Why Experts Are Comparing Today's Middle East to Europe in 1914

Friends, the spark that could ignite World War 3 may have already been lit. This isn't just alarmist talk, it's a reality that mainstream media in Europe and America are now seriously discussing. Why is that? Because the situation between the US and Iran has undergone the most significant change since the Memorandum of Understanding was signed on June 14. It might even be the most dangerous change yet. And on the very night when the US military launched its fiercest airstrikes against Iran, a doomsday plane, one that Putin would only deploy in the most critical emergencies, secretly flew into Tehran. Almost at the same time, Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, who had maintained a ceasefire for four years, suddenly resumed fighting without any warning. When you consider the global network of proxy fronts, the choke points of world energy, and America's alliances in the Middle East, when you look at the situation of China and Russia joining forces against the United States, together with everything else, you'll realize there's a deeply unsettling scenario unfolding. The current situation in the Middle East almost perfectly overlaps with a deadly script that played out on the eve of World War I in 1914. How should we understand this kind of concern? And why are geopolitical strategists now warning about the risk of a chain reaction of conflicts breaking out? What exactly does this concept mean? In today's 20 Minutes, let's first uncover the five major disruptive changes currently happening in the Middle East situation over the past few days. The first and most iconic change is Trump's post on social media yesterday, July 13th. He said the Strait of Hormuz is open and will remain open. Whether or not Iran is involved, we are restarting. The so-called Iran blockade is called that because it only targets Iranian ships or their clients. Starting today, the United States will be known as the guardian of the Strait of Hormuz. As the guardian, and based on the principle of fairness, we will take 20% from all goods transported through the Strait. In other words, the United States wants to turn the Strait of Hormuz into a privately managed toll passage, and this 20% is no small amount. About one-fifth of the world's daily oil and liquefied natural gas passes through the Strait. If this plan takes shape, the hardest hit will be East Asia, especially the Chinese Communist Party. Of all the oil and liquefied natural gas passing through this Strait, nearly 40% is shipped directly to China. The combined volume of the second, third, and fourth largest users doesn't even come close to China's alone. The second change is that the U.S. military has launched its largest offensive since the signing of the ceasefire memorandum. According to U.S. Central Command, within a week, the U.S. military has struck more than 300 Iranian targets, including missile and drone launch sites, naval operational capabilities, ammunition storage facilities, communications networks, coastal surveillance radar systems, and so on. Among these, two locations are particularly noteworthy. One is Karg Island, a coral island of only five square miles, about one-third the size of Manhattan. It is Iran's ultimate lifeline. Nearly 90% of all Iranian crude oil exports must pass through this single coral island to reach the world. That wave on July 7th? Iranian media have already reported new explosions on the island. Another location is Bandar Abbas, which is the gateway to the Strait of Hormuz and Iran's most vital port city. Multiple videos, verified by CNN's satellite positioning, show that U.S. precision-guided missiles struck directly at the core area of this port, triggering a series of massive explosions. The city's night sky was lit up bright red by the raging fires. A U.S. official told CNN that this is punishment and it won't end anytime soon. Meanwhile, Iran chose to launch a full-scale counterattack. On July 13th, in a single day, Iran struck U.S. military facilities in at least four countries. In Jordan, Iran used missiles and drones to attack the Prince Hussein Air Base. The Jordanian side officially intercepted four Iranian missiles that had entered its airspace. In Bahrain, alarms sounded throughout the capital, Manama, as Iran claimed to have struck the Sheikh Issa Air Base and facilities of the U.S. 5th Fleet. In Kuwait, Iran claimed to have attacked a U.S. ground-to-ground missile base. In Oman, Iran claimed to have destroyed two long-range radars. In addition, the UAE has also publicly acknowledged that two giant cruise ships flying the Emirati flag were hit by Iranian missiles in Omani territorial waters, turning into blazing fireballs on the sea. Friends, pay attention. