The public's sentiment is largely characterized by anxiety and skepticism towards the threat of global conflict, especially in the context of Middle East tensions. While there is a strong desire for peace and diplomatic solutions, many express deep concerns about the potential for escalation into war, often referencing historical precedents and fearing the consequences of nuclear conflict. Humor and memes sometimes serve as coping mechanisms, indicating a blend of seriousness and resignation in the face of potential war.

Governments worldwide

NATO

Influential Leaders

Nukes and everyone making mistakes. Basically no one wants to use nukes and will only do it if the other side is about to do it. And the other side won't launch nukes unless they think the other side is gonna launch first, so they better launch first.

Abamboozler

Can definitely thank global trade agreements for minimizing the risks for a regional war to erupt. Most countries have huge economic incentives to not disrupt trade. For a small example, both Iran and Israel seems to have damaged each other's petroleum productions in this latest flairup. That's probably a few billion in loss for both both in lost production and in highly specialized equipment. Almost all countries in the area rely on the global community on the whole for major trade - oil, food, etc... Which means they all have an economic incentive to not get involved while seeing Iran as an instigator and disruptor of peace.

That's different than, say, Ukraine - where Russia's encroachment puts other countries in the area at greater risk as they disregard treaties and agreements. Which is why more countries are willing to get involved, but unfortunately only to a point.

Biking_dude

Greater than zero, but less than one percent.

AmicoPrime

0% from this specific incident many more things would need to happen.

Traditional_Rice264

bmiller201

Very low. The Ukraine/Russia conflict would be the starter.

Orangeshowergal

Zero. These acts of war in the middle east would unlikely escalate to other parts of the world. However countries in Europe could see a rise in isolated terrorist attacks, which will only contribute to a rise in a change of attitudes towards immigration, integration and ethnic minorities. We can see flashes of this happening in England, France, Italy, Germany, Austria to name a few.

Sindy51

same as all the other time some one attack israel or Israel attacked someone

Anonymous_Koala1

Low. China and India would need to be involved, and they have no desire for that. Everyone else is a tiny player. Even if the US joined in.

RickKassidy

Low.

World wars need participation of the US, Russia, China and India, at least 3 of the 4, to be considered a world war.

In Israel-Iran conflict, at best US can be pulled in.

Russia will make noises, but does not have the capacity, while dealing with Ukraine.

India is too busy with its own rise, and tries to be on good terms with everybody, but perhaps China.

China seems to prefer attrition as a method of war than confrontation. But if US is sucked in and it deems that is a good opportunity take Taiwian, then the domino effect will start.

Japan, Australia, SK will get pulled in, Indian border will heat up, some Pakistani army hothead might pull a stunt

The key is China. Its invasion of Taiwan has the most potential to cause a world war.

But otherwise most conflicts will be regional and contained

[deleted]

I think the odds of ww3 is really small anyways because of the nuclear threat. There will be no winners. 
Only reason i see why we could get ww3 is because crazy evangelicals still make their judgement based on holy books. Some extremists are convinced that there will and must be armageddon. They are still waiting for they prophecies to come true.

***The only reason why nukes and WW3 comes up with regularity on social media is because it benefits Russia if a significant number of voters in the west are dumb enough to buy into that rhetoric.***

Besides the fact that many of the kids of the Muscovian elite work &amp; study in the west, Russias allies have told Putin to shut up about nukes. There's scant evidence Moscow has even kept up with the very expensive maintenance requirements of their nukes. That's not to mention that there is no actual upside to using nukes for Moscow on the battlefield anyway.

BitBouquet

About 96.7%. Coincidentally, it's the same percentage as the numbers I just pulled out of my ass

ohhfasho

Close to negligible.


WW1 really only happened because of a complex web of secret alliances that all got triggered by a single (mostly minor) event. 


WW2 happened (mostly) because the victors in WW1 put extraordinarily punishing reparations in the losers in WW1.


We don't have any remotely like that now. 


That isn't to say that some unknown and unforeseen event couldn't still trigger WW3, but if it happens it will be because of something no one expected.

AfraidSoup2467

1KinGuy

Greedy-County-8437

You guys are very optimistic. Let’s hope you are right.

I don’t think you guys understand the chinese plan.

Otherwise_Access_660

Definitely low but it's another domino on the track.

Although it's reasonably likely Israel is going to make Iran regret this and if it escalates America will quite likely join in.

