How close to a world wide conflict (WW3) are we according to you?

[Deleted]

The world today seems to be plagued with conflict allover the place that can all escalate fairly quickly.
There is the looming escalation in the Middle East, a possible escalation in Korea, wide spread terror in Africa, Russia looking to expand their influence in Eastern Europe, etc. etc.

If this isn't enough, there are warnings for a while now about a possible major financial crisis this year that could bankrupt countries like China and Russia and let's be honest, Europe and US would suffer enormously from this as well.

Then there are internal struggles in the West, like the refugee crisis in Europe, the rise of right-wing nationalism in many EU countries, there could be racial conflicts in the US, wealth inequality could spark civil wars, etc. etc.

So yeah, not too much to be happy about. But the question is: how close do YOU think we are to a possible world wide conflict, or a WW3?

[Adam Jensen]

We've got a half a dozen regional conflicts but nothing is bringing the big boys (USA/China/Russia) into conflict against each other. We made it through the Cuban Missile Crisis, there's nothing even remotely that close going on right now that'll start WWIII.

[SL1200]

I think we're pretty close. The war in syria could be the start of something much much bigger.

[purebalance]

Not at all since everyone is too chicken shit to actually commit to anything these days. I mean essentially the human way of the "loser" of war is obliterated and subservient is gone. These days we say "omg those people are oppressed" when historically it's the same as every culture has done to those they conquered. About the only way I could see a WW3 happening is if ISIS wins because at this point even if we destroy ISIS, somehow it will become that we were wrong for stopping them.

[Deleted]

Why this idee is stupid!!!!!!!!!!:

i started to hate posts like this the reason is this is the most peaceful time in human hisory the reason you think its so bad is because you can hear on interneet about it
lets say if 100% of news on interneet is about conflict that dosen t mean theres much conflict compared to previu years it just means they don t deliver peace news
like guy for example Bob didn t rape nobody you dont hear this you just hear the guy who rapes in past it would happen 10 times more but you wodn t hear about it

[Independent voter]

Turkey is problematic, it's a member NATO and we're sworn to come to their defense if they ask.

[Deleted]

Turkey is problematic, it's a member NATO and we're sworn to come to their defense if they ask.

This is indeed a dangerous possibility. They seem keen on taunting the Russians lately.

[Teaon]

the world bleeded dry at ww1 ww2, so ww3 not going to happen, atleast not anytime sooner, its deadly and no one benefits from it


it will be proxy wars all the way until a new age comes

[Skroe]

We are not remotely close.

Not Even Within A Metric Light Year. And ESPECIALLY not with Russia.



If you want to think about "World War III", the window of time you want to watch is China between the years 2020 and 2035. China's military might will modernize to it's fullest extent realtive to the US by that first date, while simultaneously US relative military power will be at it's low point (in 2022) as the modernization process that began in 2012 sees the vintage 1980s and 1990s assets rapidly retired. However starting in 2024, the US rapdily takes ownership of extremely advanced next generation systems (that are entering construction now, next year, or mass production in the next few), to be, ironically, at a new high point for it's relative power over the last 50 years, by 2030. To give one example, under US navy ship building plans, the fleet will have 11 carriers in 2023, 10 from 2024-2027, 11 in 2028 and 12 starting in 2029. The bomber fleet will also fall for a few years, before growing by 20 per year for five years.

Chinese - and American - strategists think if China is going to make it's military move, it has to be in this window. After that, China will be too old, and too technologically overmatched, to be able to push the US out of the Western-Pacific.

More on this:

http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/02/03/...5-to-10-years/

[Aeula]

There are some elements of conflict scattered around that could ignite if bundled together. But we're still quite far off a real world war, it all depends on how quickly the situation is resolved and whether the powers that be in the west can keep their mits out of it long enough for it to resolve.

World War 3 is inevitable, the same as war itself is inevitable, the question is more about if these current conflicts will be the cause of it.

[I Push Buttons]

The only plausible global conflict I see is a global coalition to pacify the Middle East.

The civilized world is too economically interdependent for any full scale war to ever break out between major powers ever again. Even economically cut off/sanctioned states like Russia are interdependent with the rest of the world.

