" The eastern world, it is explodin, Violence flarin, bullets loading. Your old enough to kill, but not for votin. You don't believe in war, but whats that gun yer totin? And you tell me, over and over and over again,ah you don't believe, we're on the eave of destruction?" I saw Barry McQuire on some PBS music special. He was fat, bald and had an earring, a man slipping into old age from the young singer of the 1960s. I guess we made it after all.

A major war? No. Smaller, regional wars fueled by special interest? Absolutely. And there's zero chance the US and China would ever have a conflict. Listen to any number of interviews with Teasury Secretary Paulson and you'll get an idea of just how little leverage the US has with China. Besides, who would stock our store shelves and loan our government the money it desperately needs?

I still don't think there's a risk of world war. First there are too many unrelated issues and large countries like China and Russia's vital interests are not at stake or involved in them enough. Also since the advent of the atomic bomb, that killed the possibility of a open war where you try to use everything. Instead it gave birth to small hypocrite proxy wars and terrorism.

The tension between the Turk government and the Kurds is not new. The Kurds have been using terrorism for their indepence cause while the Turks have been using death squads for a while.

As for North Korea, I think the US prefer to maintain the status quo for now rather than reunifying the two Koreas. North Korea creates a political barrier between South Korea / Japan and China to kind of slow down exchanges between Korean and China.

Besides, Kim Jong-il is actually nothing but a spoiled brat. He uses blackmail like testing missiles and other funny threats to negotiate and get more international "humanitarian" aid, which goes to feed its army, which is I believe ¼ of the population. The civilians have to eat roots to survive.

Frankie

I don't see it. The USA and China have a special trade relationship whereby the Chinese send us semi-worthless consumer goods and in return we send them semi-worthless pieces of paper. Each country is getting what it needs from the other so why fight? Oil? I doubt it. Unless the Chinese are planning to switch to an automobile society soon they will never need as much as we currently use. And I'm betting our usage declines over the next 30-50 years.

There have been predictions of WWIII ever since the late '40's. Each generation thinks that the perils they face is worse than any that have come before. They are almost always wrong about that.

Anybody up for a game of RISK?

Ah bentirran/Am fear liath mor, "the wee gray troll from Baliol" has spoken. As I was reading through this thread I wondered how long it was going to be before you posted some anti-American insult. No surprise, it didn't take long.

I was going to try and stay out of this one, but here I go anyway.
I feel Martin is right about when WWIII started, but because of how long things have been on we have begun to think that it isn’t our problem. Chris is right too but just because we have made it this far doesn’t mean will make it till tomorrow. I believe that a very large and violent flair up is inevitable and will happen very soon. I believe it will involve at least 90% of the Arab world, Russia, possibly China and large portion of South and Central America. Here is my reasoning (a simple version).
Reading some of the interpretations of the Iranian president’s speeches to his people, Iran has basically said that they will wipe Israel off the map. Iran has made no attempts to hide or deny the facts they want to build nuclear weapons. So one of two things are very likely here.
1-Isreal makes a preemptive conventional strike against the facilities being built. Russia will defend Iran because they are building the plants and will defend the oil also. We will defend Israel.
2- we hold Israel back and Iran is allowed to build or buy it’s nukes. They the carry out the threat they have been making, Israel will retaliate with nukes also. The rest of the Arab nations will not tolerate Israel using nukes on an Arab nation. Russia and the US will be drawn in at the same time.
I said possibly China, If the US and Russia are drawn in they may decide it’s the perfect time to settle old differences and grudges.
I say South and Central America because they are tired of our interfering in their internal problems and because Venezuela as a member of OPEC will try to defend their interests enlisting the aid of at least ½ of the nations in Latin America and most of it’s guerilla fighters.
For those who think I am just a victim of the military machine trying to scare me, and that I need to get out and learn more about the world. I don’t listen to the military or the media much any more neither are to be trusted to give an unbiased report. I have been in more countries than I can remember and have listened to the people who say they want me and you and what we stand for dead. All we can do is prepare or stick our heads in the sand and hope some how it goes away. Either way it's your choice.

First, you have to define what World War is. If you are talking about the tradition image of massive barrages of nuclear missiles screaming through the sky is not going to happen for many reasons. Let us get to the two scenarios that could affect the US as it current stands.
First, a single nuclear missile/bomb attack. If/When the US gets hit a nuke then US will go to war against whoever did it but they will NOT respond with nukes of their own. The international community and the American people would not stand for it and what would you target. It wouldn't be a city full of civilians and why hit some random military base with a nuke?
Second, a full nuke strike can only come from one target currently, and they would be destroyed either by our nukes or their economy would collapse. And if some other nation was able to make enough nukes, to take out the US they would destroy the world's environment in the process and it would not matter what the US did in response, even if the US was able to.

The world is always full of war and the only thing that distinguishes the two World Wars from any others is the sheer number of nations, mostly European, that were involved and thankfully those European nations are tired of war, for now at least. There is always some war of aggression, civil war or revolution going on and it is never going to stop. You either send in troops from more powerful nation to keep the peace, ignore it and let thousands or millions of people die or go in and kill everybody with a gun and hope that the next people who pick up the gun has better sense to solve their differences with a pen.


Saber rattling has always been an important element of diplomacy. We threaten Iran with bombs, they threaten with terrorism. We say we will not allow it, they say we cannot stop them. While this is going on in public, behind the scenes diplomats are hashing out an agreement.
The US military cannot handle a war with Iran right now and Iran knows this and is using it as diplomatic leverage. They want more power and to be on par with Europe and the US, which I cannot blame them.

the only way oil consumption will decrease by any significant percentage is if another form of energy emerges that's cheaper, more efficient, cleaner, and more convenient than gasoline is now. A couple of things have emerged that could decrease or eliminate our dependancy on oil, but none have taken off. Hybrid cars that can get 60 MPG. If everyone drove a hybrid sedan, our country's gas consumption could literally be cut in half. what do companies do? They make Hybrid SUVs advertised to get 30 MPG. My 1997 station wagon gets 30 MPG. Yeah it's impressive that they can make a vehicle the size of a small TANK get 30 MPG, but it kinda defeats the purpose of driving a hybrid if you're still getting the same mileage as a car made in the previous Century.
You could eliminate the need for gasoling completely by making cars that run entirely on alcohol. It can be done, but nobody seems to want to do it.
Hydrogen powered cars whose emmision is water instead of smoke. BMW is already advertising a hydrogen car on TV. IT MAKES WATER, FOR GOD'S SAKE! HOW MUCH CLEANER CAN A CAR GET? unfortunately, this would require complete overhaul of the existing fueling stations, a pricey endevour.
There's also the possibility that we'll just stop finding oil. Some predictions say the planet's oil stores will be gone in ten years. That'll certainly cut our consumption.

As to your second point: I'm not saying I think our current problems are much worse than those of any previous generation. It's just that **** keeps popping up more and more lately, and I'm just starting to notice it.

(edited so as not to be hypocritical )

But **** has always been popping up. I would suggest to you that it popped up in a much bigger way in 1939, 1948, 1962, and 1979.


As far as the rest of your second paragraph goes, I refer you back to your topic starter: