It’s always good when a Pope picks up one’s ideas and gives them mass appeal.

Here is Pope Francis warning that a ‘piecemeal World War Three‘ may have already begun:

“Even today, after the second failure of another world war, perhaps one can speak of a third war, one fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres, destruction,” he said.

Back in August 2011 I wrote about World War Three for the doomed group blog venture Dale & Co. That piece has gone dark now. So here it is again.

If I say so myself, it’s pretty prescient. Not in the exact chain of events of course – Russia is (for now) expanding, rather than disintegrating, and (for now) the Eurozone crisis has had the lid put on it.

But the sense of drift and disintegration is now much more apparent now than a few years ago. Here’s what I wrote then. Judge for yourself:

One of the most striking features of the recent ‘English’ riots was their apparent pointlessness. Yes, the immediate stealing and smashing was ‘fun’ for the empty minds of those taking part. But why? wail the chattering classes. Why?

We peer into the darkness of the morality and motivations of the rioters, but see nothing. This prompts another question. What if a similar feeling of sheer senselessness goes viral?

What if at the international level too many things go wrong at the same time? What if the capacity of the world’s leaders and institutions to respond in a coherent, authoritative way simultaneously to several huge problems just sighs and ebbs away?

Imagine some sort of global economic and political perfect storm.

The Eurozone starts to disintegrate as European leaders run out of technical fixes and mutual trust. The German courts declare unconstitutional various attempts by Brussels to underpin the Eurozone by side-stepping existing EU treaties, challenging the very heart of the EU’s claim to legal legitimacy.

Civil unrest breaks out in cities across southern Europe as austerity plans bite on living standards. Cash machines in many European towns and cities abruptly run dry; just-in-time supplies of food to Europe’s supermarkets collapse.

Europe’s leaders run out of intelligent joint responses to these simultaneous crises. The most basic sense of European solidarity fades: France and Germany publicly disagree over what needs to be done to keep the show on the road, as the crash of two key French banks threatens German banks’ credibility. The UK announces that it is suspending its EU membership.

The financial crisis in Europe spreads to Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, causing numerous banks to fail. Various parts of Russia proclaim autonomy, defying Moscow’s authority and setting up road-blocks to enforce new tariffs and taxes on internal Russian trade. Clumsy attempts by Moscow to crush opposition in the regions backfire, causing widespread violent demonstrations.

Ethnic clashes break out in several southern European countries, including within the European Union (Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Estonia and Latvia) and in Serbia/Kosovo and Bosnia

Elsewhere military tension rises between North and South Korea. China, Taiwan and Japan start to see their respective security interests directly threatened and step up conventional weapons and cyber warfare capability.

Social conflict within many Arab states accelerates as different regimes suddenly come under renewed popular pressure. Turkey threatens to intervene militarily to overthrow the discredited Assad regime in Syria.

Iran weighs in opportunistically, to froth up a sense of inevitable confrontation involving a new ‘final solution’ for Israel. Israel’s very existence is openly challenged in numerous capitals. Israel warns that it will use every possible means to defend itself; the bombing by Israel of suspected Iranian nuclear bomb installations looks imminent.  Turkey announces that it will use military force to ‘blockade’ Israeli airspace.

NATO forces in Afghanistan and US forces in Iraq suffer heavy losses in a rising series of suicide bombings, giving the impression that the USA is being driven back. The NATO campaign in Libya falters: several NATO members decide to stop contributing.

Pakistan’s leadership lose control The Kashmir problem flares up again, as different militant factions try to grab territory. India threatens heavy retaliation against what it sees as officially inspired Pakistani incursions into Indian territory.

Christian/Muslim communal fighting in Nigeria spills beyond Nigeria’s borders. Elsewhere in Africa widespread famines and droughts threaten the survival of several states – ethno-tribal gangster warlordism spreads out of control.

The Obama administration is beset by the President’s increasingly forlorn attempts to get re-elected. It can’t react coherently or strongly to any of this, above all the soaring economic crisis across Europe and the military tensions in the Middle East. Washington dare not try to rein in either Turkey or Israel, lest one or other or both simply ignores the pressure and Obama’s remaining credibility vanishes.

The UN is powerless. The five Security Council permanent members are each preoccupied with internal or external dramas (or both), and can’t agree on anything significant.

Previously any one of these problems could be managed or at least contained. The problem today lies in the fact that they can come along simultaneously, as if from nowhere, and have mutually reinforcing bad impacts on the most elemental ideas of economic and political confidence. This creates a new generalised global pessimism which spreads like wildfire around the planet’s social media networks: the shared understandings, restraints and responsibilities which have mainly kept the peace since WW2 are evaporating before our eyes!

In short, the planet’s legal and moral order looks and feels weak. For the first time in centuries the USA and Europe are increasingly unable to define, let alone set the global agenda.

Other powers are slowly coming to the fore. They sense that things are going their way: why not exploit this situation to redraw the map – and rewrite the global rules – as they see fit?

What in fact is stopping a new brazen ‘grab what you can’ looting attitude emerging? And if it does emerge, what is to stop it? Conventional weapons and tactics are useless against more or less spontaneous bottom-up networked challenges to existing ruling elites.

* * * * *

World Wars One and Two were conflicts with global consequences arising from European power-struggles. But there was at least a clear context, involving classic thematic rivalries in an understandable form. And far fewer countries were global players. World War Three will be different, a crazy free-for-all.

Disintegration in this sense is not pre-ordained. Western uncertainty is matched by Chinese, Russian and Indian hesitation. Yes, those powers see an historic opportunity to move into the philosophical and political space created by the West’s disarray. Yet how best to do it successfully, without doing immense economic damage to themselves or falling prey to destabilizing ‘flash riots’ which seem to come from nowhere in more and more countries?

At least they have options. Including ‘wait and see’. After all, even if they do nothing their relative power improves as Western confidence and reach diminish.

Why bother to loot, when sooner or later plenty of juicy apples may well start to fall into your lap?