Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[AndClayton]

Due to my personal belief that Putin is trying to reestablish the old Soviet Union glory, I can see a WW3 coming in our near future. These are my major predictions:

1) Russia and China ally bringing along North Korea.

2) The US is the first country to attack one of those countries and is also the first country to make a huge blunder costing a lot of soldiers. The US tries to blame it on a NATO country.

3) North Korea nukes either Japan or South Korea.

4) Germany, having the strongest military in NATO, has a very successful campaign in Western Europe and becomes a super-power (or close to one) again.

5) The UK, Sweden and the US Alaska are invaded.

6) Russia is nuked at least 3 times.

7) North Korea is the first to use nukes, the US the second, Russia the third, China the last.

(These may annoy you, insult your intelligence, or bother you. Correct me on any facts(?) I may have gotten wrong )

Make your own predictions!

[Bouchart]

Iran uses these events as cover to attack Israel and Argentina invades the Fauklands.

[Culise]

My prediction: the age of global war is past, at least, so long as we remain limited to a single world.  Future wars will be fought against pan-national organizations not directly based around the state and government (e.g., terrorists), by proxy, or at the very most, "border corrections" against neighbouring states that are clearly within the major power's sphere of influence.  Even Russian involvement in the Georgia was limited to the recognition of and active military support to the separatist governments, and their actions in Crimea, while it could go either way, is still limited to the autonomous republic itself as far as I know in spite of the more general situation east of the Dnieper River.  Regional wars will still remain a thing, but will be highly unlikely to escalate into any sort of world war.  Any sort of "total war" that would result in a threat to the survival of any nuclear power would necessitate a nuclear launch, a situation that no rational player, and very few irrational players would desire. 

But that's no fun for a thread predicated on the destruction of the world. ^_^

[Arcvasti]

As far as WW3 goes, the last two world wars started when there were a ton of countries with allies and then something got the two big alliances fighting and involving everyone. I don't think that Russia has enough allies to get that sort of world war going. Also, Russia's government isn't exactly the most popular with other nations right now, so if they take Ukraine or some other nation, they might get ostracized. Putin might not want to risk that. I'm not seeing any world wars happening from this Ukraine debacle. Definitely some bloody fighting and maybe a few European nations getting involved. But not a big world war like the last two. If Russia had a NATO-size group of nations backing them up, then I would be more concerned about the possibility of a third World War. As it is, a lot of your assumptions rely on the first point:1) Russia and China ally bringing along North Korea. If that were to happen, then there would definitely be a large-scale war. I don't find that too likely, unless Putin is being a lot more chummy with those countries then I thought he was. Most of your logic afterwards is decently sound IMHO. And if worse comes to worse, I doubt anyone will be in a hurry to nuke poor sweet peaceful Canada. My 2(Judging by the amount of text I wrote, 5 might be more accurate) cents on the subject.

[ibot66]

China probably will ride this out and see which way it goes first. If Russia comes out top, attack US allies. If America comes out top, attack Siberia using the claim that the Chinese speaking people's there are threatened by the Russians.

[Bouchart]

If anything China would invade Taiwan.

[Cheedows]

I doubt anyone will be in a hurry to nuke poor sweet peaceful Canada.

That is all that matters. Jokingly aside, I really don't see a world war sprouting from this, because the most likely course of action is a proxy war. The western and eastern bloc alliances aren't as strongly connected anymore, and there just isn't enough direct tension between world superpowers to prompt the usage of nukes. The world is at a stalemate currently, Russia really has no reason to go beyond a proxy war.   

[My Name is Immaterial]

* My Name is Immaterial gets a bowl of popcorn and finds a comfortable chair to watch the discussion.

[mainiac]

My confident prediction: less then 100k dead.

My pretty confident prediction: less then 100 dead (ignoring the 80 dead protesters before now).

China isn't a hungry imperialist country looking for a fight like Italy or Japan were when Hitler brought them around for the ride.  They're not going to jump in the fight because they aren't the boogeymen the right wing paints them to be.  Even if this came to fighting, neither Putin nor the West is going to start nuking people over the fate of eastern Ukraine.

Just because it's vaguely plausible for two countries to end up in a major war doesn't mean it's probable.

[FearfulJesuit]

We'll see how Putin reacts in the next few weeks. Putin is a very odd duck, because he's very likely one of the most levelheaded and intelligent leaders in the world right now, and competent evil is in many ways scarier than chaotic and stupid evil- remember the Second World War, when the British high command eventually stopped making attempts on Hitler's life because he'd be replaced with somebody who knew what they were doing. However, it also probably means he'll be more responsive to negotiation.

I'm kind of wondering why the Russians didn't just push for a plebiscite in Crimea...the thing is, Crimea really is part of Russia; Crimeans mostly speak Russian and didn't become part of the Ukraine until 1954, when Krushchev promised it to the Ukrainian delegates in exchange for their votes to put him in power. Heck, more Russians think Crimea is part of Russia than think Chechnya is. Mostly, I think, plebiscite doesn't get the testosterone pumping.

I don't think we're going to end up in World War III over this. I do think it's very possible we'll end up in Cold War II.

[Remuthra]

I say Switzerland is going to conquer everyone. Did you ever consider that everybody in Switzerland is a trained soldier, or that the treaty forbidding us all from building our superweapon caches was created in Geneva, Switzerland, or that Swiss banks hold much of the worlds valuables, or that the Swiss are famed for their security and discretion? They've probably got hidden mountain silos full of deadly bioweapons and nukes which they're just waiting for the right moment to use on anyone who tries to challenge the Swiss Empire! Nobody even bothers to inspect them, because they've been pretending to be all neutral for two hundred years!

[Propman]

It turns out that nukes are not in fact the extinction-causing artifacts of doom they've been hyped up to be* (to everybody's partial disappointment), and in the aftermath of nuclear warfare, humanity rebuilds after losing a sizable chunk of itself in the fighting, though now the quality of the world is much worse off then before, and large chunks of land are now economically nonviable to live on, and would be for generations. As for war though, well, war, war never changes...

This assumes any nuclear war, of course, not taking into account that what is happening now might or might not actually lead to a high-intensity conflict.

*Or, that everyone at least has enough sense not to launch enough nukes to make Earth completely uninhabitable. That's a thing that can be calculated, right?

[darkrider2]

America deploys its Ion Cannon, sinking the crimea into the black sea. Russia uses its anti-satellite missiles to destroy the Ion Cannon.

The Plot of "gravity" then ensues.

[Cheedows]

I think people have to get over the fact that the Eastern Bloc don't have this super secret Comintern, they are fairly neutral towards each other and are not batshit insane looking for world domination. It's fairly obvious now world domination isn't going to be easy or worth it when nuclear arms come into play. You wouldn't want a hunk of land with badly radiated soil. Also, what goes around comes around, nuking the US will more or less affect yourself. 

[Flying Dice]

America deploys its Ion Cannon, sinking the crimea into the black sea. Russia uses its anti-satellite missiles to destroy the Ion Cannon.

The Plot of "gravity" then ensues.

Well damn, and here I was hoping you'd go for style points with C&C rather than topicality.