What is the most likely scenario for World War III?

>>2340344
proxy wars are the future, man. direct confrontation between major powers is too costly

>>2340344

Hard to predict. You're not likely to have an all out, conventional war, especially not one with nuclear weapons, until at the very least American military hegemony decays to the point where you have multiple Major/Great powers who are more or less military equals.

At that point, things will have changed so much that it's impossible to say what the political tension lines would be.

Someone with a belief in the afterlife getting the nuclear codes and then experiencing an unfortunate series of geopolitical events that leads them to rationalize pridefully escalating a conflict beyond the breaking point and sending billions of humans to the kingdom of heaven.

Past or future?

If past, either 1945/46 (Western Allies going full retard), 1962 (Cuban Missile Crisis), or 1983 (Soviets mistake Able Archer for an attack by NATO and retaliate).

If future this is a bad board (but I can understand why you'd want to avoid /pol/), but the most likely scenario seems like something spiraling out of control in the Middle East or the South China Sea.

The premiere of China tweets something about Donald Trump's small hands.

>>2340344

Someone uploads a video to WSHH of a world leader making a rude joke, Twitter flamewar takes off, some chingchong shrimp boat loses power and drifts into someone's territorial water, is met with lethal force, giant Naval conflict, civil wars break out in Central Asia, massive die off from famine, and all of it results in status quo ante bellum

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>>2340344
Collapse of the USD.

Everyone rushes madly into the power vacuum.

There's always the possibility of hot heads setting off a nuclear war, even if that didn't happen during the entire cold war era, it isn't impossible... But, that collapse seems the most likely and most inevitable scenario.

>>2340344
Trump

>>2340350
Major powers are not infallible and if miscalculations are made, we will find ourselves in WW3 quite quickly. Infact, we live in a world where something as trivial as a radar malfunction coupled with some overzealous technician would be very capable of leading us to WW3.

Probably America electing an egomaniac with zero political or diplomatic experience at the same time Russia and China are expanding.

>>2340344
At least two major powers manage to chose a very irrational person to lead them who ignores the terrible economic and political cost of war due to their pride. They also have to be quite charismatic or have a pretty good propaganda machine to get the population go along with it.

So basically, a more popular Trump in America and some crazy Mao wannabe in China.

>>2340989
x^D

1995 Norwegian rocket incident
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident

>>2340344
Trump

>>2340374

Or a famine conflict as we run out of phosphorous for fertilizer and ideal farming climates.

>>2340344
China decides to destroy Taiwan, we defend it.

>>2342051

We'd throw a fit but let them have it. Trade is too important to risk a war over a country we don't even recognize.

>>2340966
>>2340989
>>2341053
>>2341981
XD
That Drumpf sure is a rascal, eh, fellow Canucks?

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>>2342058
>Trade is too important to go to war!

said no leader throughout history, ever

trade is a shit deterrent to war. the world in 1913 was more interconnected than it would be for decades afterward until the 90's really and it didn't stop fuck all.

>>2342064
WE MUST DEFEND AMERICA FROM CHINESE AGGRESSION, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!

>>2342064

:^) i am glad all the incompetence and warmongering and corruption people said would happen certainly isn't happening

otherwise id feel like a real dum dum for believing the things i belief

>>2340585
Ha ha, I know what you mean but seriously, nuclear codes, and so on

>>2340344
One country declares war on another.

>>2342718
No one declares war anymore, they just make it happen.

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>>2340350

Norman Angell was saying something along the same line in 1909.

He was wrong...

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>>2340353
>until at the very least American military hegemony decays to the point where you have multiple Major/Great powers who are more or less military equals.

We're not far from that t/b/h

The US Military has been on an inexorable downward slide since the War on Terror began and unless President Trump is ready to start sacking generals contractors left and right for intentional wasting of resources and incompetence (fat chance unless the US finds itself fighting a war for national survival, in which the US Military would already be buckling and such reforms would come too late), that trend will likely continue.

Something in the Balkans i'm sure.

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>>2340989

Libtard with the memory of a goldfish detected,

Reminder that Clinton was the brains behind three disastrous wars, all within 10 years of each other.

>>2340344
2012 scenario.

Changing climate (deliberately) caused by oil dependant powers floods big coastal populated areas of China, US and Europe.

This will shift the belt of area best fit for habitation further north, freeing up a lot of space (that is if freed methane from thawing permafrost doesn't kill us all) for both population expansion and resource mining. Added bonus with Northern Sea Route becomes navigatable.

Millions strong migration waves from flooded regions will make current migrant "crisis" like a kids' spat on school yard.

On top of that global desertification, continuing thinning out of arable land and drying up of water sources in continental regions will create more inner conflicts for remaining sources of water.

>China tries to push their luck with Taiwan
>Pakistan "lose control" of their nuke and the "terrorist" nuke India
>Russia actually invades Ukraine

These three are more likely than others.

>>2340344
A bosnian serb kills someone important.

>>2340365
are you talking about halo or real life

>>2340344
Some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.

>>2343529
>>Russia actually invades Ukraine
Not going to happen. Russia has achieved its objective of geting a nice buffer zone a la Transnistria and South Ossetia, giving it a totally legitimate casus belli against Ukraine should the need arise and preventing Ukraine from joining team EU/NATO.
Even if they did invade what's left of Ukraine, the West wouldn't do anything more than a bit of angry fist-shaking.

>>2340344

> India and Pakistan starts lobbing nukes at one another
> China joins the side of Pakistan
> USA joins the side of India
> Things get muddy and confusing for 5-10 years

>>2340344
Israel nuking Iran. It will not start WWIII in and of itself but the tension caused by it will.

Aside from meme scenarios such as terrorist WMD attack or WMD false flag etc.?

Probably some thing in Asia.

>>2343576
this
Until Russia invades NATO member state (or NATO member state uses some legal loopholes to turn let's say hacker attack into something for which article 5 is applicable) the west and Russia will not confront each other. And that is highly unlikely scenario.

I mean noone is going into war over fucking Ukraine.

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>Major economic crisis stalls or even reverses China's development
>Hardliners within party leadership and organisation blame the free market reforms and their entire pseudocapitalist system for it, convince people that this really was at fault
>Radical communists take over the party and the country from within
>Likely peacefully but small scale civil war might occur
>China is now back to Cold War era fullon Communist
>Start some shit with Taiwan or some other Asian country
If whoever is in charge of China is silly enough they might team up with Norks and attack South Korea

This is obviously paired with atleast some decline of US military. Let's say that the economic crisis would be so severe that the US government would be force to cut military spending.

>>2343576
>>2343706
It was highly unlikely for Russia to take Crimea and Georgia. Ukraine will be under Russian control sooner or later. Most likely through proxy control like Crimea.

>>2343750
When exactly did Russia take over Georgia famalamdingdong?

Also Crimea is not under proxy Russia control. It literally is annexed, incorporated, internal part of Russia now and is managed as such.

Read an article or two m9.

>>2343754
Tibet too is part of China, and nobody care

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>>2341820
What the fuck

>>2343750
>Ukraine will be under Russian control sooner or later
for what purpose
The remainder of Ukraine has nothing Russia wants and a meaningful proportion of the population is hostile to Russia. Annexing it would achieve nothing and it would always be vulnerable to Western-backed Colour "Revolutions" and resource-sapping guerrilla action, with it being white enough and having enough TV cameras pointed at it that Russia couldn't get away with going full Second Chechen War on it.
The current situation of Ukraine being an effective diplomatic No-Man's-Land benefits it far more than outright ownership ever would.

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>>2343770
>>2341820
>mfw reading about all the nuclear close call incidents like this or the 1983 incident
how are we so lucky