Experts around the world believe that the war of the three superpowers - the United States, China and Russia, is closer than ever. While the real threat comes from terrorists, nations continue to vie for dominance over territories that (largely) do not belong to them. We decided impartially, on the basis of the main military equipment of these countries, to see who would have the probability of winning this hypothetical (let it remain so) war. There are no nuclear weapons or submarines with ballistic missiles in our summary - what kind of winners can there be in a nuclear war. Some survivors.

America currently has the only fifth-generation fighter jet in the world. However, there are only 187 of the vaunted F-22s in service, and the F-35 cannot pass the testing stage in any way.

Fighters

The J-31 made its debut at the 2014 air show, but the Chinese gunsmiths did not stop there. Recently, the J-20 was sent into mass production, and two of the latest projects - J-23 and J-25, are being tested right now.

Fighters

It is expected that the newest T-50 will be the main opponent of the American Raptors. More maneuverable, but less protected from radar, it will only have serious problems if it does not notice the enemy first.

Likely Winner

At the moment, the American F-22s have a clear advantage, if only because all the opponents are still finalizing their projects. However, Raptor pilots should be worried now: both Russia and China are building fighters that will be perfect hunters.

tanks

The M-1 Abrams boasts a 120mm main gun and carries excellent electronics and remote weapon stations. The armor configuration consists of layers of uranium and kevlar.

tanks

Russia is developing a prototype of the T-14 on the Armata platform, but now the T-90A models shown back in 2004 are in service, which are recognized by many independent experts as almost the best tanks in the world.

tanks

China is betting on its new development, the Type 99. The tank has recently been upgraded with reactive armor and is considered almost as survivable in combat as Western or Russian tanks.

Likely Winner

Strictly speaking, this category is a draw. However, America has a large number of already modernized tanks and, more importantly, much better trained crews. We must not forget about combat experience - here America is again ahead of the rest.

Navy

With the largest fleet in the world, America may well feel like Britain's heiress. 10 aircraft carriers will make anyone think twice before encroaching on US territorial waters.

Navy

Unfortunately, we have nothing to brag about here. Despite strong groupings of fleets, Russia has only one aircraft carrier, and even that moves with some difficulty.

Navy

The Chinese Liaoning is still the only aircraft carrier in the fleet. However, serious work is underway to strengthen the fleet of the People's Liberation Army. The Chinese Coast Guard is being used to assert sovereignty in contested waters and is given the world's largest and most heavily armed ships among such groups.

Likely Winner

The US Navy still has the strongest fleet in the world. However, a full-scale invasion of Russian or Chinese territory is likely to fail - it is enough to cut off the fleet from supply ships.

Russia again returns to the thesis that the deployment of a missile defense system by the United States is connected solely with the desire to gain superiority on Russia and China.

This was stated by First Deputy Chief of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Viktor Poznikhir, during the Beijing briefing "The US Global Layered Missile Defense System as a Threat to the Military Security of Russia and China and Strategic Stability in the World".

According to the Russian General Staff, by deploying the US global missile defense system, the Americans are trying to reduce the potential of Russia's nuclear forces and completely “zero out” China's nuclear potential.

At the same time, as recently as October 4, a number of American Pentagon generals said that the war between Russia and the United States would be in the very near future, and it would be "quick and deadly." As the chief of staff of the US Army, General Mark Milley, noted, an armed conflict between Russia and the United States is "almost guaranteed."

Against the background of the foreign policy contradictions of both nuclear powers in Syria, such statements cause panic in the media and public environments.

Unlike their American counterparts, Russian military experts are in no hurry to scare the planet with a nuclear war.

So, in response to the eschatological statements of the Pentagon generals, the head of the Russian Academy of Geopolitical Problems, Colonel General Leonid Ivashov said that the American generals are just bluffing and trying to intimidate Russia with such statements.

After all, in the event of a war with Russia, the United States simply will not be able to avoid a blow to its territory. And, despite the fact that the consequences of the third world war will be disastrous both for the participants in the nuclear conflict and for all of humanity, the Russians have more chances to save a limited number of their people and uncontaminated territories for the further restoration of civilization than the inhabitants of the United States.

Let's see how the US missile defense system works.

