How close are we to the brink of World War III?

It most likely won’t spread because China likes our money and Russia isn’t in any sort of sound military or economic position to go to war. Even if WW III starts, I don’t expect it last much longer that a few months.

As far as ever, well, since the Cuban missile crisis anyway.

It’s too soon to predict the outcome of this damnable latest Middle East crisis (although I’m sure @ETPro could enlighten us), but according to the Doomsday Clock… well… check it out yourself.

I don’t expect it last much longer that a few months.
Isn’t that what was said about Afghanistan and Iraq II?

Not close.

Glad that Canada’s staying outta this.

I expect it to last no longer than a few hours.
Or humanity, for that matter.

@Hypocrisy_Central if it did start China would be out in two or three months, their economy in shambles. Russia wouldn’t be able to stand up to the rest of NATO alone for very long afterward.

@Mr_Paradox
Never underestimate raw manpower. Hitler did, and he lost. Badly.
And besides, private economy is not that important in an all out war.
Hitler’s military machinery was fully funded by debt alone, and factories can easily be appropriated and run by the state if the situation is right.
If push comes to shove, china and russia will be pumping out tanks and jets like rabbits.

@ragingloli Russia is under immense internal pressure right now, I don’t think that the opposition groups are going to let the government get away with a major geopolitical war. If anything Russia is going to end up fighting a civil war and a foreign one. China likes our money to much, the elite won’t let a war happen. It would mean a massive loss in cash. Never underestimate greed.

With North Korea hiding in the background, it would be a disaster. That country is run by a mad man who would fight dirty at the first chance to stab the U. S. and the rest of the world in the back.

@YARNLADY You’re right, N. Korea is a wild card in all this. No telling what they’ll do.

British Parliament JUST voted against a military strike. Good for them.

@Mr_Paradox, I don’t think we can say it won’t most likely spread. Too many wild cards, like Syria vs. Israel and jihadists vs. you-never-know-who.

Being that we’re being ruled by incompetent sociopaths, I doubt we will get off easy with this one.

World War III has already begun. The president simply does not want to accept it.
And the labor party in the H of C gave him an out to save face by voting against direct military action the Assad family.

It simply won’t happen. Too much trade between the major players. Jesus isn’t coming back anytime soon.

In my own memory, we’ve been worrying about that since the 1950s.

List of modern conflicts in the Middle East.

@DWW25921 Yes, yes. Bring on the competent sociopaths. They are so much more efficient at getting us all killed.

I predict Syria will not be the start of the end. All the players in that game except for some of the rebels are actually playing to win position in this world, not the next. The last thing any of them aside from some fundies in the rebel groups want is to touch off WW III.

I think it’s a last-ditch battle between religious fundamentalism and reason/rationality. To the degree the world tilts toward control by those that actually think Nuclear Armageddon will instantly catapult them into paradise, the Doomsday Clock clicks second by second closer to midnight.

Not close. For now the world is broke, so I don’t think anyone is in the mood to do planet modifications. Everyone has their own problems right now and I don’t think most of the world leaders could really care less. Oh, they will hem and haw and bluster but it becomes more and more difficult to convince the public to care about conflicts going on in other nations when unemployment is high and our financial stability is also an issue. This isn’t the society that existed during WWll.

Well… with Britain voting against action it certainly looks better than it did this time yesterday. Good work, Ed. Nice to see we’re not the US’s little lap-dog after all. With luck France will follow suit.

North Korea… I’m not so sure about them. They do a lot of sabre-rattling but, like Russia, I don’t think they have the financial resources to engage in anything beyond their most immediate neighbours. I think the biggest threat is probably Pakistan. We piss them off, we’re in trouble.

@ETpro I have no faith in this, or the last administration for that matter. As our presidents get worse so do our problems. Yes, I believe they are all psychopaths. This has nothing to do with religion. Every last one of them is owned, bought and paid for. This is about power and not caring about the will of the people. The (republocrats) are absolutely and equally useless. The only good politician is an Independent politician. Yes, I really said that too. In spite of the fact that I am spot on, I expect a futile argument of some sort.

I don’t see Russia or China as much of a threat. Neither is going to start a frontal attack on us. The real wild card is Isreal. If Iran or Hezbollah attack Isreal, they may respond viciously. Who could blame them? From there, it’s anybody’s guess. Whether Obama decides to move forward or walk away in shame, he better get his speech writers working overtime. He’s going to need a good one.

As I see it, Obama faces a heads they win, tails I lose game. And it really wouldn’t have mattered a whit what he said, but the red line warning made matters worse. The consequences now of doing nothing are Iran sees it as a green light to develop a nuclear weapon and long range delivery system, which will be meant for Israel. If we do strike anything other than the chemical weapons storage facilities themselves, we weaken Assad while still having no idea who’s on first in the rebel camp, and we kill a bunch of low level working stiffs manning those facilities, all of whom have family and friends that will then forever hat our guts.

And don’t even get started on the hatreds between the Alawite Muslims of Assads’ tribe and the Wahhabis and other Sunnis versus the Shiites and ever lovable Sufis. They all want to kill each other to, and it’s all our fault. Draw me a winning strategy on that reality roadmap.

A winning strategy would be to pull out and have them agree to continue to sell oil on the global market with American Dollars. The only reason we are against Assad right now is he wants to use another currency. If he trades with another currency, the Dollar will loose value. We need all the value we can get at the moment as our money’s value comes from trading foreign oil. That’s really the bottom line as to what this is really about. We are willing to supply enemies with arms and money to this end.

@DWW25921 Just as the primary reason for Desert Storm I was because Iraq invaded Kuwait, thereby threatening the supply of oil to the West. Yet, a decade before, America was supplying arms to Iraq for their conflict with Iran. If it had involved some poverty-stricken African country with no significant resources, America wouldn’t have cared.

@downtide Very true. You know, we would have enough oil for ourselves if we upped production. Mexico and Canada trades with us at about ⅓ I believe. (Regular supply from friendly countries!) You never hear about that. We make about ⅓ ourselves. Did we really go to war over ⅓ of our oil or was it because if production in the middle east was impaired our currency would be devalued? Actually, you are correct but it’s a little of both. As for Africa… If the United States Dollar was based upon the production capacity and world market sales of African Diamond mines things would be a lot different.

Syria will not cause WW III, but climate change likely will. The sad thing is that the war will be between the perpetrators of climate change in the industrialized nations and the those most damaged by climate change in the poorer southern nations. WW III will be nothing like wars I and II. It will be an intensification of the current “counter-insurgency” by the U.S.

Not close, although widespread cyberwar has already begun.