Here is the full transcript of Professor Heni Ozi Cukier’s talk titled “Are We Heading Towards World War III?” at TEDxLisboa (May 23, 2025).
Listen to the audio version here:
Introduction
HENI OZI CUKIER: History has taught us many lessons, and we should pay attention to its signs because we might be heading towards World War III. One way to understand today’s events is to look for clues from the past, but cherry-picking historical events to forecast the future is a risky exercise that oftentimes only reinforces our biases. So I want to do something different. Instead of comparing historical examples with what is happening now, I will examine four major dimensions of life—the social, economic, political, and military dimensions. And I will analyze key trends within each one of those dimensions in three critical moments in history—before World War I, before World War II, and today.
The Social Dimension: Technology and Social Anxiety
So let’s begin with the social dimension. And there are many factors that shape societies, but I want to focus on how technological innovations have produced social anxieties and destabilized societies throughout history.
Before World War I, the Second Industrial Revolution was transforming life with electricity—cars, phones, mass production, and more. While many celebrated these advances, they also disrupted societies. For instance, machines replaced workers, and new farming techniques uprooted populations from the countryside. These led to insecurity and resentment. At the same time, traditional authorities, such as churches and monarchies, were questioned at that time, and new mass movements emerged, such as labor unions and nationalist leagues. People were afraid that progress was shaking the very foundation of societies.
Looking a little bit ahead, in the interwar years, before World War II, technology continued to affect life. The word robot was even coined in 1921, and it symbolizes fears of possibly machines substituting human jobs.
At the same time, or a little bit later, the famous economist John Maynard Keynes warned us in 1930 of a new disease—namely, technological unemployment. During this period, we had communications revolutions that completely changed public discourse. So these media became powerful tools for propaganda, polarizing politics, and amplifying social fears. Traditionalists at that time worried that modern culture was simply eroding tradition, family, and religion.
Today, we are going through a technological revolution, driven by AI, digital media, and social platforms. The internet, smartphones, and social media have transformed the way we work, communicate, and even think. Psychologists debate how digital life is affecting children’s development, while concerns over privacy and surveillance and AI-driven job loss continue to grow. Technologies are spreading ideas across the globe, but also they are amplifying frustrations, fears, and divisions faster than ever before.
In short, technological progress brings incredible benefits, but they also breed insecurity, resentment, and uncertainty. Historically, such anxieties have made societies more unstable and vulnerable to extreme ideologies that fuel militarism and war.
The Economic Dimension: Two Perspectives on War and Prosperity
Now let’s talk about the economics. And I want to present two perspectives on the economics. The first one is related to a common idea that economic prosperity prevents wars. And the argument goes like this. I mean, it makes no sense for a nation to go to war and destroy its own wealth. They don’t want to go to war.
Before World War I, in 1914, Britain dominated global trade and finance. Germany was thriving industrially and expanding its exports. Both countries, they knew that there were no financial benefits that justify the enormous economic costs of going to war. However, World War I taught us a very important lesson. Economics may explain what can be done, but politics decides what will be done. Fear, ambition, miscalculation, all overrode by even the strongest economic success, showing us that simply war and peace are not decided by economic arguments alone. We have to take into consideration political, ideological, and strategic reasons.
Okay, so what is going on with the second perspective? And the common perspective says the following. People will assume that nations, they want to be wealth and powerful. It’s not that they don’t want that, they do, but they want something else. It’s better for them if they are wealthier or more powerful than their rivals, right? So what matters is the relative power. I want to be more powerful, I don’t want to be just powerful. I want to be more powerful than my enemy or my rival.
Let’s look at what happened at World War II. And in that moment, Germany and Japan, they did not see trade as mutually beneficial. Why? They were gaining less than their rivals, Britain, France, and the US, which made them vulnerable. What was their response? Searching for self-sufficiency and eventually war.
All right, so what is going on today? There are two main ideas that we see all over. The US-China economic interdependence will prevent war. Really, I just told you what happened in World War I, right? So economics alone do not determine geopolitical outcomes. We have to consider political, strategic, ideological, and many other factors. When we think of what is going on after, or what happened after, the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, at that moment, states realized that it’s too risky to be really dependent on your rival. So as nations reassess today their economic dependencies, they are all moving towards one thing, or actually two, self-sufficiency and economic nationalism, just like before World War II.
History reminds us that wars are not only caused by economic situations, but we have to take into consideration political factors and relative power.
The Political Dimension: Polarization and the Collapse of Order
All right, so let’s go to the political dimension. Here I want to talk about polarization, and polarization not only divides societies, but ultimately it might destroy the political order. Polarization comes in many forms. Divided media, political battles, legislative deadlocks, contested elections, and its worst form, political violence. And that’s when armed groups emerged because they don’t trust institutions to resolve the disputes of society.
What we have in World War I, before that actually, in the Balkans, there is deep polarization and many nationalist movements clashing against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And that led to the Serbian group, the secret Serbian group, Black Hand, to assassinate the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, which wasn’t an isolated event, it was the result of years of political violence in a fractured society that triggered World War I.
Now what do we have before World War II? That same situation, Germany, the Weimar Republic was struggling with escalating polarization and violence became common. Assassinations of key political figures such as the finance minister in 1921 and the foreign minister in 1922, they demonstrated this. Then at that time, all political factions from the right, the center, and the left, they had their own militias. And obviously this brought instability and we know the rise of authoritarianism and World War II.
What do we have today? Very interesting and scary in some ways. January 6, 2021, the attack on U.S. Capitol, some Trump supporters contested the result of the election. That is a clear example where polarization became violent. More recently, several assassination attempts against President Trump. Polarization and violence in the United States is coming from all sides, but this is not only the U.S.
Let’s look at Germany. There’s a deep surge or a big surge in political violence in Germany. Over the last five years, more than 10,000 attacks on politicians. Meanwhile, the far-right supporters of AFD have committed a lot of attacks against other politicians. The politicians from AFD themselves, they are frequent targets for this political violence.
As you can see, the signs are really big and when we analyze what history shows us, we realize that once armed groups emerge, compromise becomes impossible and conflict inevitable. If polarization nowadays has reached this level, society or the political order is on the brink of collapse.
The Military Dimension: Alliances and Global Conflicts
Now let’s go to the final dimension, the military dimension, and here I want to focus on alliances because they are key to understand how conflicts become worldwide disasters. Wars or world wars, they don’t start as global wars. They begin as regional wars and then a regional problem becomes this big problem because of the alliances.
Let’s take a look at a World War I. We had a dispute between Austria and Serbia and because of the alliance, it escalated to become a European war and once Britain joined, it became a global war. The same thing happened in World War II. We had three regional conflicts, separated conflicts initiated by three different countries. Germany won a hegemony in Europe, Italy sought an empire in the Mediterranean and Africa and Japan wanted to control China and Asia Pacific. World War II only became a world war when the United States entered the war after the Pearl Harbor attack.
So how is this related to today? We already have two regional wars, Russia in Ukraine and Iran with its proxies wars in the Middle East. And the third one is taking shape as China aims to take Taiwan. Maybe in that third theater, we’re going to see more countries joining and then as in World War II, we’re going to have three regional conflicts that become a global war.
But another important aspect of alliances, which is the level of integration, how united they really are. And this is interesting. When we look at the Axis powers of 1930s, Germany, Italy and Japan, they were not aligned. Really, actually they were on opposite sides. When we look at the crisis in Austria in 1934 and in Ethiopia in 1935, Italy was on one side and Germany was on the other. When we look at who was helping China against Japan until late 1938, that was Germany.
And then comparing this today, we have a new Axis being formed, China, Russia, North Korea and Iran today, they are all united. But who sends ammunitions, weapons and even soldiers to help Russia fight Ukraine? North Korea. Who gives food and energy to North Korea? China. Who buys Iran’s sanctioned oil? China. Who buys Russia’s gas? China. And China supplies Russia with electronic equipment to keep it at war. As you can see, the Axis of today, which I call the Axis of Dictatorships, they’re really united, much more than the Axis of the 30s.
And on the other hand, we look at the opposing alliance, which is what? NATO and the democracies, they’re falling apart. And they’re breaking. And they’re divided. History tells us that alliances are very important. If we have the aggressors’ alliance growing stronger and the opposing alliance becoming divided and weak, the incentives for the aggressors to strike, they’re really big.
Conclusion: Learning from History’s Patterns
I’m not here talking about any inevitable destiny. But I’m looking for historical patterns that help us connect the dots. And with that, we might not repeat the mistakes of the past. And to end, I want to remind you of the famous aphorism, “History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