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE and Oman, all the countries surrounding the Persian Gulf, were drawn into the conflict within a single day. The fourth development is the most alarming signal. At the very moment when the U.S. military was launching its most frenzied airstrikes against Iran, a Russian Tu-214PU special mission aircraft secretly took off from Mexico and, braving the raging conflict, landed directly in Tehran. According to Flyradar24 records, the registration number of this aircraft is 2-alpha-64531. RSD-420 belongs to the Russian Presidential Aircraft Squadron, and this squadron serves only the highest levels of the Kremlin. This particular aircraft is regarded by Western media as Russia's version of the Doomsday plane. Simply put, it is Putin's airborne mobile command center, only activated in moments of extreme crisis. The plane is equipped with the most advanced encrypted communication systems and electronic warfare countermeasures. Its purpose is to allow Russia's top leadership to command nuclear forces from 10,000 meters in the air, even if ground command centers are destroyed. This is Russia's version of the airborne Doomsday arc. So why would Putin send such a top-level strategic asset, which is practically the foundation of the nation, into a war zone that's being relentlessly bombarded by American missiles? There are two possible reasons. The first is technical constraints. We know that Iran's air defense network was basically rendered useless after the joint strikes by the U.S. and Israel, so sending this Doomsday plane over is essentially providing the Iranians with a temporary airborne command center. It can use Russian electronic equipment for encrypted communications, provide Iran with real-time battlefield intelligence and command coordination, and even take over Iran's air defense combat systems. The second aspect, which is even more important, is sending a political signal. You can attack once, but behind Iran stands Russia. The relationship between Moscow and Tehran is already upgraded from covert arms deals to an open connection at the level of strategic command structure. And the timing of this signal is extremely delicate, because just a week ago, at the NATO summit, Trump suddenly announced that the United States would authorize Ukraine to produce Patriot interceptor missiles. Now Putin has sent his Doomsday plane to Tehran, which is almost a direct response to Trump. You raise the stakes for me and Ukraine, and I'll make things difficult for you and Iran. If the previous four changes are like open flames, then the fifth change is the one that's easiest to overlook in recent days. But it's actually the most far-reaching. That's the fact that the four-year ceasefire between Saudi Arabia and the Houthi forces has been broken. Here's how it all started. On July 13th, an Iranian Mahan Air passenger plane, which is under U.S. sanctions, took off from Tehran and headed straight for Sana'a International Airport, which is controlled by the Houthi forces. Now this plane was packed with Houthi fighters who had just completed training in Iran and possibly also included drone and missile experts from the Revolutionary Guard. But just as the plane was about to land, several precision-guided missiles came screaming in and blasted huge craters into the runway at Sana'a Airport. The Yemeni government, backed by Saudi Arabia, stepped forward to claim responsibility for the attack. But the Houthis, who were the ones bombed, refused to listen to anything and insisted that it was Saudi Arabia's doing. So later that same day, the Houthis retaliated by launching missiles and drones at Abha International Airport in southern Saudi Arabia. This was actually the first time in four years that the Houthis had done something like this since both sides reached an informal ceasefire in March 2022. They attacked Saudi territory directly. And even after the attack, they weren't satisfied. One of their Politburo members publicly threatened to completely blockade the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. Friends, let's look at the Strait of Hormuz we just talked about, together with the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait here. If the Strait of Hormuz is the eastern gateway for global energy trade, then the Bab-el-Mandem Strait, which guards the entrance to the Red Sea and carries 12% of the world's maritime shipping, is the western gateway. If both of these gateways catch fire at the same time, the global energy market could collapse rapidly. That's why by Monday night, the price of Brent crude oil had already surged past $83 a barrel. This incident, which at first glance seems like a random, precisely timed accidental attack on a passenger plane at a critical moment, friends, do you think it was a sudden accident, or was it secretly orchestrated by Iran? If you think it's the former, type accident for me. If you think it's the latter, type Iranian plot. Personally, I think it's highly likely that this was a political maneuver by Tehran in a desperate situation. Since their military strength can't directly compete with the U.S. forces, dragging Saudi Arabia into the conflict by force brings Iran three strategic advantages. First, it opens up a second front, diverting the attention of the U.S. and Israel. Second, it essentially holds America's economic interests in the Middle East hostage by turning Saudi Arabia, America's most important economic ally in the region, into a victim, thereby forcing Saudi Arabia to lobby Washington to de-escalate. Third, it turns the risk of a shutdown at the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait into a real scenario. Iran is well aware that continuing to threaten a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is yielding diminishing returns. However, if substantial military conflict were to break out simultaneously at both the Bab-el-Mandeb in the west and the Strait of Hormuz in the east, it would create a twin chokehold on global