would be a war there. Too many conflicts or at least reasons for conflict. There are going to be more wars there. I'm sure Israel and Iran come to mind for everyone...

[Shadow I]

There have always been wars in that area of the world. It's hardly impressive to prophecy war there and turn out to be right.. it's pretty much a certainty. That article sounds like a conspiracy theorist who got lucky, but i don't think the reason he cited were the actual causes of the war he predicted.

[bjornredtail]

I'd say that predicting war in the middle east is a bit like predicting rain in Seattle or an Earthquake in California. We all know it's bound to happen some time... So, it just remains an issue of getting lucky with the where, why and how we are fighting.

[The Beatles]

I understand all that you guys are saying. I touched on the same thing in my post. What my question is, and it was addressed to people who understand the workings of the military better, was whether those specific warning signals listed in the document were true, and if so whether they were predictive of the war, and obviously enough, can we extrapolate to sets of signals or patterns that could tell us when wars are being planned and quietly put into motion in the future.

[Shadow I]

Smarter minds than ours have worked on that same problem, no doubt. If there was a reliable way to predict wars, it would be used more often I think. There are certainly patterns and warning signs for conflicts, but to act on them is an entirely different matter.

[The Beatles]

That isn't really the question -- predicting wars.

I am sure that all through history, between the time a war has been planned or conceived and the time it was announced, people with a sense of history and skills of observations -- some historians, journalists and the like -- have understood the signs and been able to tell that a war was being put into motion. It is that knowledge or pattern recognition that I am interested in, not the chancy business of trying to predict wars before they are conceived or prepared.

[Gen. Volkov]

The specific warning signs listed are not generally good indicators for a war, and there was not a major war there anyway, not on the scale the guy was saying. The US invasion of a Iraq took about 2 weeks to accomplish and did not involve large scale civilian deaths or military deaths. It did not involve any other Middle Eastern states to any real extent. So there was a war, but it was not a huge war like this man was predicting, it wasn't even 1/5 as big as the first Gulf War. The war in Afghanistan was even smaller and more contained.

In almost all cases, the things that lead to war only become visible after the war has been fought. Historians like to try and make generalizations, but so far there have always been glaring exceptions to whatever theories they might come up with. There have been a few wars that were foreseen by some very farsighted individuals, but in general, wars are not something you can predict with any real accuracy very far into the future. WW2 is actually more of an exception than a rule as far was seeing a war coming goes. Churchill and others saw it because they were smart enough to figure out the ramifications of the Treaty of Versailles, and the rise to power of people like Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin.

[The Beatles]

The war is still going on, in both countries, and other middle eastern countries are definitely involved, either aggressively (Iran) or passively (Syria, etc.). It's an extremely violent mess.

[Gen. Volkov]

The war is still going on, in both countries, and other middle eastern countries are definitely involved, either aggressively (Iran) or passively (Syria, etc.). It's an extremely violent mess.

It's certainly a violent mess, but I guess I just think that if it were really as big a mess as that man was predicting, Israel would be involved in a much bigger way. As it is, the combat level in both Iraq and Afghanistan is much more low level and sporadic, not high intensity, continuous combat operations in the manner of the Gulf War or the Six Day War. I suppose it is in part at least, a matter of opinion, but I just don't think his prediction is a very accurate representation of the current situation in the Middle East.

[Nuclear Raunch]

[s]10[/s]

[Gen. Volkov]

*Eyebrow raise*

Yes?