re: What Would It Take To Start WW3?

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The reason for this is there are no alliances that would entangle any of the major powers to the point they'd have to fight over anything in the middle east.


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There are massive reserves of gas & oil there and as these countries jostle for control, the chances of a wider, at least regional, conflict grows.

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I see what you're saying, troy but there is one thing missing. No major world power is trying to gain control of the oil in the middle east through military means, nor does it appear likely that any will try this anytime in the foreseeable future. The only place where there is any question of control over major oil or gas resources at this time is in the South China Sea. It's possible there may be some similar development of tensions in the Arctic Ocean region between the US, Canada and Russia as well. But as for the middle east, there is little to no chance the major world powers come to conflict over control of the oil there.

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Oh, and the largest of the dark beings was about as tall as my ceiling, 8 ft. tall, while the others were smaller. At the very end of the battle, I decapitated the largest of the dark beings. - Beejon

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Glad to see you haven't forgotten!!

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Won't ever happen because the rest of the world knows that if push came shove, the U.S. would wreck shite. Our Air Force alone would neutralize any major threats in a matter of hours. What the Air Force couldn't get the Navy would take care of.

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It won't ever happen due to monetary incentives. Global economies like Russia, Europe, China, and the US rely heavily on trade with each other to stay afloat. It would be economic mutually assured destruction.

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I doubt it, they were probably all in on the cash grab!

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The Navy tends to think of this in an opposite order

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I'm sure they do.

Between the over 800 Air Force F-16s and the 500 Navy F-18s it wouldn't even be a fair fight. The U.S. could strike from just about anywhere on the map. That doesn't even take into account the numerous stealth fighters we could launch on top of whatever new shite we have in the bullpen.

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I don't know very much about the state of the global economy before WWI. I was thinking that before WWII there was obviously a massive worldwide depression, and many countries were desperate for resources. This is a clear motivation for war. I wonder if something similar was going on before WWI.

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Before WWI the major economic powers of the world were Great Britain at #1 & Germany at #2 with powers like France, Russia, and the US following not far behind from an economic standpoint. You also had emerging economic powers like Japan as well. All these powers based their economies on a varying mix of exploitation of natural resources from colonies and international trade.

To give you a good example of how intertwined they were, when war broke out in 1914, the Brits were forced to go to a Swiss intermediary to acquire binoculars for their army and navy from Germany. Likewise Germany felt the bite of the British blockade and trade embargo rather quickly via shortages in everything from rubber to sugar, cotton, and a variety of day to day things that before the war had come from British sources.

3 SEC teams in the playoff

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Islam vs Non-Islam

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Could be. It's certainly a long term issue.

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I think this might be an interesting part of what is different between how globalization was then in its still developing days and now.

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Well you bring up a good point there in that the issue of colonies is pretty much off the table. I'd counter though and say that while the major powers will not go to war over control of huge chunks of Africa or where ever, the current political climate could see them fighting over spheres of influence similar to the two points i laid out in my first post ITT. I'd especially find troubling the prospect of Putin's Russia trying to reclaim most or even all the former Soviet sphere that if you will remember went all the way to the middle of Western Europe.