Who will win WW3?

[herzmeister]

Mad Max.

[troleybüs]

I've never seen a single winner in any World War. Actually the earth is losing every time. Don't support governments and politicians who support wars.

[subSTRATA]

That's right, you can't win a nuclear war. Multiple nuclear blasts would probably disrupt Earth's orbit and climate. We'd be killing ourselves over nothing, a piece of paper saying this side gave up first.

2474 Nukes detonated already and here we are. So stop that Hollywood bullshit. Nuclear war can be won.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_weapons_tests

those were controlled detonations in locations that were deemed to have the least affect on human life. a nuclear war would result in nuclear weapons being hurled into populated areas, resulting in the obvious deaths from the explosions, but the irradiation of all surrounding areas as well. radiation sickness, cancer, deformities at birth, etc can be expected to follow, if not death. a war scenario cannot by any means be compared to weapon tests, such as are described in the link you put above.

[semaforo]

I heard recently that the science that the concept of mutually assured destruction was based upon was a well intentioned lie. Humans tend to overestimate their importance. Some people are more resistant to radiation than others, and while birth defects increase quite a bit, there are still many healthy babies born in irradiated zones. The main radiation depletes very quickly after the blast, and the cone of wiping out all life on earth is based on the nuclear winter, not radiation. I heard this is also a myth, and that while it would result in a much colder climate worldwide still enough solar radiation would come through the debris clouds to grow plants, and it would be possible to run heaters and UV lamps using nuclear reactors.

   Besides, the weather patterns would shift all the debris around so there would be clear spots everywhere anyway from time to time, and I heard that there is no way it would take decades for the dust to settle. Also, by the time the dust settles the radioactivity present in it will most likely have subsided below harmful levels. Some people less than 100 yards from ground zero in Hiroshima survived in open, above ground bomb shelters that were only designed to protect from blasts and shrapnel without any injury. Also, a nuclear bomb that is 1000 times more powerful does not destroy 1000 times the area, because the blast emanates spherically, it requires exponentially increasing energy to expand the blast radius.

   Not to say that it's not serious, but just saying the extent of the threat of nuclear weapons has probably been over stated for understandable reasons.

     War is simply the continuation of politics by other means. So there can be various degrees of success like in any form of negotiations. It depends on the will of the populations, but also on the resources available. No matter how determined Germany was in world War two, there were simply not the resources in terms of population to sustain the war effort. In this sense a war between China and Russia and NATO would likely be much more protracted. Also, the will of the citizens of NATO is not very strong- this generation is very soft and clearly has no stomach for hardship, so it is likely that the NATO powers would descend into civil war when their luxuries started being curtailed.

    Russia and China already have more totalitarian systems in place which would be able to exert a greater level of control, but they are also dependent on a lot of infrastructure, like for the internet, that is based in the West and would be swiftly cut off in a conflict situation. There are enough resources in Siberia and Southeast Asia, which would likely fall under Chinese dominion, as well as Africa, which has a growing Chinese presence, to make for a very protracted conflict. It is likely that Africa would be a major battleground of this conflict due to the the prevalence of rare earths there. Most of the materials used in the electronics we are addicted to are mined in China or Africa, and China would be fairly well insulated from any kind of a direct assault due to the ease of deploying defense systems from Russia through the Siberiañ plains, so NATO would likely counter by trying to attack the markets that are the lifeblood of the Chinese economy and limits their access. This would give rise to a revival in American manufacturing as the economic war heated up.

   If you want to understand the power, follow the money- while Western backed institutions like the IMF and Bank for International Settlements may be active in the formation of policy in places like Brazil and and India, the new BRICS development bank sponsored by Russia and China will assuredly try to supplant the IMF wherever it can, forming a globalization of resistance to the current dominant schools. Anti American sentiment in South America is also very high due to decades of the US and CIA backing brutal and unpopular dictators there, so you could easily see a bloc of Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, and possibly other states forming against American aligned Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama.

  You have intelligent and rational players making the decisions here- Putin's popularity is at an all time high because Russians feel the pride of imperial glory returning, however, nobody is going to take any unnecessary risks. It is a simple question of what can be gained. I heard someone once say that in Chinese the word for "crisis" and "opportunity" are the same word.

      In Western Asia Russia sees an opportunity to expand its influence through an emerging shiite bloc composed of Iran, Iraq, and Syria, putting pressure on US backed Saudi Arabia by backing Shia in Yemen. This gambit is likely to fail in the long run because of the preponderance of Sunnis in the region, but they can be used simultaneously to secure a presence in the Eastern Mediterranean and to block access for Qatari gas to the large and lucrative European market which is currently the lifeblood of the Russian economy, and would be threatened by a consolidation of NATO power in Western Asia.
      In other words, all Russia really has to do in order to win in West Asia is to not lose. This means a stalemate is actually a desirable outcome, and the present offensive in Aleppo is likely more defensive then genuinely aimed at retaking territory.
       It would honestly be very hard to estimate who will win this war since there are many factors that cannot be calculated, but I think it is safe to say it will not be like World War 2 where you had a decisive victory in a few short years, but it is rather more likely to be like the wars of the middle ages that spanned generations. I  would expect it to last at least three generations, and by the time something resembling "victory" is finally obtained, the political landscape will probably have changed so much that the winner may not even be recognizable to us.

