World War 3 anyone?

How many countries need to be involved for it to be a world war.

I've been taking a look at whose in Syria, not an east task, but here goes (this is just a list it does not include what they are doing, some are there militarily, some providing finances to one side or the other, others arms or fuel, but everyone listed is involved)-

Russia

United States of America

United Kingdom

France

Iran

Lebanese Hezbollah

Venezuela

North Korea

Iraq

Lebannon

Qutar

Jordan

Saudi Arabia

Croatia

Turkey

Kurds

(Non-state groups)

Kosovo Liberation Army

Free Iraqi Army

IS

(Multi-country organisations)

Arab League

NATO

I'm sure I've missed a few out, but that rather worrying already.

And today NATO has upped its wording against Russia- but more than that its upping its military presence against Russia in Europe, with the UK among others moving troops to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. NATO is also moving more ships to the Middle East where Russia is already building up a naval fleet, and NATO is also promising to boost response forces to be able to deploy troops speedily. Small numbers at the moment but it seems to being showing a worrying line of travel.

Didn't the last 2 WW start when everyone got dragged in because of treaty obligations?

You need to have lots of countries (including great powers on both sides) fighting each other for it to count as a world war.  So far Syria has been a proxy war, and that might become even more so with Russia's increased involvement.  It plays a role in the increased posturing and maneuvering around each other from Russia and NATO but there's still a long way to go from that to "new Cold War", much less World War III.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Didn't the last 2 WW start when everyone got dragged in because of treaty obligations?

The interlocking treaty system is generally blamed for WWI, yes, but it's worth noting that those treaties only applied if one of the countries involved was the victim of an aggressive war. The bigger problem was that everyone wanted to fight each other. More countries could have taken the Italian path and been like "no guys, you started this fight, we're not getting involved" without violating their treaty obligations, but most countries didn't want to do that.

Treaty obligations played a role in WWII as well with Britain and France drawing a line in the sand around Polish sovereingty (not that they actually did defend Poland, and it's arguable it was impossible for them to have at that stage), but the bigger issue was that Hitler was obviously not going to stop and a war would have to be fought at some point, and eventually enough people realized this.

Glad you feel so confident ? Mighty oaks from little acorns, grow. I can never feel settled resting on me laurels things have a habit of sneaking up

The Syrian Civil War is the deadliest conflict in the world today and it's undeniably a very serious issue with humanitarian consequences that reach across much of the world. But I think we should try to understand it in context.

Russia has no interest in fighting the West. its only concerns are satellite countries next door, or propping up an ally, Assad. Russia has no interest pissing off the US, and its certainly not ideological differences which motivate Putin. He is an old fashioned land grabber. As long as the US and Putin keep it cool, things wont run out of hand. but yeah I agree, and I said this ages ago, we are in the 3WW, theres no doubt, only we don't recognise it, because its non conventional at the moment. but the mass exodus is no different from 2WW. only the Nazis wouldn't have dreamed of bombing Palmira. at least they loved art, stolen or not.

Its not that I think Eldo we are in WW3, I am slightly concerned however all the pieces are being prompted into places that might lead to the escalation to one.

How long until someone 'accidently' hits someone else? What if its Russian on US or vice versa?

Previous WW wars involved treaties coming into play (as you correctly point out more so 1 than 2 but still present in both to some influencing degree) the same is true here.
WW1 started in a part of the world no one even suspected would cause an escalation the way it did and began as internal strife, rebels versus government (Black Hand Gang and Young Bosnia versus the Archiduke of Austro-Hungary) and here we have a country with a civil war and the rebels against Assad.
In both wars you had power nation on either begin to move or build up military forces in key locations in Europe and in WW2 the middle east- same goes here with NATO planning troop movements in both locations and Russia already deployed along its own borders and in Ukraine as well as Syria.

Now these are not exact copies- time changes, the players change, the motives change- but there is enough going on around Syria, and enough countries getting drawn into it that the chances of someone, somewhere , doing something very stupid multiply.

Here is where I put on my rose tinted glasses.
No one wants a war, no one wants to hear bombs fall, people screaming, the smell of burning flesh & blood stained streets, or sit there worried to puking that your son or daughter didnt make it so, as sensible human beings ( & we should be by now ?? ) we should all make sure this doesnt fooking happen !!! There's one defining factor in this.................... human mentality, human nature............."man" is a warm blooded war machine, everything from road rage to animal cruelty to painful conflict. I want peace, 1000's want peace, just a handful want hate.

Nope, won't be WW3. It's barely even the cold war just, or even a proxy war in which superpowers use other countries to aim at each other. Russia's not trying to get us any more than we are trying to get Russia. So I'm not buying any of it.

