I mentioned the Rational Man theory long ago, this is the idea that a person (or a leader of a country) will always act in a rational manner and to maximize their own safety and self-interests.  Preparing for a crisis/emergency usually involves assessing the relative likelihood of that event occurring, so we need to know that. There a number of potential crises that hinge upon the actions of leaders, such as EMP attacks, limited war, bioweapons, state sponsored terrorism.  Most people discount the probability of these because there’s no real point to the action. We know the attacker will almost surely suffer far greater losses than the victim, and will probably cease to exist in the aftermath.

However, history is full of what seem now to be senseless acts, mostly carried out by dictatorships or police states. A partial list:

•  The invasion of Kuwait
• The invasion of South Korea
• The attack on Pearl Harbor/invasion of Russia

Knowing these have actually happened (and in recent memory) would tend to make one skeptical of the “it can’t happen” mindset. I tend to lapse into complacency, but I am reminded by current events how things could unravel if the Rational Man fails.  Here’s a few potential scenarios to contemplate:

Russia’s ambition leads to war

The current administration’s total lack of response to Putin’s land grabs lead to an attack on one of the Baltic states, or the western Ukraine, by Russian forces.  NATO and/or the US gets backed into a corner and launches an attack on those forces. Neither side is willing to suffer a defeat, and the fighting slowly escalates until the stakes are so high as to rationalize the use of battlefield or even strategic nuclear weapons.  Where it stops, who knows.

North Korea

Kim Jong Un uses a WMD to attack the US, or another putative US ally. The US retaliates and kicks off Korean War 2, and God knows what else. China is a wild card here, just as in the first war.

China

A territorial dispute or international incident at sea leads to a clash between US and Chinese armed forces.  Local Chinese commanders ignore Beijing and escalate. The risk here is not the normal deliberate civilian leadership, but the Chinese military. They are believed to be aggressive and spoiling for a fight. Taiwan is another flash point, the day may come where China believes the risk of US involvement is low and decides to take Taiwan by force. Where this leads is totally unknown, but will not be good.

Iran

Similar to North Korea, but probably less likely to commit an overt kamikaze run by directly attacking the US. However, once they cross the nuclear threshold expect an eventual Iranian proxy attack (by some splinter group) or a preemptive strike by Saudi Arabia/UAE/Israel to prevent it.  Again, where it ends up is unknown.  It’s VERY difficult to imagine Iran not wanting to strike a blow against the Great or Lessor Satans, once they have a viable weapon.

ISIS/Al Quaida/Boko Haram/Your extremist group name here

Nuclear device detonates in large city, WMD attack, power grid shutdown, etc.

I’m looking around and thinking how dangerously unstable the world seems lately, so many flash points and a big power vacuum left over from our exit from foreign affairs.  As many astute people have pointed out, it can lead to a war by miscalculation, since the aggressor is led to believe there will be no response to the offensive act.  This is usually true to a point, but invariably the US reacts and squashes said aggressor.  Many billions of dollars and thousands of lives are lost each time, but no one never learns.  So I suppose it’s prudent to plan for something like this, at least in part.