These are, first of all, long-range radar systems, satellites for tracking enemy military nuclear facilities, launchers and other means of deploying land-based and sea-based interceptor missiles.

The main component of the US missile defense system is the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GBMD) ballistic missile interception system. This is the only weapon system capable of intercepting Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles. However, this complex is only capable of hitting single-block ballistic missiles, which makes it vulnerable to the Russian nuclear triad.

At sea, the United States is covered by the Aegis missile defense system, which protects the US fleet from attack by small and medium-range ballistic missiles, as well as from space weapons.

This system is characterized by high mobility, since Aegis-equipped warships can be quickly deployed to almost anywhere in the world's oceans. Total number of SM-3 interceptor missiles included in the system "Aegis", reaches half a thousand.

Also, the American missile defense system includes radars of various bases, including marine ones, MIM-104 Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems, THAAD mobile air defense systems, and other components.

A whole group of states (primarily NATO members) are working on the US missile defense system. Great Britain, Germany, Japan, France, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, South Korea and other states are participating in the technical creation of missile defense elements.

However, while the American missile defense system is losing to Russia in the event of a global nuclear conflict.

American generals who claim that the United States has a military advantage over Russia seem to be forgetting (or perhaps deliberately not mentioning) the areas in which our country is superior to the rest of the world, including the United States.

First of all, Russia is superior to the United States in the nuclear submarine fleet, in long-range and operational-tactical aviation, in air and anti-space defense systems and electronic warfare.

American experts rely on the might of the US Navy, primarily on 10 aircraft carriers, which are an offensive means of projecting military force at sea. However, in the event of a war with Russia, these expensive "watercraft" automatically turn into targets for the Russian submarine fleet and cruise missiles, which are in service with the Russian Defense Ministry.

Despite the fact that, according to Western experts, the flight time of NATO missiles from the Baltic States to Moscow can be 4-8 minutes, it will be very difficult for the Americans and their allies to penetrate the airspace of Russia, which is equipped with the most functional S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems in the world. , S-400 and, starting from 2016, S-500 complexes.

In turn, the “answer” will immediately overtake Europe: let me remind you that the flight time of the Iskander missiles armed with nuclear charges from Kaliningrad to Warsaw is only 2 minutes, and technically NATO warning systems will not be able to warn anyone.

But back to the USA.

As soon as the nuclear crisis breaks out, about 20 nuclear submarines will come into action, constantly on alert near the US maritime borders.

Russian submarines are capable of literally wiping out the entire North American continent from the face of the Earth, given that they carry in their wombs more than 350 ballistic missiles with nuclear charges of about 200 kilotons (each of these charges is 15 times the power of the bomb dropped by the Americans on Hiroshima in 1945).

Russia's ability to conduct electronic warfare against US military installations also poses serious threats to Pentagon war planners. The performance characteristics of the electronic warfare systems in service with Russia still remain unclear to the US military command. However, it is known that Russia can successfully interfere with American radars and electronic intelligence, which form the basis of the air power of the American hegemon.

I will give an interesting quote from the commander of the US ground forces in Europe, General Ben Hodges:

“Not a single American has yet come under fire from Russian artillery and multiple rocket launchers, not a single one has experienced the effects of Russian electronic warfare, electronic countermeasures, at least on a tactical level”, - said the American general.

And he is absolutely right.

In the more than 70 years that have passed since the end of World War II, not a single state has been able to actually test the full power of Russia's military potential.

"The deployed missile defense system, in terms of its information and fire capabilities, is unable to withstand the massive use of the Strategic Missile Forces group", - said the commander of the Strategic Missile Forces of the Russian Federation, Colonel General Sergei Karakaev.

Of course, it would be naive to believe that Russia can win the nuclear apocalypse. As I wrote above, in the event of a nuclear war, all participants in the global conflict lose, as well as the rest of the planet.

However, even if the United States manages to destroy all the infrastructure on Russian territory with a massive preventive nuclear strike (which is practically impossible under the current realities), Russian submarines, constantly on duty in the world's oceans, will bring this war to its logical conclusion with the complete destruction of the United States.

Do not forget about the so-called Russian "doomsday system" - "Perimeter" (in the NATO classification, it was called Dead Hand - "Dead Hand"). In 1985, this system took up combat duty, and continues to protect the defense interests of Russia.

