International relations expert: Nuclear War is a real possibility

Speaking on Radio Sputnik, Dr. Fabio Petito, senior lecturer of international relations at the University of Sussex, has presented his view of a possible nuclear war in the world, Periscopi broadcasts.

Radio Sputnik: Which one do you think is dominant - right or left?

Fabio Petito: I think eventually the right is dominant. On the one hand, the right seems to be better able to respond to the search for identity and meaning that many parts of the population are looking for. On the other hand, the left is actually responding to economic growth, which seems to significantly affect the current capitalist system.

But you know in Europe I think the right seems to be more capable of mobilizing. There is a third possibility because there is a criticism of the main political parties. It is interesting to see the French issue, because the high critic of traditional political parties was the platform of what then became French President Makron, who is undoubtedly highly ideological of the centre, but was still able to translate this need for something new as the basis of his platform.

Radio Sputnik: Interestingly, this trend of wealth inequality, income inequality, and the uneven distribution of wealth is a relatively large trend worldwide. And it's very interesting to know that historically when we get a certain level of income inequality, the distribution of wealth is very distorted, you have 1% or 2% with everything and other measures with nothing, very often we see wars. Of course, the “Bloomberg” war was talking about more of a war opportunity that would start in North Korea. What do you think? Is it possible that North Korea will launch a nuclear attack? What do you really think of the prospect of war as an answer to the distribution of the income we are seeing worldwide today?

Fabio Petito: Wars can develop, can be the result of many different types of factors. Inequality is one, I'd like to say, it seems no more likely in this particular historical conjuture. I don't care about the possibility of this in more conflict, but the main source of this would be two in my opinion. One, to some extent, maybe you can connect this to the economic factor is the growing presence of countries that are not really sustainable and they fall down, there are interstate fights that occur across different sectors. So you have this pit of instability in the system, which can also pave the way for regional powers, which can potentially interfere with large powers.

The second factor is the new policy of great power related to the birth of new powers, which want to protect their order and importance in the international system, which could crash at a point around specific lines of guilt. Hence, you can read the clash between Russia, the West, and Europe as in part, but in a similar way, how you can read other tensions that may occur in Asia. The North Korean case is very disturbing. I mean here, I would just try to be a little more optimistic than the pessimistic scenario saying North Korea is in many ways a very strategic nuclear core player for many years.

And my impression is that they try to push it very hard and try to guarantee the survival of the regime. I tend to think and I hope they won't be completely mad to open the possibility of a total destruction. So North Korea is very disturbing because of regional tensions that can activate a nuclear war scenario that is really a nightmare, which I think would be irrational in many ways./Periscopi/