[Soulfighter101]

Between the syrian civil war, russias annexation of parts of Ukraine, chinas expanding naval territory, it's possible that we could be heading towards a multi-national conflict, due to their increasing aggression against neighboring countries. Not to mention all the destabilization being caused by Daeish and their rampage across the region. If anything, we stabilized portions of one region only for even more to go into civil war.

I'd say if we did see a world war, it would be most major powers against russia and several middle-eastern countries. Which would happen if at all in the next 20 years

[Doctor Amadeus]

Eh if it happens in the next year or so if not then never. Military wars are a lot of work. But there will be a shit load if local conflicts and a war if ideas and culture for sure.

[Deleted]

I personally do think we are closing in fast on a possible WW3, kinda the same way the world headed into WW1.
No one wanted to fight back then but everyone got sucked in, one way or another.

Some people claim that the knowledge of the total destruction a WW3 would bring would prevent such a conflict from ever happening, but I personally find it naive to think that.

[Gwiez]

We actually live in an era of historic lows in violence due to war. Yes, Daesh is horrible and committing atrocities. But war on the scale of WW1 and WW2 is well beyond their capabilities. Maybe in a few decades, on the off chance that someone doesn't develop decent desalinization and large scale renewable energy by then. Commerce will probably continue to keep the major powers from waging all out war (Dell theory of Conflict Prevention).

[Crispin]

The world was not close to a world war over the Korean war, Vietnam or the 80's Afghanistan war, neither is the Syrian war something that would trigger any kind of world war.

[caervek]

Nowhere near, even if Turkey and/or Saudi were stupid enough to start a war with Syria and by extension Russia, the west would never get involved. Not sure how it is in North America but over here in the UK it almost certainly fail to pass a vote and if it did somehow manage then the resulting protests would be big enough to storm the government buildings (The anti-Iraq war protests were technically big enough but entirely peaceful).

[Rudkobing]

A quadrillion years from now.

[Skroe]

Nowhere near, even if Turkey and/or Saudi were stupid enough to start a war with Syria and by extension Russia, the west would never get involved. Not sure how it is in North America but over here in the UK it almost certainly fail to pass a vote and if it did somehow manage then the resulting protests would be big enough to storm the government buildings (The anti-Iraq war protests were technically big enough but entirely peaceful).

Under NATO's Article V, the UK would be compelled to act, as well as the US. There wouldn't be a commons vote, or a US Congress vote. Events would happen to quickly, especially for another Episode of "Jeremy Corbyn pretends 6 Torandos are a big deal".

But the more likely circumstance would be the US would try to keep the rest of NATO out of the fighting by short circuiting Article V and just dealing with it itself, thus getting the rest of Europe off the hook.

Also there is some somewhat unclear legal requirements that such a circumstance would have to meet as Article V only applies to certain parts of NATO territory (for example, it applies to North America, Alaska and Greenland, but not to Hawaii or the Falkland Islands).

[Yvaelle]

1. There won't be a world war between the US, Russia, or China.

People think of Russia as being a superpower, but those days past it by decades ago. The Russian economy at this point is trivially larger than Canada's, despite them having 6 times our population - think about that the next time anyone talks about a Russia/US war (Skroe we alluded to this in the other thread but never got around to following it up).

Americans like to hypothesize they could take Canada over in a matter of days - because they are so much larger than us -and the way that translates into your ability to wage war is mostly by means of economic support: Russia has the same or less capability to sustain total war as Canada. I say 'or less' because Canada has allies and a credit rating. Russia has nukes and big talk - that's the extent of their capability to wage global war - for the forseeable future.

2. There won't be a war between the Muslim World and the West.

Because there isn't a singular "Muslim World", and there never will be. Muslims won't all suddenly wake up one day and hear the call to Jihad against the West. More likely is that we're on the verge of a Muslim reformation for the soul of Islam - and that the violence and evangelical extremism we see in Muslim groups like Daesh and Boko Haram - is really their anger toward other Muslims for modernizing: the West is influencing their modernizing, encouraging it, but they're choosing to embrace it - and that's why Daesh et al. are upset.