"Perimeter" guarantees a retaliatory massive nuclear strike even if the leadership of the country and the command posts of the Strategic Missile Forces are destroyed. That is, the "Dead Hand" will work without human intervention, and put the last bullet in the Third World War.

Today it is obvious that the military confrontation between the Russian Strategic Missile Forces and the US missile defense will only deepen, especially in the light of recent events related to Syria and Ukraine.

However, I would like to believe that the military and political leadership of the United States is aware of the scale of the planetary catastrophe, which can lead to further aggressive foreign policy of the United States.

In recent years, the US, Russia, and China have been testing patience and testing each other's strategic emphases. Under these conditions, the voices of people who assess the chances of a new world war are getting louder and louder. However, many of those who are seriously involved in this important discussion often have the wrong idea about what is happening.

When evaluating military capabilities, the Western media mostly thinks about the combat capabilities of weaker states and rarely pays serious attention to the enormous potential of the United States, which accounts for most of the world's military spending.

If we are to conduct a sound discussion about the nature of a hypothetical third world war, then we must begin with the huge number and power of American means of armed struggle. Despite the fact that China and Russia are arming and taking various measures, American commanders in the event of an escalation of the crisis will have superiority and will be able to strike at the enemy even before he uses his forces and means.

Let's take a missile war as an example. The US Navy currently has 4,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, and the Navy and Air Force are currently receiving 5,000 Jasm Extended Range Air-to-Surface (JASSM) conventionally armed cruise missiles with a range of 320-950 km. . These missiles are barely visible on radar and are designed to destroy heavily defended targets such as nuclear missile silos. Russia and China, unlike America, have nothing comparable in quantity and quality and cannot pose a threat to the continental United States.

The same can be said about naval forces. There is a lot of talk these days about two Russian patrol ships and other assets off the coast of Syria, but France alone has 20 warships and one aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. And the United States has six destroyers with a large number of cruise missiles and anti-missile systems as part of its permanent readiness forces in the region. At the other end of Europe, the Russian military menaces the small Baltic states, but few people notice that Russia's Baltic fleet is the same size as Denmark's and half the size of Germany's.

Meanwhile, there is now a lot of talk and writing about China's aggressive and expansionist actions in the South China Sea, about its first aircraft carriers and long-range ballistic missiles. But although China's navies are large and rapidly developing, they are comparable in number to the navies of Japan and Taiwan combined, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. And the United States can boast of 19 aircraft carriers located in different parts of the world, if landing ships are included here.

But of course, the main thing here is the nuclear factor.

Context

Russia will launch Avangard hypersonic units

The National Interest 03/21/2018

The main thing is to destroy American satellites

The National Interest 05/15/2017

Will Russia be able to shoot down American missiles in Syria?

The National Interest 04/12/2018
Threat from the sky

The US, Russia and China have nuclear weapons. Vladimir Putin recently talked about new nuclear-armed missiles, calling them "invulnerable to all existing and future systems," and some suggest that China may abandon its policy of no first use of nuclear weapons. Naturally, this causes concern. It has long been assumed that the threat from nuclear weapons is a deterrent and precludes war between major powers. However, it is possible that the world simply relies on luck. But then again, very often we do not pay due attention to the non-nuclear combat potential of the United States.

The American leadership may actually believe that it will be able to destroy the Russian nuclear deterrent with a devastating non-nuclear strike supported by missile defense. Such a concept is embedded in the program of instant global strike, which was adopted before 9/11 and continued under Obama. Such a strike is being prepared by the US Air Force with its command of the global strike forces, and its essence is to strike any point on Earth using non-nuclear weapons in less than 60 minutes.

Such a task cannot be called simple. To destroy Russia's nuclear missiles before they are launched, the US military would first need to blind the Russian radars and control and communications systems so that they cannot detect the strike being made. It is possible that this will require conventional strikes and cyberattacks. Then it will be necessary to destroy approximately 200 fixed and 200 mobile launchers on land, more than a dozen Russian nuclear submarines and bombers. And after that, you will still have to shoot down those missiles that will still be fired.

