Could Israel-Hamas war, Russia-Ukraine war lead to world war?

“The clearest statement that consistently comes out is that [of Europe] “When it comes to Israel’s efforts to eliminate Hamas and the deaths of all Palestinian civilians, it’s a human rights concern,” she says.

“The wars in the Middle East further solidify the need to consider and act on a common approach to European security and defense, thereby increasing interoperability and making financing more efficient. “This is what we’re seeing across the board in Europe,” Cross says.

In addition to the Israel-Hamas war, Houthi attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, a vital shipping lane for global trade and the global economy, have gradually escalated tensions between the United States and Iran. The Houthis said the attack was a response to Israeli actions in Gaza.

This week, U.S. officials urged China to intervene to ease tensions. According to Reuters, their demands are for Beijing to ask Iran to rein in the Houthis, to whom Iran has provided “advanced drones, anti-ship cruise missiles, precision attack ballistic missiles, and intermediate-range missiles.” It is said that

Northeastern Political Science Associate Professor Max Abrams said in an interview with Northeastern Global News last week that the Houthi attack was “unprecedented” and a “highly escalated action.”

“Historically, when I think of the Houthis, I think of them as parties to a very bloody conflict within Yemen, where they were at war not only internally but also regionally.” Abrams said. “But this is the first time we’re seeing the Houthis seriously trying to influence the international scene in terms of attacks on international shipping.”

Northeastern experts suggested that retaliation between the Houthis and the United States would continue for some time. But it’s hard to know whether that means the outbreak of world war has been delayed.

“This is another example of how vulnerable the United States, the world’s superpower, is to asymmetric warfare,” says Stephen Flynn, founding director of the Global Resilience Institute.

The United States was “in some ways caught off guard” regarding the Red Sea and the Israel-Hamas war, Flynn said. That’s because the United States focuses too much on “great power” conflicts, such as the Russia-Ukraine war and China’s threat to Taiwan, he says. “Our security community has limited resources,” he said, adding that “low-level threats” like the Houthis have been allowed to go unnoticed to some extent.

He stressed that the United States “needs to focus more on the full range of threats” posed by actors large and small.

“They are essentially a hybrid actor, a mixture of terrorist and sub-state actors,” he says. “Although Hamas is recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government, it has state-like power in the Gaza Strip. And similarly, the Houthis are essentially a guerrilla fighting group that has been transformed into an ungovernable place in Yemen. It has evolved into a group that retrains itself in governance.

Is the Red Sea standoff part of the Israel-Hamas war?

Flynn sees the war in Gaza and the evolving situation as “separate challenges” for now, at least in terms of how the United States is “managing” both crises.

However, this does not mean that it cannot develop into a regional war.

“The Middle East has always been described as a powder keg, but now it seems like there are many more fuses that can blow,” Flynn said.

Flynn predicts that wars in both Europe and the Middle East will strain U.S. foreign policy decision-making.

“I think one of the biggest concerns for our allies is whether the United States has staying power in both Ukraine and the Middle East,” Flynn said.

“All these unknown people in the Middle East are playing themselves,” Flynn continues. “The United States’ historic role as a dominant power in maintaining and checking security risks is being tested, but it is not clear that we will be able to pass that test.”