Where do you think WW3 will start?

[Comando96]

The Internet. Eventually all these hacking attacks will cross a line.

I actually believe you have it spot on.

lulzSec have been on a suicidal spree of hackings where they have attacked Sony, the Pentagon, the CIA... and when hearing about the leak of their personal details[footnote=1]http://www.bgr.com/2011/06/22/lulzsec-hacked-exposed-by-rival-hackers/[/footnote] ... I believe that would explain their attack on the UK's serious organised crime agency to try and stop one of their members being arrested[footnote]http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/22/ryan-cleary-charged-lulzsec-hacking[/footnote].

Now this is from a bunch of amateurs according to the guys who hacked lulzSec... just imagine what a professional squad could do in a China VS America scenario... Helicopters, jets(definitely as they rely on 50 computers to fly) and potentially even nuclear warheads may become ineffective when someone turns them off via the computer chips they have.

Personally... I reckon it will be China if there is another world war. Israel won't attract the worlds attention, Australia... no, Germany is tame now... North Korea... that will probably be the spark... China then is forced into acting lest US allies get a direct border with China with no inhumane and expendable 1million men strong army separating it from a US ally.

 

[Bajinga]

I agree with a lot of people on here. There just wont be one.
Wars cost a lot of money, and a lot of countries just couldn't afford it.
Also, nuclear weapons, they are preventing a war. Imagine a nation setting one off, it would cause nuclear warfare.

 

[rutger5000]

it will be in the middle east initially, fueled by oil, with USA backing one country, dragging the EU along for the ride, with China and Russia and most of the Arab world in the red corner. India, and for the most part the EU will sit tight, with mostly just Britain, France and to some extent Germany getting in on the action.

and the world will go to shit.

Nations from the E.U. can only go to war seperately to some extend. WWIII will be different from wars like Iraq. It will likely be a war that will take the nations full participation. It's effect on a nations ecconomic will be massive. The E.U. won't be able to take a swift of economics from a few of it's most important members. The only way a nation from the E.U. could go to a fullscale war is if it had the complete backing from the E.U. Then the E.U. wouldn't be neutral and would have to defend itself. So either no nation from the E.U. will play a significant part in the war, or the entire E.U. will partcipate.

 

[rutger5000]

I agree with a lot of people on here. There just wont be one.
Wars cost a lot of money, and a lot of countries just couldn't afford it.
Also, nuclear weapons, they are preventing a war. Imagine a nation setting one off, it would cause nuclear warfare.

I always doubted that assumption. Why would the use of a nuclear bomb cause a full blown nuclear war? If one nation would use them in a single strike, then all other nations will try to prevent an outbreak of a nuclear strikes.
Honestly I feel the begining of WWIII will be one nations nucluar bombing of multiple targets all at the same time. After that conventional war will begin, because no one is willing to push the armagedon button.

 

[Sean951]

The Internet. Eventually all these hacking attacks will cross a line.

I actually believe you have it spot on.

lulzSec have been on a suicidal spree of hackings where they have attacked Sony, the Pentagon, the CIA... and when hearing about the leak of their personal details[footnote=1]http://www.bgr.com/2011/06/22/lulzsec-hacked-exposed-by-rival-hackers/[/footnote] ... I believe that would explain their attack on the UK's serious organised crime agency to try and stop one of their members being arrested[footnote]http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/22/ryan-cleary-charged-lulzsec-hacking[/footnote].

Now this is from a bunch of amateurs according to the guys who hacked lulzSec... just imagine what a professional squad could do in a China VS America scenario... Helicopters, jets(definitely as they rely on 50 computers to fly) and potentially even nuclear warheads may become ineffective when someone turns them off via the computer chips they have.

Personally... I reckon it will be China if there is another world war. Israel won't attract the worlds attention, Australia... no, Germany is tame now... North Korea... that will probably be the spark... China then is forced into acting lest US allies get a direct border with China with no inhumane and expendable 1million men strong army separating it from a US ally.

They hacked the CIA's main internet page, which says nothing about the security they put on things of actual value. The Pentagon also seems to be a popular target of really bored computer geeks who want to see how good they are. Either way, the U.S. has repelled an estimated 2,000 attacks from foreign powers since the start of the year, so I'm not too concerned about them hacking us to the point we are unable to fight back.

 

[PMorgan18]

Please explain your reasoning, or i will have to call you a retard...wait there is no reason, so your a retard. Germany were the fascist ones invading country's for the crap reason of "we are bastards who want more power".

*sigh* I did explain it on page 2 or 3.

If France and England, also most of the allies, didn't go crazy on Germany with the Treaty of Versailles World War 2 wouldn't have happened. They reparations forced on Germany by the allies stirred up the German people's hatred allowing someone like Hitler to get into power and bring about World War 2.

 

[EightGaugeHippo]

In the streets of Washington DC, when Russian paratroopers drop out of the sky in the most drastic attempt to tug at people's emotion.

No cookie for the reference.

 

[Dragonclaw]

Since I quoted the movie in another thread I figure some WAG THE DOG fits here too


Conrad 'Connie' Brean: Would you go to war to do that?

CIA Agent Mr. Young: I have.

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: Well, I have, too. Would you do it again...? Isn't that why you're here? I guess so. And if you go to war again, who is it going to be against? Your "ability to fight a Two-ocean War" against who? Sweden and Togo? Who you sitting here to Go To War Against? That time has passed. It's passed. It's over. The war of the future is nuclear terrorism. It is and it will be against a small group of dissidents who, unbeknownst, perhaps, to their own governments, have blah blah blah. And to go to that war, you've got to be prepared. You have to be alert, and the public has to be alert. Cause that is the war of the future, and if you're not gearing up, to fight that war, eventually the axe will fall. And you're gonna be out in the street. And you can call this a "drill," or you can call it "job security," or you can call it anything you like. But I got one for you: you said, "Go to war to protect your Way of Life," well, Chuck, this is your way of life. Isn't it? And if there ain't no war, then you, my friend, can go home and prematurely take up golf. Because there ain't no war but ours.