Russia is unlikely to survive such an attack. Its long-range radars, both ground-based and space-based, are aging and falling into disrepair, and it will be difficult to replace them. At the same time, the United States has and is developing a whole series of systems for combating satellites and radars, and they have been using them for many years. (Back in 1985, using an F-15 fighter, they managed to shoot down a satellite.) But at the same time, the West is very vulnerable, because it is very dependent on its satellites, and Russia and China continue to develop and improve their anti-satellite systems.

War in the air

Russian bombers are from Soviet times, so despite the alarm they cause when approaching Western airspace, these aircraft in and of themselves do not pose a serious danger. If Russian and American planes converge in the sky, the Russians will be attacked by invisible and inaccessible vehicles.

The crews of American and British submarines during the Cold War years constantly and very effectively pursued Soviet submarines after they left their bases. Since then, the Russian submarine fleet has been significantly weakened, and the US has experienced a resurgence, thanks to which Russian submarines can be destroyed before they launch missiles.

The basis of the Russian nuclear forces are ground-based missiles. Some are found in mines, and some are mobile, moving along roads and railroads. Silo-based missiles today can be destroyed by several types of missiles launched from aircraft unnoticed by enemy radars. All of them are designed to destroy targets located deep underground in concrete and steel bunkers. But the problem is that the missile-carrying aircraft will take too long to reach the targets, and therefore the crews must act on alarm immediately.

One apparently simple solution is to equip fast-flying ballistic missiles with conventional warheads. In 2010, Robert Gates, then Obama's secretary of defense, said the United States had that capability. To fly from the American Midwest to Siberia, an ICBM takes only 30 minutes if launched from a properly positioned submarine. The Tridents have even less time to reach the target - less than 10 minutes.

Since 2001, the US Navy has been preparing to equip these missiles with either inert warheads with an accuracy of 10 meters, or fragmentation warheads. Critics argue that in this case, the potential adversary will not be able to distinguish between a nuclear attack and a conventional one, and therefore will assume the worst. According to researchers from the US Congress, development work was close to completion, but apparently stopped in 2013.

Multimedia

Science 18.04.2018

EW? Russians live in a fantasy world

Military Update 11.04.2018
However, the US continues to develop other types of weapons for various branches of the armed forces, which are capable of striking a target anywhere in the world in less than an hour. First of all, we are talking about hypersonic missiles that can return to Earth 10 times faster than the speed of sound. China and Russia are trying to keep up.

Envy of missiles

The rest of Russia's nuclear force consists of missiles transported by rail. An article in the Kremlin news outlet Sputnik argues that finding such railroad missile cars is so difficult that the concept of an instantaneous global strike may not be as effective as the Americans would like. But then it turns out that the rest of Russia's nuclear arsenal is very vulnerable.

Beginning with the "hunt for Scuds" during the first Gulf War, the US military has been perfecting its skills in destroying mobile land-based missiles over the years. Now they use remote detection devices to strike small ground targets, doing it practically The U.S. military has honed these skills in the many counterinsurgency operations it has conducted since 2001.

If the “sword” of an instant global strike does not stop the launches of all Russian missiles, then the United States will be able to use the “shield” of its missile defense system. They deployed this system after they withdrew from a treaty with Russia to ban such weapons in 2002.

Some of these post-2002 missile defense systems have been called ineffective, but the US Navy has a very effective Aegis system that, according to the former head of the Pentagon's missile defense program, can shoot down ICBMs. Today, about 300 Aegis anti-missiles are deployed on 40 American ships. In 2008, one such rocket destroyed a satellite falling from orbit.

War mentality

Before the Iraq war, many countries and observers warned the US and Britain about the possible and unforeseen consequences, but their mentality was immune to criticism and did not give in to doubt. Despite the lessons that can be learned from the Iraq disaster, today there is a great danger that self-confidence and hatred will prevail.

Losses in other countries do not have much impact on US domestic politics. The death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians - first due to sanctions and then during the war - did not have any negative impact on Presidents Clinton and Bush. The likelihood of similar losses in Iran, North Korea and other countries is unlikely to have any impact on the American leadership, especially if “humane” precision weapons are used.

What's more, a poll by Stanford University's Scott Sagan showed that American society is open to the preemptive use of even nuclear weapons, as long as it doesn't affect the US itself. The nuclear Trident creates such a temptation.

Civil society, the media and political parties around the world must immediately turn their attention to the control of the main types of non-nuclear weapons. There is still time to rally around the Nobel Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, to actively support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and to revive and revitalize the fledgling arms control work of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which played a huge role in the peaceful end of the Cold War.

Perhaps Trump or one of his successors, like the Kaiser in 1914, would be dismayed if faced with the consequences of a major American offensive. But unlike the Kaiser, whose empire was first crushed and then divided, a 21st-century American president can get away with it.

The materials of InoSMI contain only assessments of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editors of InoSMI.

The overseas military review Real Clear Defense (an aggregator of the best American articles on defense topics and a platform for Pentagon experts) unexpectedly advised the US Army to take part in the International Army Games ARMI-2019. Tolga Ozyurtcu, an assistant professor at the University of Texas, said it would be foolish to ignore events like these, which are attended by an ever-increasing number of participating countries every year.

“These games are a good chance for the Russian military-industrial complex to show off the latest innovations, invite potential buyers and strengthen cooperation with other armies,” writes Tolga Ozyurtcu. “A similar event is also being held among NATO countries, reviving the spirit of rivalry between East and West during the Cold War.”

Tolga Ozyurtchu notes that tank biathlon is the most popular (according to views on YouTube - author) in the Russian game. However, other competitions are also not for the “weaklings”, for example, cooks, before stoking the stoves, will have to hit targets from a machine gun, apparently to protect food from hungry enemies.

Despite the public entertainment and even "fleeting absurdity", "ARMY" is a serious matter. Watching the games, NATO countries realize that “the Russians are firmly on their feet and confident in their abilities,” a Texas expert from Real Clear Defense is quoted as saying.

China is not far behind. "The PLA's participation in international military games is an effective way to improve real-world combat capabilities," the Xinhua news agency wrote. “Thus, the troops are strengthening military training and readiness for war to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China.”

Last year, Russia, as the host of Army Games 2017, invited NATO countries to take part in international army games - primarily in tank biathlon. Oleg Salyukov, commander of the Russian Ground Forces, said the games were open to NATO members, but they refused to participate.

However, last year Greece (a member of NATO) did decide to compete in one tournament, becoming the only participant from the North Atlantic Alliance. In this regard, the leadership of the alliance of Western armies has officially stated that invitations to these war games "do not replace proper transparency and confidence-building measures."

This year, six new countries joined the Army Games ARMI-2018: Vietnam, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sudan and the Philippines, which is almost a third more than a year earlier. In total - 32 armies of the world sent their best fighters. "It's nice to see that the scale of the competition is expanding geographically, the list of participants is growing," Shoigu said.

“NATO responded with its own festival - the “Strong Europe” tank challenge in Germany. Unlike the Russian games, this event is more intimate, and it is dedicated to strengthening military cooperation and the efficiency of NATO forces, Tolga Ozyurtcu notes. “Given that the debut of Strong Europe took place in 2016, it would be logical to assume that the US and Germany drew inspiration from the International Army Games.”

If the tank biathlon of the ARMI games resembles the popular sport of the Winter Olympic Games, then Strong Europe (where the USA takes part) is a competition in separate positions. For 5 days, participants in the Russian alternative compete on tanks in races in various lanes, including defensive and offensive operations, chemical attack, overcoming obstacle courses, as well as compete in shooting, evacuation of the wounded, and vehicle identification.

Over the past three years, Russian tankers have invariably won the tank biathlon during the Army Games, and in the Strong Europe competition, the first places have always been occupied by the Germans on Leopard 2A4 tanks - twice from Germany and once from Austria. As for the Americans, only in 2017 they were the third (out of 6 participants - author), competing on the upgraded tank M1A2 SEP v2. Ukraine then took 5th place on the "antediluvian" Soviet tank T-64BV, ahead of the Poles on the Leopard 2A5.

“I would be lying when I said we didn’t want to win, but I think the other teams were really strong, so it was difficult,” said German Sergeant 1st Class Mathis Hantke, the winning tank commander and deputy platoon leader from Panzerbataillon 393. In fact, the tankers from the FRG were ahead of their colleagues from the USA and Ukraine with a significant advantage (1450 points against 1150 and 950 points, respectively, with the maximum possible 1500).

