The true global conflict

In many ways World War II looked like two separate wars happening coincidentally at the same time.  Germany and Japan were allies, but did almost nothing to actually help each other.  Western Europe other than the UK had little involvement in the East Asian war except that its colonies were overrun by Japan, nor did the USSR participate there until the end, even though its territory extended close to the war zone.  Nevertheless, there were ideological commonalities between Germany and Japan (both driven by fascist, expansionist, and racial-supremacist ideologies), and after 1941 brought the Pearl Harbor attack and Hitler's declaration of war against the US, the two wars were unified in having one major belligerent involved on the anti-fascist side in both.

In the same way, what today look like several different conflicts are increasingly becoming revealed as just different theaters of a common struggle, with common themes, involving countries from all over the world.  Future historians will likely recognize these conflicts as part of one broad global war, perhaps even designating it the third world war, given its scope.

The current "hot" conflicts are Ukraine vs Russia, Israel vs Hamas and Hezbollah (and now vs Iran directly), and India vs Pakistan.  It is also possible that Taiwan could be attacked by China in the near future.  These conflicts have much more in common than most Americans realize, and are increasingly linked.

The dominant theme is democratic systems and free societies against totalitarian ideologies, the latter usually with a religious component.  Ukraine, Israel, India, and Taiwan are vigorous democracies which mostly respect the kinds of personal freedoms that Americans have traditionally valued.  The Iranian regime is a brutal theocracy and its proxies in Gaza and Lebanon uphold the same ideology, while the Pakistan-based jihadists who have staged endless terrorist attacks in India over the years are also Islamist fanatics, clandestinely supported by people with the same leanings within the Pakistani government.  Russia is not Muslim, but the Putin regime has increasingly made Christian supremacy part of its identity, with gays being persecuted even more than under communism; it can't yet be called a theocracy, but is evolving in that direction.  China's state ideology is officially non-religious, but is the most totalitarian of them all, and the historical-irredentist pretexts of its claims against Taiwan are very similar to those of Russia against Ukraine or of Palestinianism against Israel.

The combatants are certainly aware of these connections, and act upon them.  Iran has been sending aid to Russia since the beginning of the Ukraine invasion, including its Shahed drones, and both countries had long acted together in propping up the Asad regime in Syria until its collapse in late 2024.  Soon after the recent Israeli airstrikes on Iran, China and Pakistan both declared support for the Iranian theocracy (the Pakistani statement was as bungled as almost everything else in that country).  China has also supported Russia in various ways, and even North Korea has sent troops to fight for Putin against Ukraine.

On the democratic side, I've already noted the growing India-Israel cooperation against the common jihadist enemy.  In general, Ukraine, Israel, India, and Taiwan need all their resources for their own defense, and can spare little to help each other, though I've seen a few claims of small-scale mutual aid between Israel and Ukraine.  Nevertheless, the broader democratic world is invested in their fight to varying degrees.  Ukraine has received massive military aid from the US, the European democracies, and even from Japan and South Korea.  The US has also extensively supported the defense capabilities of Israel and Taiwan, while the major democracies solidly support Israel's campaign in Iran.  India is powerful enough relative to its immediate enemies to not need the same kind of help, but still there has been some anti-terrorism cooperation with the West, as with the recent talks with the UK.

(This alignment is not 100% exact.  There are pro-Putin anti-Ukraine elements in the current US administration, and pro-jihadist anti-Israel elements in the US far left and in Europe with its ancient curse of anti-Semitism.  The Turkish government has been supportive of Ukraine but hostile to Israel and India.  India has tried to play both sides of the fence in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, perhaps because it wants Russian oil.  I expect that these irregularities will decrease over time as the commonalities among the various conflicts, and the high fundamental stakes for democracy and civilization, become clearer.  One should also keep in mind that the Iranian theocracy is the brutal oppressor of the Iranian people and is deeply hated by most of them.  Netanyahu has repeatedly addressed the Iranian people directly as potential allies against the regime.  Iranians in the US, who are free to speak their minds, are celebrating the airstrikes against the thugs who rule their homeland.  When the theocracy is gone, a democratic Iran could well become an ally of Israel and the West.)

The fighting tactics used by the two sides also show parallel contrasts.  Jihadist attacks on Israel and India, and Russian attacks on Ukraine, have mostly targeted civilians or at best been indiscriminate.  Russia's treatment of Ukrainian civilians in its occupied areas, and especially Hamas's October 7 attack, have both been marked by ghastly, sadistic atrocities.  Ukraine, Israel, and India have been targeting military and terrorist sites almost exclusively, while making considerable effort to minimize enemy civilian casualties, although it is never possible to eliminate them entirely -- especially in Gaza, where Hamas habitually hides its facilities in civilian areas, making the latter human shields.  Israel's recent strikes on Iran have targeted military sites and regime leadership with high precision, while Iran's response was to bombard Israel with missiles apparently more or less at random.

Israel's exploding-pager attack upon Hezbollah and Ukraine's drone attack on Russia's bombers were clever, imaginative innovations in warfare, again targeting the actual threat while minimizing the harm to innocents.  The totalitarians' efforts at conventional war have been crude and surprisingly ineffective -- Ukraine and Israel have shot down most of the Russian and Iranian missiles fired at them, while Russia has spent three years failing to conquer a country with only a third of its population, piling up staggering casualties and equipment losses while losing a naval war against an enemy that doesn't have a navy.  It seems likely that a hot war between Pakistan and India, or between China and Taiwan, would show the same contrasts.

It's understandable that Americans are preoccupied with Trump and related matters, but we must also remember that there are much more important things happening in the wider world beyond the US.