The Cold War was straightforward compared to this- clean lines in both who the enemy was and where the physical lines were drawn on the map.

What's happening in Syria is a mess, and bad things can easily happenin a mess.

I mean look at the West's position(s)- first we were going to back the anti-Assad folks, now most of them are the people we are supposed to be fighting in IS and it looks like at least temporarily we are going to be keeping Assad in power (because we cant do anything about it now Russia is backing him right there on the ground without confronting Russia directly) and we don't seem to know which of the rebels we should be backing, and the same rebels we are backing are among those the Russians are bombing to defend Assad.
And that's the bit that really worries me- at some point either the West stops backing these groups and leaves them to the Russian sword, or it puts itself in defence of theses groups and in direct conflict with Russian interests in the area. Which much like Ukraine contains a very important naval base of theirs.

And no matter who does what now all sides have shipped so much arms into the area and surrounding countries recently that just about every local gang is tooled up with the latest gear let alone the official armed groups.

I think Dave nailed the crucial point. The fact is that none of the superpowers want to fight. In WW1 everyone was itching to throw their weight around. In WW2 the countries in Germany's way had to fight, as did the ones in Japan's way. Nobody really cares deeply about Syria - sort of half heartedly throwing in equipment and backup, hoping it will all be taken care of by the primary players if they just get a little help. Putin is being more involved than anyone except Iran, but he's not busy drawing lines in the sand and daring others to cross them.

I don't think they want a fight either.
My worry is that in this mess things will go awry, and potentially badly so and what people want and what they get is not the same thing.
We wanted a stable, free, democratic Iraq- we got a country wide meltdown. And there was 1 superpower fucking about in there, not two.

I think it's interesting the Putin has repeatedly backed away from superpower language and rhetoric. He's speaking much more to his core base of Russian nationalism. He's trying to rebuild a sphere of influence rather than defend an existing sphere. It's still a dangerous game but it's a lot less charged than a 2 superpower game, and Putin is a pragmatic gamesman, so I think there's a bit of time before we need to start running for the bomb shelters.

Looks like I've got my answer to the question of if the West would abandon the rebels (rememebr they are the good guys wanting to overthrow a dictator for democracy) or back them and go against Russian interests-

'The U.S. is going to suspend its faltering Syrian rebel training program, U.S. officials said Friday.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter said during a news conference in London that the U.S. "remains committed" to training forces in Syria against ISIS, but is looking for ways to "improve" the program.'- CNN

So leave the good guys to get bombed to bits along with ISIS by the Russians, leaving Assad on the throne and hugely indebted for being so to the Russians.

yeah Putin is an opportunistic imperialist but he ain't mad. he seems relatively sane and pragmatic for a despot. He is bestie mates with Berlusconi, he isn't going to risk free holidays in Capri.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Its not that I think Eldo we are in WW3, I am slightly concerned however all the pieces are being prompted into places that might lead to the escalation to one.

How long until someone 'accidently' hits someone else? What if its Russian on US or vice versa?

Well if Chris Christie somehow wins the Presidency (spoiler warning: he won't) we might not have to wonder about accidents, since he wants to deliberately shoot down Russian planes.

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/10/12/calling-obama-a-weakling-chris-christie-says-he-would-shoot-down-russian-planes-over-syria/

Anyway, idiotic and/or pandering jingoistic blowhards on both sides notwithstanding, the lack of desire to fight is more important than I think you give it credit for. Look at your WWI example. Yes, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand was the spark that led to the war, but such an assassination did not make war inevitable. If the Austro-Hungarians hadn't been spoiling for a fight and giving deliberately unacceptable ultimatums, and if Germany, Russia, and others hadn't been itching to jump in as well, the war wouldn't have happened.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Looks like I've got my answer to the question of if the West would abandon the rebels (rememebr they are the good guys wanting to overthrow a dictator for democracy) or back them and go against Russian interests-

'The U.S. is going to suspend its faltering Syrian rebel training program, U.S. officials said Friday.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter said during a news conference in London that the U.S. "remains committed" to training forces in Syria against ISIS, but is looking for ways to "improve" the program.'- CNN

So leave the good guys to get bombed to bits along with ISIS by the Russians, leaving Assad on the throne and hugely indebted for being so to the Russians.

It's been years since the "good guys" you speak of have existed in a meaningful way anywhere but in the minds of pro-intervention Western politicians. All of the significant Sunni armed groups are Islamist to varying degrees. The Kurds are different, most of their militant/rebel groups are a weird mix of Marxist-Leninists and libertarian socialists, with the former being previously dominant and the latter gaining increasing ground. But the US won't give meaningful support to the Syrian Kurds because they want to stay friendly with Turkey.

Strong views.