In the course of human events there are times when everyone seems determined to pick sides and brawl. A prime example was the

First World War: Over a dozen countries divided into two camps—the Allied Powers and the Central Powers—and fought for four years, with 40 million casualties. Afterward, few seemed to agree on what the conflict had been about (probably the best explanation was that it had been over tensions between a fading colonial superpower, Britain, and a potential rival, Germany). World War II, which left 60 million dead, was in many ways a continuation of the same conflict, with the terms of surrender for the first war setting a 20-year fuse for the second (the punitive terms of the Versailles Treaty were partly a response to German demands at the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, a reminder of how revenge echoes through history).

We appear to be sliding into a similar era, where a previously stable world order is failing and much of humanity seems to be preparing to divide and do battle. Many historians see the United States—which emerged as world hegemon after WWII—as a decaying imperial hub, now facing an increasingly organized battery of opponents.

This time, hovering above the potential fray are profound environmental shifts, including climate change, the disappearance of much of wild nature, and resource depletion. In 2024, global average temperature was 1.6°C above the preindustrial average, and the rate of warming is accelerating. We appear to be on course to reach 2°C of warming around 2035—an amount of heating that, according to a recent research paper, “The Future of the Human Niche,” by Tim Lenton and colleagues, might result in roughly a billion refugees.

As conflict approaches, mentally getting outside society’s collective miasma of hostile emotions might help our own mental well-being, while also improving the survival prospects for our species.

At the same time, global energy from fossil fuels is set to start its inevitable decline after 2030 due to a combination of climate policies and the accelerating depletion of oil, coal, and natural gas resources. Since energy from renewables won’t fully replace energy from fossil fuels, the result will be an overall decline in available energy, making economic contraction hard to stave off. Declining population in many countries will also present economic challenges. Energy transitions and economic disruptions both seem to correlate with international conflicts.

In this article, I’ll make a case for the increasing likelihood of conflict, internationally as well as domestically within the U.S,, and then consider some novel ideas about conflict. As we’ll see, either taking sides in an approaching battle, or refusing to do so, comes with a cost. We’ll also see why the tendency to choose sides and fight is not uniquely human, though humans have developed it into a specialty. Finally, we’ll explore how, as conflict approaches, mentally getting outside society’s collective miasma of hostile emotions might help our own mental well-being, while also improving the survival prospects for our species.

Since 1945, the U.S. has been a military, financial, manufacturing, agricultural, scientific, and cultural global leader, acting in alliance with the United Kingdom, a selection of other European nations, and Japan. Much of the rest of the world supplied labor and resources at cut-rate prices and shouldered debt imposed by U.S.-led international institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). Prior to 1990, the Soviet bloc posed a military and ideological counterweight, but it collapsed, leaving the U.S. seemingly triumphant.

Decline is the eventual default path for empires, and the U.S. is adhering to that historical trend: It has depleted its domestic resources; increased its people’s economic inequality; built up staggering amounts of public and private debt; and pissed off a list of nations that it raided, demonized, invaded, or humiliated over the decades. The stage has been set for internal and external conflict.

Arguably the first round of that conflict started with the spectacular attacks of September 11, 2001, to which the U.S. responded with senseless and ultimately self-destructive invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Those invasions happened to coincide with the plateauing of global conventional oil production, which was in turn the backdrop for, and a contributor to, the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. The U.S.-led international order appeared to be on increasingly shaky ground. It was at about this time that Brazil, Russia, India, and China (soon joined by South Africa) began holding meetings to build ties of trade and strategic cooperation under the rubric BRICS.

Instead of big, expensive weapons, smaller and cheaper drone and cyberweapons systems are likely to predominate.

Over the following 20 years, conflict was largely contained and imperial decline minimized as fracking made the U.S. once again the world’s foremost oil and gas producer. Meanwhile, China grew its economy rapidly, while oil-rich Russia under President Vladimir Putin became more authoritarian and looked for ways to regain its former superpower status.

Then, in 2016, Donald Trump landed on the American political stage. Among voters, he stoked long-festering white, rural working-class resentments resulting from growing domestic economic inequality and high rates of immigration; he ridiculed his country’s invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan; and he decried globalization as a “rip-off” of American wealth. If U.S.-based globalist institutions (including the World Bank, the IMF, and USAID) were under fire previously, in the second Trump administration all are comatose or defunct. Using tariffs as a cudgel, Trump has introduced a nakedly nationalist, personal approach to international economic policy. Understandably, many formerly allied nations are looking to exit what’s left of the U.S.-led global order.

As of this year, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have joined the five original BRICS members. Together, the 10 member nations represent over 40% of the world’s population and 37% of the global economy. China now operates the world’s biggest development bank.

The rise of BRICS comes as the U.S. is at a crossroads in more than just politics. U.S. tight oil (which has been the main source of global petroleum production growth since 2010) is set to start its inevitable decline within the next year or so, according to the International Energy Agency. The peaking of U.S. shale gas will come close behind. Meanwhile, President Trump has done his best to undercut U.S. electrification and development of renewable energy (the fabled energy transition, undertaken mostly to blunt climate change). He is instead promoting the rapid development of energy-hungry AI and cryptocurrencies.

China, in contrast, is poised to profit from the energy transition: It leads in the export of all things electric and renewable, despite depending overwhelmingly on coal for its domestic energy. China far exceeds the U.S. in electricity generation (and therefore the potential for development of AI). As oil and gas run out, the transition will demand more minerals, many of which China controls.

Will there be war between the U.S. and its fraying alliance on one hand, and BRICS on the other? Currently there are visible flashpoints in the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Iran conflicts. On July 7, Trump posted the following on social media: “Any country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy.” He had previously

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