TheCommomPleb

With two other points of potential hostility being much bigger with a nation that is pushing buttons a lot faster in both, not going to happen, either Ukraine or Taiwan will blow up into a world War starter before the Israel/Hamas conflict has a chance.

Alex20114

For a world war to start the big powers have to clash. US and Europe are on the same side. China has no interest on this conflict. Russia can't even take over Ukraine and they're not that personally invested in this Iran's conflict either.

EdliA

It's ongoing.  Xi / Putin / Kim / Khamenei need multiple fronts to maintain their security.

Jubjars

We could only hope, the US could use the ramp up in production. 

Zloiche1

Background-Law-6451

Numerous_Ticket_7628

Ask one of the other hundred threads asking if WW3 just started. Because Reddit certainly has the answer.

SunBlindFool

big chance now. This could be the spark just like how world war 2 had its spark

FoundationOpening513

WW3 has been an ongoing thing since No-limits partnerships were declared and Russia marched in Ukraine.

These are just new fronts involving Russia's allies.

Iran and the Middle East’s current resistance of Israel does not have the support needed to ignite a world war UNLESS they got their hands on nuclear weapons. And with their ambitions, they have no chance at attracting the needed allies. Russia and Ukraine is a much different conflict in this regard.

Push comes to shove, Iran would be bulldozed and any world war is cancelled. The real scary thing is if China and Russia start taking advantage of all the attention in the Middle East.

DatDudeDrew

I really hope not.
After Iran targeted populated areas, buildings... I'm sure Israel would react. 

Medium_Prior4739

Don’t see it turning into WW3. Iraq planned the position of Iran decades ago. And Palestinian terror groups have been around in form or another for many decades.

Appropriate_Fly_6711

No, the bipolar frame is an illusion promoted by two forces: Russia’s nostalgia for superpower days, and gamers who want to see evenly matched players.

diffidentblockhead

I like Baudrillard's analysis that the cold war was WWIII. He claimed that we were already in WWIV twenty or thirty years ago.

I think it's fairer to say we entered a total war period in 1914 and never exited it.

While there are many conflicts right now, in terms of all our state vs state conflicts we've seen a dip. The conflicts that are going on are terrible. But I believe many nations find it in their best interest to not start conflicts with each other. Russia, China and the US know the stakes of conflict between them are far too high to justify anything. They are too reliant and benefit too much from each other to enter a conflict.

Kings_Guard18

It's possible. The Chinese are expanding their navy at an alarming rate while American naval procurement in the past 20 years has been troubled. They haven't caught up to America, but they also don't have globe spanning commitments spreading out their forces. The time when their confident in their ability to confront or deter American involvement in Taiwan may be close. It's likely to get a lot closer if America were to get bogged down in a flight with Iran. 

However, I don't think we can describe the authoritarian nations as aligned in an axis. The Chinese have been tepid (more then they claim but far less then their capable) in their support for Russia. Most think this is to avoid sanctions, but others have argued the Chinese want to see Russia weakened in a prolonged conflict. Additionally, Russia, China, Iran, ect, lack a formal alliance on the caliber of NATO. 

Lastly, the performance of the Russian military is likely to give pause to the Chinese. While less corrupt then Russia, China still has considerable problems, and has even less veteran units than Russia did at the start of Ukraine. Contrast this with Isreal, which drastically exceeded expectations in its confrontation with Hezbollah, and you have a potent warning for China.

kantmeout

100%  yes but we get nuclear weapons now.

Lanracie

I think the real risk of it would be if the regimes opposing US hegemony whose power is diminishing (Venezuela, Russia, Iran) started a war and changed the balance of power such that China joined in 5 years to capitalize on an unmissable opportunity to take Taiwan. If we are on the brink of a World War it’s going to be much more akin to WWI than WWII. 

But I think the calculus for both the US and China is complex and tilted strongly towards agonistic diplomatic relations without open warfare. Neither regime believes that it benefits from warfare with the other in the short term, or that a future war is both inevitable and inevitably lost.

Curious if others disagree about that last part. Seems like the US and China are content to play a game that China will slowly and peacefully win,  unless a country like Russia decides to flip the entire table it’s set upon.

iClaudius13

So 178 days later … Trump got us 📉 in the negative.  And everything I rapidly changing overnight. What are the chances of going to world war 3 now 🤔

anoogi69

I’m doubtful, for a variety of reasons. The only possible flashpoint where I could see something escalating to great power conflict would be in the hypothetical of Russian nuclear escalation in Ukraine, and I suspect strongly we won’t see that since the logic of using nuclear weapons deteriorates significantly if the nuclear strike isn’t your initial move in the conflict process. I have significant doubts that China has the capacity to effectively invade Taiwan during the window in which an invasion is considered viable, and none of the other conflicts to me pose significant risk of escalation beyond regional proxy war.