Of course, looking at history is the best way to determine the future, and we can see that fortunes have been fluctuating between West and East, with Roman and Persian empires going at it for centuries. The last few centuries have been characterized by dominance of the inheritors of the western Roman empire, now known as NATO, due to a surge of resources resulting from the conquest of the Americas. This momentum is starting to run out though, and you can see the economic center of gravity of the world shifting to the east, causing the Indian and Pacific Oceans to eclipse the Atlantic as the most important bodies of water. Control of the Atlantic belongs pretty completely to NATO, but as the Atlantic declines in importance expect the battle to heat up in the pacific, where the Russians and Chinese have a much stronger presence.

    

[BADecker]

The idea of war has changed a lot since WWII. The only reason we are using WWII types of warfare in the Middle East is that all the big boys are scared to do anything else. Sure, the WWII war toys have been advanced in some ways, but none of the super destructive ones are being used, because nobody knows what outcome for the world would be if they were.

Depopulating the world might be advantageous in some ways. But if there is less population, there are less people to work for you and build your empire at your direction. So, the only thing really desired is getting rid of dissidents, not destroying the world out from under yourself.

[Lauda]

those were controlled detonations in locations that were deemed to have the least affect on human life. a nuclear war would result in nuclear weapons being hurled into populated areas, resulting in the obvious deaths from the explosions, but the irradiation of all surrounding areas as well. radiation sickness, cancer, deformities at birth, etc can be expected to follow, if not death. a war scenario cannot by any means be compared to weapon tests, such as are described in the link you put above.

I was just waiting for someone to come out and try to act 'smart' by being supportive of such a war. While one can't deny that nuclear tests do not have any effect at all, they're pretty much safe (as you've said it: controlled detonations). This is much different from a nuke attack. There are many factors that we have to consider. We can really assume that the Russians are able to build more "Tsar Bomba" (1 was only ever officially built). You can use this website to check out what happens if you hit NY with only 1 of those.
I do think that there are even more powerful unofficial weapons.

[TheGr33k]

I think WW3 will be a war like we have never seen before. I think the entire world (or most of it) will be so FUBAR that it would be hard to call anybody a "winner". Human beings have a disgusting tendency; being willing to die as long as you bring your enemy with you, and I can't imagine that WW3 would be any different.

We would have the largest nations in the world in poverty, draining their people until they are ready to revolt from the regular strains of bull-shit war. We'd have Cyber-Warfare beyond what we've ever seen, and we'd very quickly see nukes in the wrong hands.

[BADecker]

I think WW3 will be a war like we have never seen before. I think the entire world (or most of it) will be so FUBAR that it would be hard to call anybody a "winner". Human beings have a disgusting tendency; being willing to die as long as you bring your enemy with you, and I can't imagine that WW3 would be any different.

We would have the largest nations in the world in poverty, draining their people until they are ready to revolt from the regular strains of bull-shit war. We'd have Cyber-Warfare beyond what we've ever seen, and we'd very quickly see nukes in the wrong hands.

I am optimistic about my pessimism. Everyone dies. War just allows them to miss a whole lot of the troubles in life that they would have had if they didn't die so young because of the war.

 

[TheGr33k]

I think WW3 will be a war like we have never seen before. I think the entire world (or most of it) will be so FUBAR that it would be hard to call anybody a "winner". Human beings have a disgusting tendency; being willing to die as long as you bring your enemy with you, and I can't imagine that WW3 would be any different.

We would have the largest nations in the world in poverty, draining their people until they are ready to revolt from the regular strains of bull-shit war. We'd have Cyber-Warfare beyond what we've ever seen, and we'd very quickly see nukes in the wrong hands.

I am optimistic about my pessimism. Everyone dies. War just allows them to miss a whole lot of the troubles in life that they would have had if they didn't die so young because of the war.

 

That is extremely optimistic pessimism. I've gotta give that a try sometime, and I guess you've got a point. If nukes start radiation-poisoning everyone then it's probably for the better that everyone dies beforehand.

Hopefully we can avoid WW3 and be evolved human beings that acknowledge war as a problem.

[BADecker]

I think WW3 will be a war like we have never seen before. I think the entire world (or most of it) will be so FUBAR that it would be hard to call anybody a "winner". Human beings have a disgusting tendency; being willing to die as long as you bring your enemy with you, and I can't imagine that WW3 would be any different.