Even NATO experts noted that the "Strong Europe" contest was inconsistent with the real combat situation. "It's a competition, but it's not really a competition," commented Major David Glenn, Senior Operations Officer at US 7th Army Headquarters, thoughtfully and floridly.

What is curious: the detailed results of "Strong Europe" turned out to be classified, so journalists had to be content with rumors from "reliable sources".

First, the targets for the Germans were the smallest, and for the Americans, the largest. In general, the German team turned out to be much better prepared than their rivals: two of the four crews were manned by reservists, but even those easily defeated the professionals from the USA.

According to Polish sources, the Polish platoon destroyed 75% of the targets at a distance of 2 km from the target, while the Germans fired without a miss. Rumors from the unofficial Gunner Master network (USA - author) say that the Americans were fourth in the shooting. But the Italian tankers disgraced themselves by not hitting most of the targets, and were removed from the competition.

The Americans were the worst at camouflage, their crews could not figure out how to properly use the camouflage net. Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, representing the US Army, admitted that his tankers are not trained in this discipline at all, they say, it is problematic to cover a 60-ton vehicle.

A team from Slovenia, during an evacuation operation, crushed a “wounded” dummy in the form of the Slovenian army, causing great joy among the Germans and sadness among the Americans.

Bloggers and forum participants generally comment negatively on the participation of their teams in the Strong Europe competition, with the exception of the Germans. Those, in turn, are scolded by competitors, saying that the German team wins only because it has the best tank in the world. Meanwhile, the M1A2 SEP v2 is the latest US tank with innovative optics, but it is performing poorly.

“Now it has become fashionable to talk about the return of the Cold War,” sums up the comparison of the two army games Tolga Ozyurtcu. - The International Army Games (and with them the tank tournament) prove that world politics has not only absorbed the principles of international sports, but also reshaped them in its own way. Like the Olympics, these events are a good opportunity for powerful people to get together and sort things out without war.”

That is, those who consider themselves the strongest may not need to behave aggressively at all. But to test this, it would be foolish for Americans to shy away from competing with the Russians and Chinese in Army Games 2019.

Military exercises: NATO planes to fly near Russian borders for a week

Military news: The Germans recognized their tanks as "toys" compared to the T-34

Endless terrorist attacks, ongoing armed conflicts, ongoing disagreements between Russia, the United States and the European Union indicate that peace on our planet is literally hanging by a thread. This situation is alarming, both among politicians and among ordinary people. It is no coincidence that the issue of the start of the Third World War is being seriously discussed by the entire world community.

Expert opinion

Some political scientists believe that the mechanism of war was already launched several years ago. It all started with Ukraine, when a corrupt president was removed from office and the new government in the country was called illegitimate, but simply a junta. Then they announced to the whole world that it was fascist and began to scare one sixth of the land with it. In the minds of the people of the two fraternal peoples, distrust was first sown, and then outright enmity. A full-scale information war began, in which everything was subordinated to inciting hatred between people.

This confrontation was painful for the families, relatives, friends of the two fraternal peoples. It got to the point that the politicians of the two countries are ready to push brother against brother. The situation on the Internet also speaks of the danger of the situation. Various discussion platforms and forums have turned into real battlefields where everything is allowed.

If someone still doubts the likelihood of war, then they can simply go to any social network and see how heated the discussions of topical topics are reaching, from information about oil quotes to the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest.

If it is possible to quarrel two fraternal peoples who shared grief and victories for more than 360 years, then what can we say about other countries. Any nation can be called an enemy overnight, having prepared timely information support in the media and the Internet. So, for example, it was with Turkey.

At present, Russia is testing new methods of war on the example of Crimea, Donbass, Ukraine, and Syria. Why deploy multi-million armies, transfer troops, if you can carry out a "successful information attack", and to top it off, send a small contingent of "little green men". Fortunately, there is already positive experience in Georgia, Crimea, Syria and the Donbass.

Some political observers believe that it all started in Iraq, when the US decided to remove the supposedly undemocratic president and carried out Operation Desert Storm. As a result, the country's natural resources came under US control.