 

[Johanthemonster666]

The title says it.

Do you think world war 3 will start in Israel? Germany? North Korea? Australia?

I'm guessing in a special place called "Nowhere".

Seconded, a little thing called mutually assured destruction makes it seem highly unlikely that there will be any global scale conflicts in the near or distant future.

Likewise. I just really don't see it happening. At least not on any short term scale.

Mutually assured destruction didn't prevent the first world war, it won't prevent the next. "The savage nature of men, will lead to it's own destruction" I believe thats from watchmen, but I'm not sure. Its likely true though.

We didn't possess nuclear, long range missiles or ballistic weaponry during the first world war. Mutually assured destruction means total war if one major power country attacks another by nuclear strike. If we had, I guarantee you hostilities would have ended long before they did since we used nerve gas in the trenches before The League of Nation's banned chemical and biological weapons.

It is forgotten that we're now living in a multipolar international community, where old East-West alliances no longer have as much strength as they did in the days of the cold war. It's now mostly about "major military and economic block" nations forming unions based on resources, corporate and market ties. China, Brazil, Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Myanmar, and North Korea have a lose alliance with each other based solely on economic ties rather than a shared agenda (though all agree that the U.S, Europe and their developing world allies are a threat to their policies and goals).

I personally don't believe world war 3 will happen any time soon (the currently state of conflicts that overlap can already be considered a global war), but straining resources, peak oil, water, global financial collapse, and perhaps the rise of formerly "third world" nations who band together as all this happens will cause some serious problems for humanity as a whole. A lot of Escapists like to make fun of the U.S,but when the *hit hit's the fan for the United States economically, the rest of you are screwed unless you'd prefer to be Russia's whore to save your skin for another few decades. China is given too much credit, they're growth is out of control and they're already starting to resort to U.S strategies to secure resources and reign in inflation. I personally think China will implode economically in the next couple decades, while India may fair better if they play their cards right in regards to Pakistan, China, Russia and their status as a non-align country.

Iran is looking pretty ominous even though people like to downplay it's influence and rather insane clerical/autocratic leadership. These people are quite frankly insane and have talked about destroying Israel since the start.

Does anyone here really think Israel backing down on the Gaza blockade, and an eventually coming to some agreement with the Palestinian authority on a two state solution is going to stop Iran, Syira, Hamas or Hezbollah from continued attacks? Of course not, and thought I've never condoned Israeli operations in the past that were blatantly heavy-handed in their treatment of the Palestinian-Arab population, Iran and its allies have their own reasons for meddling in the region, and escalating the violence for their own purposes, much like how the U.S supported of Israel solely due to Syria, Egypt and Jordan being supplied by the Soviet Union.


P.S- I take it not many of you are familiar with world history or how international/government relations work? Because all I'm seeing "Everything is America's fault...derp derp....they did stuff in the cold war, Iraq, and now Afghanistan, and Libya.. derp,derp". It seems that everyone is forgetting the involvement of... oh I don't know... the USSR, and their allies as we engaged in that grand dicking contest known as "The Cold War" and their terrorists, armed factions, spies, human rights violations and proxy wars that resulted in dictatorships and pissed off/devastated people no different than the ones the U.S supported.

In the case of all this that's happening today... it takes more than 3-5 countries to tango =/ not just big, bad boogie man U.S.A out to get everyone.

You've given this a lot more thought then I have. And I agree with your logic. But I think you put too much faith in human intelect. "There are only two infinite things: The universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the first one." Einstein. Just because WW3 would bring great chances of major loss, and only a slim chance of minor gain doesn't mean that it won't start. That was the parallel I wanted to draw with WW1. There was so little to gain from the whole conflict, and the losses were guarenteed to be enourmous. Yet it still happened. I like to think humanity has learned from history, but I've always felt that the only lesson that can be learned from history is that humanity doesn't learn from it.
I'm an optimist, as a choice I love and trust everybody I meet, but humanity as a whole is an ugly creature. One that will ineventually leads to it's own destruction.

I'm not disputing the illogical motivations of human beings and our animal instincts. WW1 was projected to last less than a few months in the eyes of most of the alliances involved (as was the Anmerican civil war in the eyes of the American people and their political/military leaders).

I think the U.S would do well at this point to pull all of it's resources out of "projecting" military power and focus on it's domestic long term security and economy. This would be a dangerous move in light of nations like China, Russia and Iran trying to muscle their way into the global area the same way the west did in the last century. Not to mention Pakistan receiving no more aid from the U.S (though they deserve nothing imo) would jeopardize their government's newly democratic government and make the likelihood of Islamic militants attaining nuclear weapons/material very possible.

I guess the only logic in the U.S taking up a non-interventionist stance would be that unfriendly nations would no longer have a logical accuse to throw their weight around so pompously, though history teaches us that people like Ahmadinejad will always find excuses to use aggression and escalate tensions to satisfy their psychotic world views. Heck, I bet you that even if the U.S kept every soldier on it's own soil and did not intervene in any world affairs, world nations and U.K/Aussie trolls on the escapist would still be bitching about how evil/lazy America was. They'd accuse us of still plotting to take over the world, and I bet you anything that domestic critics of the United States would accuse it of "not caring" for human rights and atrocities/crises taking place around the world and our resolve to not get involved in any shape or form.