[Morgeruat]

Originally posted by Orbost: WW3 seems pretty unlikely anytime soon. Both the previous wars were fought between countries of similar power and status. Nowadays, no country has the economic or military strength to mount any serious challenge against the States. Any of the situations mentioned (Palestine, India/Pakistan etc) stir strong emotions across the world, but if conflict did start, and the States intervened on one side or the other, can you really see other countries committing themselves to fight against the States? I can't. We don't have the situation anymore of two superpowers matched against each other in economic/military might or in idealogy. The world is a far safer place now than anytime in the 20th century. Finally, Timber, could you be any more grossly offensive if you tried? Wars of any scale inflict nothing but suffering on all sides, and to suggest that there is somehow an upside to millions of people dying is just sick.

Don't forget China, they've been doing some major ramping up militarily in the past several years. They have uge natural resource reserves that are being diverted to supply their military, more than a billion people, even if they could only put 1/2 their population into uniform and spent 2 months training them... ouch.