One has to presume you are referring to the 1000-year old Austro-Hungarian Empire as a rogue state, since they chose to pretend that Mr. Princip was somehow an agent of Serbia (he was a Bosnian Serb, that is, ethnically Serbian but a citizen of Austrian Bosnia). This allowed them to exploit the assassination as an excuse to present untenable demands and justify mobilization to annex portions of Serbia.

drrider

Too be honest, i am not certain of the difference between the two words? I guess thermal is a form or state of heat? Is there any other form of heat apart from thermal?

raditation follow the link

I think the most likely cause of a WW3 in the next ten years would have to follow a pretty precise series of events. Iran and neighboring countries begin to form a Caliphate under some highly charismatic leader (whatever they call the messiah) which brings in other highly muslim countries like Egypt into a tight alliance. Turkey and some majority muslim south eastern europe countries answer the call of Jihad and usurp their governments and place theocratic ones in their stead and also ally. You suddenly have a very large and very scary, if not totally organized military threat to just about any nation nearby. It would mostly be a land army and the shear numbers would be an enormous threat. Some of the nations involved on the Axis side would be very capable of feilding a large air force and navy while others would simply be hordes of militia and terror squads. This sort of conflict btw is a good reason to let citizens have AK 47's, when the raiders drive into your town a 9mm might not cut it. The EU would be very busy on their end and the US would be very busy in the Isreal Iraq area and might even be slow to enter into the European side of the conflict. It would be a WW and I doubt any WMD's would be launched since a militant fanatical group tends to keep fighting no matter how many of their cities you bomb, Afghanistan for instance has been bombed back to the stone age for decades and yet there are plenty of armed militia running around there still ready to fight. I don't see China entering into any of this unless N Korea got jumpy or perhaps some southern asia countries below them got into the Jihad mode, I am not positive but I think some of those countries already have extremists blowing things up like Indonesia, and I would think Russia would get involved on the Allies side of the fence just like in WW2 and would probably landgrab their way into the middle east and eastern europe like they always do and we would all welcome them. I don't really think much if this is likely but its the best possibilty for a WW imo. I don't see any of the commonly accepted world powers starting a WW any time soon but a quickly emerging Islamic Empire or Alliance could quickly make it happen.

Dudes even if WWIII happened, I don't think nations would use nukes. If Russia started invading the US right now, and won, what would we gain by obliterating them out of existence? Nothing. You would just defile the world all over. In short, nukes shouldn't even be here. They are to powerful for us to wield.

Chernobyl's radiation still lingers. Imagine if all of the ICBM's in the US we're launched, the entire world would become a radioactive wasteland. Nearly all creatures in the world would be mutated and surviving would be the strongest struggle in human history. Now, imagine if ALL of the nuclear weapons were launched in the world. Nothing except the most enduring creatures and cockroaches would survive. All of us would be dead and history would be forgotten for the few who remain.

The most severe effects of a global nuclear exchange would come not from the radioactivity, but from the climate changing atomospheric dust, and from the infrastructure damage that would prevent the essential movement of resources.

drrider

you forget that the muslims want to die in a holy war.

yes!

Being willing to kill yourself to kill your enemy is one thing but being willing to kill yourself and your comrades along with non specific enemies is an unbelievably dangerous philisophy.

I am more worried about Yellowstone and Long Valley Supervolcanoes than WW3. Even the volcanologists are worried. Yellowstone has a 2 lobe magma chamber, and the small one is right under the Norris Geyser Basin. The big one sits under the Caldera (30 miles x 50 miles), and is closer to he surface.

I was going to say something along the lines of "World War III began with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait", but you've explained the basic concept very well.

Russia wouldn't win an invasion of the US without nukes flying first (especially since I would define winning as being able to take control of the nuclear missiles). The whole point of nukes is to stop other countries from invading your own (as well as a few other things), so I don't think Russia will be invading the US anytime soon because among a long list of things, they don't want to be a smoking crater.

way off! The whole point of nukes is to deter others from using nukes.

Actually, it was a "terrorist" organisation And even if Serbia was truly behind the assasination, it was definetly not a "rouge state", it had some very powerfull allies. If you are reffering to Austro-Hungary, they were quite powerful with an even stronger ally, perhaps like Japan or the UK today.


Anyway WWI was bound to happen. People should remember that incidents only start wars, they don't cause them. A non-nuclear WW3 might happen if the wining side was content with marginal victory and no regime change in the defeated country. It would also depend on the losing side's willingnes in a peace settelment.


A prolonged nuclear WW3 might also be possible if the US anti-missle system proves effective and the Chinese develop their own similar system.

BTW Russia is very unlikley to be an ally of China beyond 2015.