Originally Posted by aspqrz
It was not only fake (of course) it was ridiculous - as I said somewhere else, to believe it you not only had to have no knowledge whatsoever of military tactics and strategy, logistics, economics and geopolitical realities you had to actively reject any semblance of such knowledge.
That didn't, and doesn't, mean that everything in it, especially if considered in isolation, is impossible, but a whole hell of a lot of it, and the whole thing overall, is ... ridiculous.
Is WW3 possible? Sure. Is it likely to go nuclear if it occurs? Yes. We can debate how possible and how likely it is to go nuclear, but wishful thinking won't change my answers.
But not a one of the TW:2000 or TW:2013 backgrounds were believable, certainly not based on what we knew at the time, or even based on what we know how ... especially based on what we know now, in fact. Of course, we also know how close we came on a couple of occasions - mostly in the form of an actual nuclear attack by accident or mistake, rather than a conventional war that escalates.
How could WW3 occur - best guess, at the moment, is a mis-step by Putin somewhere ... he seems dead set on reviving the Cold War singlehanded and is not as smart as he seems to think he is. It is possible that he could push things too far ...
Another possibility, but probably a lower order one, is conflict with the PRC over the South China Sea ... again, it would likely be accidental. And it could well remain limited and regional even if conflict did occur ... but the chance of escalation and opportunistic actions, and resulting accidents, in Europe or elsewhere is, of course, always a possibility.
ISIS/Islamic Terrorists, probably not gonna cause it themselves, as much as they'd like you to believe it ... and I suspect that the less idiotic amongst the leadership know that ... but they could trigger it by being a source of possible conflict between the West and Russia.
Even if they did a Franz Ferdinand, the worst that's likely to happen would be a quick military crushing of them in a limited regional (and entirely conventional) conflict ... though, of course, it wouldn't stop the terrorism.
But if Russia and the West didn't agree on how to carry out such crushing, that could lead to nasty things.
YMMV.
Phil
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