trade. From Iran's strategic position, this is almost the only card it has left to possibly turn the tables right now. These five changes are interconnected and are pushing the situation in the Middle East into a new dimension. First, the United States has resumed fierce strikes and is charging a 20 percent transit fee, while Iran, on the other hand, is indiscriminately dragging the Gulf countries into the conflict with its own counterattacks. This has directly turned the entire Persian Gulf into a battleground where the interests of the U.S. military and its allies are strangled. Under such impact, the so-called balance policy that Gulf countries have long pursued, relying on the west for their economy and not provoking Iran for security, has already collapsed. When the intensity of conflict in the Middle East approaches a critical point, neutrality becomes nothing but empty talk and the entire Gulf strategic buffer zone disappears. It will cease to exist. At the same time, the renewed fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthi forces once again proves that the proxy war between the U.S.-Israel alliance and Iran simply cannot be confined to the negotiating table. A deeper shift is marked by Russia's doomsday plane flying into Tehran, signaling that the great power struggle between Russia and the Chinese Communist Party against the United States, which had previously remained behind the scenes, is now coming to the forefront. It has already become public on the Middle Eastern battlefield. So at this point, from the intricate web of proxy fronts at the global energy choke points, to the network of American allies in the Middle East, and now to the situation where China and Russia are joining forces against the U.S., these key points are now tightly intertwined on a physical level. Each node is feeding into the next, with every variable influencing the others. Each one is forcing the opponent to launch even larger-scale counterattacks and escalate the conflict. This kind of so-called rational confrontation from all sides ultimately weaves together into what geopolitical experts now fear most, a cascading outbreak. And this is precisely the most rational source of fear in the international community today regarding the potential outbreak of a third world war. What's a cascading outbreak? History shows us a perfect example, Europe in 1914. Before then, it was a golden age when major wars seemed impossible. Between the major European powers, there had been 43 years of uninterrupted peace, with trade and investment deeply intertwined among them. At that time, there was even a hugely popular best-seller called The Great Illusion. The core idea of this book was regarded as the absolute truth by the European elite back then. What it argued was that, because the economies of various countries were already highly integrated, it was completely impossible for major powers to go to war with each other from an economic standpoint. But even under this illusion of permanent peace, beneath the surface of Europe, something was buried. Friends, there are three types of landmines. The next part I'm going to talk about contains a lot of information, so listen carefully. What were the three landmines buried under Europe at that time? The first landmine was the Balkan Peninsula. Back then, international newspapers directly called it the Powder Keg of Europe. This term actually comes from that time. Serbia was a small country with a population of less than 5 million, but behind it stood Russia's czar, Nicholas II, who saw himself as the protector of all Slavic peoples. And the Serbians themselves were Slavs. But right next to Serbia was the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which had signed an alliance treaty with Germany. In other words, if Serbia made a move, Russia would have to get involved. And if Austria-Hungary made a move, Germany would have to get involved too. The second landmine was the 40-year-old wound on the Franco-German border, Alsace and Lorraine. In 1871, after losing the Franco-Prussian War, France was forced to cede these two coal and iron-rich, extremely important border provinces to Germany. For 40 years, the French never stopped thinking about revenge, so France teamed up with Russia, putting Germany right in the middle. Faced with this desperate situation of being attacked from both sides, the German military came up with an extremely rigid, down-to-the-minute plan called the Schlieffen Plan. Once war broke out, Germany had to defeat France in a lightning-fast campaign within six weeks, and then turn back to fight Russia. The terrifying thing about this plan was that it had absolutely no flexibility. Once set in motion, it had to be carried out to the end like a wound-up clockwork. Politicians had no chance to hit the brakes. The third key point was the two straits of the Ottoman Empire, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. At that time, the Ottoman Empire controlled both the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, which connect to the Black Sea. A quarter of Russia's grain exports and the entire Black Sea Fleet's passage all had to go through these narrow waterways. So the Ottoman Empire's stance would directly determine Russia's economic lifeline. Friends, doesn't this sound pretty familiar? This is basically the 1914 version of the Strait of Hormuz. These three