WW3

I heard an interesting quote the other day from Einstein: "The futuristic weapons of WW3 are unknown, but WW4 will be fought with stones and spears."

I know very little about global politics or the military, but the small trickle of truth I get from the internet is getting me slightly worried about the gradual buildup of militaries world wide. Also, since I'm fascinated about predicting how technology will influence our world, I thought I'd make a quick pathetic guess about what WW3 would look like if it were to happen.

Let me first clarify that I don't think the war will involve super fast tanks rolling in followed by troops storming over trenches. Nor do I think the war will be fought in space like some high budget star trek movie. Instead, I think we can expect a much less heroic and deadly war of attrition.

I suspect the world just before the war will be even more heavily interconnected by trade, extremely efficient, and utterly hooked to the internet and energy generation. Because of this, I think we can expect an 'invisible war' fought on two fronts; virtually and chemically.

The virtual side of the war will be fought with strings of code. Nations will invest in malicious AI to try and desperately hack high tier computer systems, shut down factories remotely and steal data. The chemical side of the war will be less boring, but equally faceless; I suspect nations will invest in highly engineered viruses & diseases that can infect crops and civilians. Both sides, will simply try and force the other into submission by starving the opposing population and crippling their economy.

During the war, I think nations world wide will try to counter these modern attacks by becoming more self sustainable by simply downgrading the quality of life. To avoid the chance of being hacked, high tech systems will get downgraded from digital back to analog. Likewise, to avoid the chance of eating poisonous food, people will have to rely on packaged/canned food. The world will also have to adjust to a life without reliable power or internet. By the end of the war, millions will be dead and whole economies and ways of life will have been pushed back to the 20th century or further.

Side note: You may have noticed I didn't mention nuclear war. That's because I think nukes are just deterrents. I suspect even when a losing nation reaches it's breaking point, it still won't be dumb enough to launch a nuke.