What possible reason would a modern Muslim woman have to look at what Daesh is selling and be like, "You know, all this going outside, and having my own life, and entertainment - this sucks - what I want is to be a sex slave, barefoot, pregnant, starving, and soon-to-be-dead in a shitty desert somewhere: that's the life for me!"

Do some people get lured in by it? Yes, because the recruiters lie and tell them about the Jihotties they'll meet, and how they'll be princesses, and how Daesh is standing up to the man - and gullible or desperate people fall for that sometimes - but what would it take to convince you (imagine you are a woman, too) to go join Daesh? You wouldn't. Neither would they.

The middle east is going to be shitty for the forseeable future - and it's only going to get worse though - and here's why.

3. Income inequality, climate change, automation, and AI - are all going to reach a fever pitch about 15 years from now: and that is one deadly brew.

Global income inequality:
The first issue here is actually urbanization. We're seeing the whole world moving into cities - and part of that is - that's where the money is. There is tons of data to support that transition - but where this becomes applicable to conflict is that it's not just an economic incentive to move to cities - but it's an accelerating problem. The disparity between wealth in cities vs. rural areas is increasing - so we'll start seeing increasing poverty of anyone outside a city (we'll also see more poverty inside cities).
Wealth inequality is concentrating at two points - interestingly - for incomes between $4000-$17000 USD (called the global middle class), and amongst the plutocrats (those with more than $20M USD). This means some people are falling income to enter this sustenance level income (depending on where you live), while others are rising up into it - it is a peasant tier of income: just enough to survive, assuming nothing goes wrong ever. The rest of the money, obviously - is concentrating at the very tip-top - the 1% of the 1%, so to speak.

That means that many of us on these forums are sitting comfy right now - but we're in a vanishing class - and it will sneak up on all of us from behind. In a couple decades, just through sheer force of capitalism - there won't be a developed world middle class living off $50-200k/yr - at least by proportion to the overall population: our lifestyle is going to evaporate. The rich will be richer than ever (they already are richer than at any other time in history), while the rest will end up in a subsistence income bracket (which changes depending on region, but this will also equalize over time).

Climate Change:
Much of the Arab Spring's story begins unknown to many people - it was sparked due to an economic downturn - what seemingly hasn't been mentioned much in the media is - that downturn was the result of climate change. The middle east's climate is rapidly getting less hospitable - Syria was once a breadbasket for the middle east - now it's a dustbowl: not by war. The war we see, is the result of massive job loss and hunger - that region used to be able to support cities and a solid economy - now it's a wasteland: and it's going to stay that way, and that desertification is going to hit other ME countries. They'll experience crop shortages and water shortages - and that will spark war and conflict - and that will lead to mass migration. And then it won't just be the Middle East's problem anymore - it'll spread globally.

Automation:
Labour participation has been falling even in developed countries for decades - and automation is partly to blame - not just robots but computers. Productivity has skyrocketed, but we use fewer people: we're successfully leveraging technology. We will do the same with automation - and we're coming up on some big shifts that will create transitional unemployment as current job titles are made obsolete by new machines. The issue bigger than that though is, we'll hit a point where we won't be able to train for new jobs faster than someone can program a machine to do that job: transitional unemployment becomes permanent unemployment - globally.

AI:
I'm of the belief that an AI will be ultimately empathetic to us - rather than the nightmare scenarios of science fiction - but it will only further exacerbate the problems we face of our own labour obsolescence.

These four factors combine to create conflict - not ideological conflict borne between the Muslim World and the West - not between nations like the US / China / Russia - but conflict of resources, conflict of power, conflict of purpose. If we see a world war 3, I anticipate it will be around 2032-2037 - based on the above. It won't be like either WW1 or WW2 - but it will be a rising tide of global conflict that forces everyone to sink or swim: a world war of 8 billion barroom brawls, a riot in every city, a war of the unemployed against the incomprehensibly rich, a war of those with food against those without.

I hope that we can see what's coming and find ways around it - but the question is how close are we: in my estimation, this is the bottleneck. Beyond it may lie a future more perfect than we can yet dream - but we're in the splash zone for a global bloodsport - we're going to get wet.