landmines usually lay dormant on their own, but now, through layer upon layer of alliance treaties, military support, and economic chokepoints, they've become tightly intertwined. Then, on June 28, 1914, a single gunshot in Sarajevo, through an absurd twist of fate, set off all three of these landmines at once. That morning, Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, arrived in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, with his wife Sophie to review the troops. At the time, there was a Serbian nationalist underground organization called the Black Hand. They sent six young assassins to lie in wait along the route of the motorcade, planning to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand. The first assassin, well, he lost his nerve when he saw the motorcade and didn't make a move. The second assassin recognized an opportunity and threw a bomb, but the bomb landed on a car further back in the convoy. Ferdinand himself was completely unharmed, and the motorcade quickly fled the scene. By all accounts, the assassination attempt had already failed. Right? Ferdinand should have just gone straight back to his residence, but instead, he suddenly decided to visit the hospital to check on the attendant who was injured in the bombing. At this moment, the most crucial scene happened. The driver wasn't familiar with this last-minute change of route, and at an intersection, he made a wrong turn, driving the car into a narrow street near the Latin Bridge. Realizing the mistake, the driver stopped and quickly tried to reverse. At that very moment, the sixth of the six assassins, a 19-year-old man, happened to walk out of a small snack shop nearby. He had originally thought the assassination attempt had failed and was about to go home, but when he looked up, he saw Archduke Ferdinand's car stopped just five meters away from him, so he quickly pulled out his pistol and fired two shots, killing the Ferdinand couple. My friends, this is what we call a twist of fate in history. A single wrong turn by a driver turned an assassination attempt that had already failed into gunshots that changed the course of human history. Then, an unexpected chain reaction was set in motion. On June 28th, Ferdinand was assassinated. On July 23rd, Austria-Hungary issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Serbia. On the 28th, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia because they just couldn't swallow their pride. On July 30th, Russia, backing Serbia, began nationwide mobilization because Russia couldn't just stand by and watch their Slavic brothers get swallowed up. On August 1st, Germany saw that Russia had entered the fray, and of course, they couldn't just let Russia bully their little brother, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, so Germany also declared their entry into the war. On August 3rd, Germany declared war on France. Remember the Schlieffen Plan we talked about earlier, the one that involved fighting Russia and France together? On August 4th, Germany invaded Belgium because to start the fight, they had to go through Belgium. Late at night on August 4th, Britain declared war on Germany because Britain and Belgium had a mutual protection treaty. And just like that, from the gunshot in Sarajevo to the outbreak of a full-scale war across Europe, it only took 37 days. Not a single emperor or president at the time truly wanted to start a world war, but each of them, acting out of self-defense and rationality, made what seemed like the best decision for themselves. The result was the outbreak of a war that lasted four years and three months, killed 20 million people, led to the collapse of four great empires, and planted the seeds for World War II. Now let's put the three landmines from 1914 and the three key points in today's Middle East on the same table for comparison. In 1914, Serbia and the Russia behind it are just like today's Houthi forces in Iran. Both Serbia and the Houthis are small proxy actors, both located next to crucial energy routes. The Triple Alliance and Triple Intent system of 1914 is just like today's situation, where the United States and its Gulf allies confront Iran, Russia, and the Chinese Communist Party. The Ottoman Straits of 1914 are the equivalent of today's Strait of Hormuz, and potentially, the Bad al-Mandeb Strait. That's why modern strategists, who use historical maps for simulations, have recently been using the phrase, the outbreak of Jillian. This is also why people are questioning whether World War III could be triggered by this. It has already shifted from a casual topic of conversation to an issue that strategists are now seriously discussing. But to be rational, in the foreseeable next few months, the probability of a full-scale outbreak of World War III is not high. However, the likelihood of an unexpected, chain-reaction, medium-intensity global conflict that gradually links multiple battlefields together has already reached the highest level since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. This is the peak, my friends. Do you agree with this viewpoint? Share your thoughts with me in the comment section. Well, that's all for our discussion today. Thank you all for watching. Before you leave, Zhang Fei has a small favor to ask. If you haven't liked this video yet, please give it a like now. 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