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Well, WWI and WWII were about festering problems building up over the last several decades that weren't resolved by previous, smaller wars. Rather made worse by them.
A world war right now is impossible because there needs to be an actual competition. As it stands now - with the U.S. so overwhelmingly domination in military capability, there is not the possibility of a WW3. IN WW1 and WW2 the opponents started off relatively evenly matched.
Today, there are 39 commissioned aircraft carriers in the world. The U.S. has 19 of them. Of those 39, 11 are nuclear, 10 of which belong to the United States. The other 1 belongs to France, a staunch ally of the U.S. that I can't imagine will be at war with each other anytime soon. Those other, conventional carriers, are a lot smaller than the U.S. ones to say the least. I'd lay odds on the U.S. controlling the naval skies and then the sea lanes VERY QUICKLY in any kind of conventional war.
China has 1, which it didn't even build, it bought from Russia. Russia has 1. Those other, conventional carriers, are a lot smaller than the U.S. ones to say the least. I'd lay odds on the U.S. controlling the naval skies VERY QUICKLY in any kind of conventional war.
India actually built one of its own & a fairly decent-sized one. Not nuclear though.
I don't see the cause being the current middle east mess. If Israel hasn't caused a world war since its creation 70 years ago I doubt it will any time soon. The refugees from Syria are a humanitarian tragedy, not a threat. Any fighting in the middle east will be like it has been - a quagmire for any major power that tries to intervene. Seriously, those are backward countries, totally dependent on oil. If it wasn't for oil they'd be nothing. I don't know if any of you have been to any country in the ME... I've been to Egypt and to put it mildly Egypt makes Mexico look good. I would not worry about anything there, other than staying out of its unsolvable quagmires.
What I would watch long term is a potential conflict involving two of the three India, China and Russia, or maybe all of them. Germany was the lynchpin of WWI and WWII because it was the new power on the block and it was all up in the old powers' business. The U.S. was the other one but it was far away. The country with the closest role to Germany circa 1900 would be India today.
Asia is the future and any world war type conflict will be there.
Last edited by redguard57; 06-10-2016 at 09:30 PM..
I believe it will be against Radical Islam/ ISIS, and refugees being kicked out of Europe.
This doesn't even make sense. ISIS has no ability to project power beyond the occasionally militarily-useless terror attack. A conflict with such an entity (I say 'entity' because they're hardly worthy of the word 'power') will by no means ever be a 'world war'.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223
It will be about China or Russia getting aggressive in order to distract their people from deteriorating economies. Maybe both.
Again, this makes no sense. It's as ludicrous as the whole "The wheat harvest failed so let's attack the United States!" plot from Red Dawn (the inane original - I never saw the remake, which must be at least as inane as the first). Going to war in order to distract from economic policies would hardly work when large-scale war is hideously expensive to prosecute. The only logical reason for the distraction would be so that the oligarchs could preserve their power, and crippling themselves economically while losing (either conventionally, or when things escalate up to a nuke toss) wouldn't exactly preserve anyone's position of power.
The only conceivable world war is a crisis which spirals out of control and leads to a nuclear exchange. Conventional warfare on such a scale unfolds too slowly, and given the time to think such things out, the great powers - the only military powers capable of engaging in any sort of 'world war' - would simply not go that route. There's nothing to be gained.
There's a reason that the great powers have stopped fighting each other.
WW3 is going on right now.
There will be no WW2 type wars anymore as no one will survive it. It's only in movies a villain is trying to kill entire world population - as then what the hell is the purpose to this? What you gonna do on barren Earth?
In real life, paradigm is shifted towards multiple local wars and regions destabilization. If one big whoomp is too dangerous to make money off it, multiple smaller whoomps are employed instead.
That said, argue all you want to but simply sit and watch international news. Mini wars everywhere.
Want another proof?
What are the three largest markets in the world?
#1 - raw materials. Oil (for TNT production and, as by product, for energy source), coal, etc.
#2 WEAPONS
#3 - narcotics.
So here ya go.
There won't be one (at least not in the fantasy-nightmare scenario peddled by the peacenicks; No member of the "tested" (100 years or more of the peaceful exchange of power via free elections) parliamentary democracies has since taken up the sword against another member of the group. That leaves only the "unrefined" industrial powers like China and Putin's Russia, and I suspect that they at least know what they have to lose.
So, barring an Islamic coalition (unlikely, given the diversity shown in some of the progressive emirates like Bahrain and Qatar, and the effects of mass communication, particularly among women -- Islam's real victims) or the emergence of a madman with access to the nuclear trigger (and those high-placed Trilateralists, Bilderbergers, and others the conspiracy theorists here rant about might be able to do something about that) I don't see a huge armed conflict similar to the industrialized warfare of the first half of the Twentieth century emerging.
Nation-states will continue to emerge, rise, fall and engage in conflict; but the conflicts wll be resolved via economic and other less-violent means.
An important factor to remember in conflicts that result in war is that war is NOT generally about decimating and destroying, but about taking over territories and technology. Generals are instructed to try to avoid damaging cultural and historic sites now, as opposed to the all-out destruction practiced by Sherman and through WWII. Simply put, the cost to the "victor" of rebuilding infrastructure is huge, and those instigating war are by nature greedy.
A second important factor to consider is how globalization of the technologies needed to run an increasingly technological civilization has greatly reduced the benefits of all-out conflict. Short of a country having a complete lock on a rare natural resource required for advanced technology, reasons to invade are minimized when non-players can be shunned until they comply. Businesses operate on short-cycle time frames these days. Five years is a LONG time, and short term imbalances are tolerated. Destruction of civilization is less likely to come from war than incompetence and profit taking.
I can't rule out massive religious wars and purges and genocide. The fact that the professional psychological associations specifically state that you cannot diagnose a person as having a psychosis if that insane belief is shared in his community does not eliminate the possibility of an entire nation having a group psychosis.
Wars and disease have always balanced out the fecundity of humanity, limiting starvation and overcrowding to small areas. As noble as the causes are to eliminate war and disease, humans must either resort to them or think up more creative ways to deal with increasing populations. China and India appear to be the places having to figure this out fast. I plan on watching them closely.
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