Having made a little “fat” in the 2000s and having carried out a number of military operations, Russia decided not to give in and prove to the whole world that it “got up from its knees”. Hence such “decisive” actions in Syria, in the Crimea and in the Donbass. In Syria, we protect the whole world from ISIS, in Crimea, Russians from Bandera, in the Donbass, the Russian-speaking population from Ukrainian punishers.

In fact, an invisible confrontation between the United States and Russia has already begun. America does not want to share its dominance in the world with the Russian Federation. Direct evidence of this is the current Syria.

Tension in different parts of the world, where the interests of the two countries are in contact, will only grow.

There are experts who believe that the tension with America is caused by the fact that the latter is aware of the loss of its leading position against the backdrop of a rising China and wants to destroy Russia in order to seize its natural wealth. Various methods are used to weaken the Russian Federation:

• EU sanctions;
• lower oil prices;
• involvement of the Russian Federation in the arms race;
• support of protest moods in Russia.

America is doing everything to repeat the situation of 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed.

War in Russia is inevitable in 2020

This point of view is shared by the American political analyst I. Hagopian. He posted his thoughts on this subject on the GlobalResears website. He noted that there are all signs of preparing the United States and Russia for war. The author notes that America will be supported by:

• NATO countries;
• Israel;
• Australia;
• all US satellites around the world.

Russia's allies include China and India. The expert believes that the United States is waiting for bankruptcy and therefore it will attempt to take possession of the wealth of the Russian Federation. He also stressed that some states may disappear as a result of this conflict.

Similar forecasts are given by former head of NATO A. Shirreff. For this, he even wrote a book about the war with Russia. In it, he notes the inevitability of a military confrontation with America. According to the plot of the book, Russia captures the Baltic states. NATO countries come to its defense. As a result, World War III begins. On the one hand, the plot looks frivolous and implausible, but on the other hand, given that the work was written by a retired general, the script looks quite plausible.

Who will win America or Russia

To answer this question, it is necessary to compare the military power of the two powers:

Armament	Russia	USA
active army	1.4 million people	1.1 million people
Reserve	1.3 million people	2.4 million people
Airports and runways	1218	13513
Aircraft	3082	13683
Helicopters	1431	6225
tanks	15500	8325
armored vehicles	27607	25782
Self-propelled guns	5990	1934
Towed artillery	4625	1791
MLRS	4026	830
Ports and terminals	7	23
Warships	352	473
Aircraft carriers	1	10
Submarines	63	72
attack ships	77	17
Budget	76 trillion.	612 trillion.

Success in war depends not only on superiority in weapons. According to military expert Y. Shields, the Third World War will not be like the two previous wars. Combat operations will be carried out using computer technology. They will become shorter, but the number of victims will be in the thousands. Nuclear weapons are unlikely to be used, but chemical and bacteriological weapons, as an auxiliary means, are not excluded.

Attacks will be made not only on the battlefield, but also in:

• the field of communications;
• the Internet;
• television;
• economy;
• finance;
• politics;
• space.

Something similar is happening in Ukraine now. The offensive is on all fronts. Blatant disinformation, hacker attacks on financial servers, sabotage in the economic field, discrediting politicians, diplomats, terrorist attacks, shutting down broadcast satellites, and much more can cause irreparable damage to the enemy along with military operations at the front.

Psychic Predictions

Throughout history, there have been many prophets who predicted the end of mankind. One of them is Nostradamus. As for world wars, he accurately predicted the first two. As for the Third World War, he said that it would happen through the fault of the Antichrist, who would stop at nothing and be terribly merciless.

The next psychic whose prophecies have come true is Vanga. She told future generations that World War III would start with a small state in Asia. The fastest is Syria. The reason for the hostilities will be an attack on four heads of state. The consequences of the war will be horrendous.

The famous psychic P. Globa also said his words regarding the Third World War. His forecasts can be called optimistic. He said that humanity will end World War III if it prevents military action in Iran.

The psychics listed above are not the only ones who predicted World War III. Similar predictions were made:

• A. Ilmaier;
• Mulchiasl;
• Edgar Cayce;
• G. Rasputin;
• Bishop Anthony;
• Saint Hilarion and others