We would have the largest nations in the world in poverty, draining their people until they are ready to revolt from the regular strains of bull-shit war. We'd have Cyber-Warfare beyond what we've ever seen, and we'd very quickly see nukes in the wrong hands.

I am optimistic about my pessimism. Everyone dies. War just allows them to miss a whole lot of the troubles in life that they would have had if they didn't die so young because of the war.

 

That is extremely optimistic pessimism. I've gotta give that a try sometime, and I guess you've got a point. If nukes start radiation-poisoning everyone then it's probably for the better that everyone dies beforehand.

Hopefully we can avoid WW3 and be evolved human beings that acknowledge war as a problem.

Are you sure that it isn't people that are the problem? Besides optimism and pessimism, there is pragmatism, you know.

 

[TheGr33k]

I think WW3 will be a war like we have never seen before. I think the entire world (or most of it) will be so FUBAR that it would be hard to call anybody a "winner". Human beings have a disgusting tendency; being willing to die as long as you bring your enemy with you, and I can't imagine that WW3 would be any different.

We would have the largest nations in the world in poverty, draining their people until they are ready to revolt from the regular strains of bull-shit war. We'd have Cyber-Warfare beyond what we've ever seen, and we'd very quickly see nukes in the wrong hands.

I am optimistic about my pessimism. Everyone dies. War just allows them to miss a whole lot of the troubles in life that they would have had if they didn't die so young because of the war.

 

That is extremely optimistic pessimism. I've gotta give that a try sometime, and I guess you've got a point. If nukes start radiation-poisoning everyone then it's probably for the better that everyone dies beforehand.

Hopefully we can avoid WW3 and be evolved human beings that acknowledge war as a problem.

Are you sure that it isn't people that are the problem? Besides optimism and pessimism, there is pragmatism, you know.

 

I'm actually pretty sure that people are the problem. I actually just had to google "define pragmatism" just to reiterate it's true definition and try to wrap my head around the philosophy. It's almost sort of funny though, because being Pragmatic is normally problematic to it's own philosophy. I'd like to think that we're beyond cave-men and that intellectual and spiritual endeavors have value beyond entertainment.

[BADecker]

I think WW3 will be a war like we have never seen before. I think the entire world (or most of it) will be so FUBAR that it would be hard to call anybody a "winner". Human beings have a disgusting tendency; being willing to die as long as you bring your enemy with you, and I can't imagine that WW3 would be any different.

We would have the largest nations in the world in poverty, draining their people until they are ready to revolt from the regular strains of bull-shit war. We'd have Cyber-Warfare beyond what we've ever seen, and we'd very quickly see nukes in the wrong hands.

I am optimistic about my pessimism. Everyone dies. War just allows them to miss a whole lot of the troubles in life that they would have had if they didn't die so young because of the war.

 

That is extremely optimistic pessimism. I've gotta give that a try sometime, and I guess you've got a point. If nukes start radiation-poisoning everyone then it's probably for the better that everyone dies beforehand.

Hopefully we can avoid WW3 and be evolved human beings that acknowledge war as a problem.

Are you sure that it isn't people that are the problem? Besides optimism and pessimism, there is pragmatism, you know.

 

I'm actually pretty sure that people are the problem. I actually just had to google "define pragmatism" just to reiterate it's true definition and try to wrap my head around the philosophy. It's almost sort of funny though, because being Pragmatic is normally problematic to it's own philosophy. I'd like to think that we're beyond cave-men and that intellectual and spiritual endeavors have value beyond entertainment.

To me, pragmatism is something that looks like wisdom on the outside, but is full of doubt on the inside.

[TheGr33k]

It just sounds like somebody who is foreign to the ideals of the mind and spiritual realm. It is a person who truly believes that the physical world is the only thing that matters.
You're going to be dead far longer than you're going to be alive and being pragmatic sounds extremely depressing from that point of view.

[mdgreasyjohn]

 the bloombergs won't allow a total war, small brush fires are a totally different things . china does'nt have to go to war with the us , they just can call in the debt owed to them. russia is not interested in anything big , just their area now the us needs stuff to keep peoples mind of the little things here

[Vod]

World War 3 doesn't have to be human vs human.

It could very well be all of mankind united and battling against the machines.

[DeathProxyX]

World War 3 doesn't have to be human vs human.

It could very well be all of mankind united and battling against the machines.

If this happen humans would be the underdog. Unless we adapt and become cyborg. There be no way Humans can defeat their strength and intelligence.

[btcxyzzz]

Stop arguing that nuclear war will be the end of the world. 2474 Nukes detonated already, some of them very huge.

reality check. if it starts nuking in ww3 we're doomed, end of story.

[confirmation120]

no one will win everyone will be gone.

[Bodden]

The winners will be the one who does not join this war and prepare in advance.

[Prestonlector]

I think Russia and China!!!!!