EmpiricalAnarchism

No.  Russia, China, and the US will never fight each other directly.  It shall and will always be fighting proxy wars or wars between a nuclear armed country and one that does not.  There is no scenario where a US/Russia/China direct fight would happen without nukes on the table.  

Today's conflicts in the middle east has been happening since the collapse of the ottoman empire.  We have been  directly fighting or supporting proxies in the middle east, some decades where the fighting is more fierce than others.  

Nuclear armed US will not fight directly against Nuclear armed China.  American proxies will fight China.  See nukes above.  

India/Pakistan/China are all nuclear armed countries with different agendas, different interests with different and complicated relations with Russia and the US.  See nukes above.

Post colonial Africa will continue to be unstable due from political turmoil, civil wars, economic hardships, ect.  One year the ruling faction favored by the french gets overthrown, the next year the faction favored by russia gets overthrown. 

Turkey is apart of NATO, that's not going to happen with Greece.  Armenia is not going to attack Turkey, See NATO above.  Syria is currently too weak to take recapture territories by turkey.

hansulu3

Perhaps, also consider the total humiliation of the Russian forces at the hands of a relatively weaker nation like Ukraine, no matter how much Russian state media would like to convince the world otherwise, has given China and other major world powers cold feet. Chinas military industrial complex is still highly linked with the Russians, and an invasion of Ukraine is, at least from a military analysis standpoint, a cake walk logistically compared to an invasion of Taiwan. The total collapse of the Russian armed forces have given the Chinese pause. Perhaps one day ww3 may rear its possible head again, but from the standpoint of the Chinese, their strongest allies have been nearly destroyed and humiliated by second world militaries, what hope do they have against nato and nato pacific allies

Clear-Ability2608

I think Pakistan has always been the least stable country with nukes but they and India have seemed to cool down with their conflicts recently so I doubt anything would start there. I think the best chance for a nuclear conflict (in the Middle East) is if Iran officially announces they have nuclear weapons, Israel in one way or another would not stand by and wait to see what happens.

Figgler

It *could*, but I'd say it's still a real longshot for now.

* It's an open secret at this point that Israel has them.
* Iran's breakout time is effectively zero, but that just means they have enough material for a bomb. As far as anybody knows, they haven't actually built a device, and even once they build something, they still have to test it and it'll be awhile before they have anything deliverable.
* And those are the only players with nuclear capability.

**So compared to other regions where two or more opponents already have deliverable weapons aimed at each other, like India/Pakistan, China/India, or Europe/Russia/USA... the probability seems lower.**

That said, things are heating up, Israel has an active incursion into Lebanon and they're striking targets in Beirut. They've already basically leveled Gaza. Iran's proxies are taking a beating.

* If Iran decides they have to do something about it and gets into a direct shooting war with Israel (and its allies), we could certainly see them start taking steps to build deliverable nukes.
   * Once Iran is definitely building/has nukes, one of about 3 things could happen:
      * Israel and Iran could settle back into a cold-war-esque MAD stalemate, with only proxy conflicts (Israel fighting constant proxy brushfires indefinitely).
      * They could keep fighting conventionally and play a game of "guess where the *real* red line is" until they either settle back to the stalemate above, or until somebody trips over a red line and the nukes fly.
      * Israel decides to pre-empt a nuclear-armed Iran by using strategic strikes to eliminate Iran's capacity for good.

I think there are a lot of factors deterring Israel from going with that last option, though.

* They'd piss off US leadership, and more importantly a big chunk of the US population, which is already a lot less enthusiastic about supporting Israel than in the past, making it exceedingly difficult for their biggest ally to continue supporting them.
* They'd infuriate/terrify the rest of their Arab neighbors, and who knows what would happen then.
* They'd become a pariah at the UN. Basically any country that wasn't already against them would be. Probably some more charges coming Bibi's way from the Hague, too, not that he's so much as batted an eye about those before.

Ippus_21

As long as nuclear weapons exist, the threat of nuclear war exists, including a regional war in the Middle East.  How likely is it?  At the moment, I would say it's higher than at this time last year, but still not as high as it currently is with Russia, in my opinion.

