WWIII

[SilverEagle]

I don't think you will see a WWIII until you see at least 3 major powers going to war. In other words, if the USA, China, and Russia are not all involved it most likely will not turn into WWIII.

Well with China pissed off over the starting of a trade war and now with the Syrian gas attack Russia is now in play. Fun times!

[Speaker to Animals]

IDF attacked a joint airbase in Syria, apparently, where Russian and Iranian air forces had troops and aircraft stationed..

[Ex-California]

WWIII was 1946-1990

The next dust-up will be WWIV and will involve the US and its allies against China and its allies

[DrYouth]

WWIII was 1946-1990

Cold war not World War.

Noone pulled the trigger on WW3.

So maybe you are suggesting there might be a new Cold War...

We're not at Cold War levels yet.

You know you're at Cold War level when the safety comes off and the warheads are set to launch.

[Smitty-48]

I would agree that it is not currently at the same intensity as it was during the Cold War, or at least, not as it was at peak tension during the Cold War, but at the same, it's not as stable as the Cold War neither, as in the Cold War, there were two camps which had much more control of the situation, whereas now, the bipolar paradigm has broken down into a myriad of camps which do not answer to Moscow nor Washington, so even tho there is not the same sort of build up as there was during the Cold War, there's many more vectors now for unintended consequences beyond the control of the big players in the contemporary paradigm.

[Speaker to Animals]

Syria alone is getting fucking crazy. There should only be one major power in that country right now.

The fact that we had a presidential candidate (who almost fucking won) that was talking about establishing a no-fly zone in Syria, which meant war with Russia, was beyond fucking crazy. Consider that she was basically a puppet for the deep state..

We now have had the US and Israel attacking air bases at which Russian troops are stationed. This shit is definitely not as stable as the Cold War.

Just imagine the shit storm here if Russia launched fifty cruise missiles into an air base where USAF troops were stationed. The last guy who did that got invaded twice and we eventually hung him.

[Smitty-48]

I would submit that the cruise missile attack played into the narrative the Kremlin is seeking to promote, their narrative is that they are the victims of American aggression, so I don't think they were all that upset about it behind the scenes, particularly when they were given prior warning from the United States and as a result moved their troops out of the way.

They got to have their cake and it eat it too, they could play it in their camp as American aggression, while at the same time it did no real damage to them, thus it was the best of both worlds.

If the United States actually takes a shot at the Russians to do real damage, they would have to retaliate, but in that particular case Washington went out of its way to make sure they would not have to respond, by specifically avoiding the Russians and giving them prior warning just so there was no accidental hits on them.

The danger for the United States in doing things like that, is if the Russians decide that they want a rubric to escalate over, and so actually put their forces in the line of fire so they could claim it as an unprovoked attack against them to then use that as leverage against Washington, since in nobody in America really wants a shootout with the Russians and so Washington would have to climb down in the face of it.

The Siloviki are relatively secure in their position right now, but if things were to get less stable in Russia, I wouldn't put it past them to provoke things to the brink of war as a way of staving off resistance against them domestically, particularly where they could claim the United States struck first.

[ssu]

So, I am going back and moving some old threads/topics of mine over here so here is one that I think deserves it's own thread:

I know that this is more about predicting the future, than predicting an alternative historical line but one has to ask:

What does your version of WWIII would look like? Meaning, what would start your predictions for a WWIII, what the sides will be, and how would it end/lead up too?

WWIII is now something that will be called any open conflict between US and Russia and/or China. The term is not what it used to be in the 1980's.

If it would come to that, open hostilities between the countries, I would argue that the idea that the fighting escalates unavoidable to all out nuclear war is wrong.

There are examples of how armed clashes between nuclear powers have been limited and constrained. Pakistan and India have fought each other even if both sides have had nuclear weapons. And naturally Soviet Union and the US faced off each other over the skies of North Korea during the Korean War.

Hence in the current hostile climate, it could be totally possible that the US and Russia/Iran/Syria come to a genuine fight in Syria, yet I wouldn't count on it to unleash formal declarations of war or an hot war on the NATO/Russian border in Estonia. After all, Russian forces have already engaged US Special Forces who were with their proxy fighters. The clash wasn't noticed much.

[Smitty-48]

I would submit, there would be no prolonged and significant conventional component to World War Three, whatever dispute was in play, whether that was in Europe or the China Seas or whatever, would skip right past the conventional into a nuclear standoff, Cuban Missile Crisis style, at which point the adversaries would attempt to gain leverage and jockey for position, eyeball to eyeball with hydrogen bombs, and the most likely scenario for the war would be that it simply spiraled out of control, somebody opens fire on the hair trigger, and within hours there is a launch on warning scenario, most likely by mistake, with the pressure ramped up to extremis, in the inevitable fog of war.

There's never going to be a World War Two again, there's no way to fight such a war, because it gets to hydrogen bombs at the brink long before you could ever get to a conventional war, neither side can take the chance of the other side escalating to nuclear without warning in a conventional war, so it's nuclear by default right out of the gate, there is only one way for a world war to occur within the context of the Balance of Terror, World War Three is the nuclear war, there is no other World War Three scenario at all.

Little skirmishes on the margins does not amount a world war, so that's not relevant, as soon as you are talking an escalation beyond local skirmish to a global theater of operations, that goes to a nuclear standoff by default. There's no other way it could occur, the moment the local skirmish escalated beyond a very limited direct exchange, both sides would commence maneuvering with their nuclear deterrents, and then that renders everything else irrelevant the moment it starts.

All that matters is the submarines, when the submarines start shooting, that's World War Three, soon as a skirmish breaks out into sustained combat, it cuts to straight to the strategic level, on the high seas. Some dogfighting or special forces trading fire, that's nothing, neither side is escalating to the brink over that, the only way it comes to a world war, is at sea, there is no world war scenario on land, if it doesn't escalate to the sea, it's a skirmish, if it escalates beyond a skirmish, it has to be at sea.

The first thing either side is going to do, is attempt to get up in the saddle with their submarines, at which point, the special forces in Syria or whatever, are rendered moot.

[Smitty-48]

Think of it this way; it's like two gunfighters standing face to face, each with a nuclear gun in their holster. Now, they can start kicking one another in the shins, but that doesn't amount to war, that's just shin kicking, the only way one side or the other sends the message that they've had enough of being kicked in the shins, is to reach for their gun, at which point, any further shin kicking ceases to be relevant, right quick.