Pakistan and India have been fairly quiet of late, but the risk for nuclear war between them has always been higher than anywhere else (again, in my opinion) because the hatred for both sides goes beyond geopolitics and into theology and revenge.  They're perfectly happy being incinerated as long as they know the infidels are being incinerated along with them.

Iran is the wild card in the mix.  They are a "suspected" nuclear power, meaning a lot of analysts think they already have a functional nuclear weapon, but they wouldn't have as many as Israel and delivery for them is still tricky if they haven't achieved miniaturization for missiles.  Forget about Iran delivering them by plane; they'd never get anywhere near Israel before being shot down.  That being said, what if they much farther along than we suspect?  They also have no problem going up in a mushroom cloud if it means the destruction of Israel because of the religious bullshit.

Global tensions are increasing daily, and I think it's a matter of "when," not "if," we see a nuclear weapon used in combat.  Who crosses the threshold first and how far it escalates is anyone's guess.

RiffRaff028

Iran may not have a delivery system for a nuke, but I think it's naive to think they don't have a warhead or two stashed away over the years in dealings with other axis nations.

Also, the thing to consider, in my opinion, is

&gt; How do they go about killing more Jews 

They only have to get a warhead into a port or on the outskirts of a city to "kill more Jews."

What is the probability that Iran already secretly possesses nuclear weapons?

So there was actually a member of the Israeli government who suggested nuking Gaza at the start off all of this about a year ago. The question really you're asking is would they?

The answer to that is resolutely no. 

Iran does not have nuclear weapons, neither does Lebanon or any of the other states that Israel is currently in conflict with. As such any use of a nuclear weapon right now would be a fist strike attack by Israel, in doing so they would be breaking the "nuclear taboo". This would result in withdrawal of basically all their international allies, might even incur military intervention from former allies to remove the Israeli government responsible for the attack. Their western allies would simply not stand for it they know this so they're not going to resort to nukes. 

Nuclear war between India and Pakistan remains the most likely. It would be pretty devastating, looking at up to 2 billion dead, changes in global weather patters, global disruption of logistic and food supplies. Wouldn't be quite the extinction level event that a NATO/Russia/China exchange would have but it would be a disaster on a global scale. 

As for the last part of your question would it spread, hard to say without knowing the specifics or how other states would respond. It could but once those nukes start flying its really anyone's guess.

DarthKrataa

It already started in Eastern Europe in 2022. This is part of the same war. It is no coincidence that Iran started getting all the proxies spun up as soon as they joined BRICS. China and Taiwan will be next, 2026 orb2027. Perhaps India/Pakistan around the same time. Then NATO and the US will be fully pulled in and the "nuclear" part of the war will begin.

And, just for shits and giggles, let's not forget exactly how it started in *Threads.* That Iran/Russia stuff was used as a plot point specifically because of the liklihood of it happening that way.

And here we are.

Vegetaman916

Honestly, with Israel being a nuclear power with a desperate need to attack all of it’s neighbors it’s a very real possibility

Quigonjinn12

the more moderate Muslim countries were backing Trump's Abraham Accords - keeping Iran totally contained - keep Iran from funding the terrorist ORGs &gt;&gt;&gt; they know their future depends on it 

Israel will use their nukes as a last resort and if not successful in saving the country - the remainder nukes as a final solution for every single major population center in the Middle East &gt;&gt;&gt; no countries survive

IlliniWarrior1

The utter racism &amp; delusion in this thread about Muslim countries being the likely source of a nuclear attack in the Middle East

If you’ve watched what Israel’s done over the past year in Gaza &amp; now Lebanon, and not realize they’re most likely to use a nuke —in fact, trying to manufacture a pretext—then, you need to either get better educated, or check your Western chauvinism.

dank_tre

A random question but why does israel have such a strong backing of the US as the cold war is already open and why does us need israel it already has other basis in middle east. It should concentrate on china, middle east has been a sore thumb for the middle since quite some time now.

Puzzleheaded_Egg9589

Seems to be the most likely scenario for a nuke at this moment in time...

Iran established a government ministry to counter Mossad. Then it was revealed that the head of the dept was a Mossad agent and 20 other agents were Mossad. Let’s just say Iran does not have a chance against arguably the best military in the world. And they know it. That’s why they prefer to use proxies. “Let the Lebanese and Palestinians die rather than us”

It certainly can and if that happens, we all don't have much time left

lsherm22

lip psychotic sip flowery engine scary rinse oatmeal frighten vase

 *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev/home)*

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