World War III?

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Russian troops take over Ukraine’s Crimea region as Putin gets approval to use military

Maybe,
"They" generally engineer a world war when the financial systems a bit shaky.

I very much doubt it. Ukraine has lots of old ties with the soviet union so nobody (USA / NATO / UN) are going to go against Russia militarily. There will be some sabre rattling and that's all. WWIII is more likely to occur over an unstable regime such as North Korea lobbing nukes at (anybody) or Iran and Israel getting into a nuclear punch-up and neither of those are imminent.

I feel the US would feel resentful too if Russia started acting as a world policeman and told the US military to not take certain actions I think Russia has every right to militarily intervene if their national interests are threatened just as the US would if they felt their national interests were at stake.

Western Ukraine wants to join the EU. Eastern Ukraine is allied with Russia. They are a country divided and it will be interesting to see how they turn out. Hopefully the west will stay out and there won't be further bloodshed.

I'm not sure I see it happening, but it's not a crazy idea. I read recently that before WWI there was reports that suggested a significant war wasn't possible due to the interconnected markets, but people were wrong. Now there has been unrest for a while for the UK and US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, civil war in North Africa and now a big Europe/Russia split in Ukraine. Throw in unstable countries like North Korea, Venezuela and Sudan and it all gets very interesting.

The one thing with thinking about is if there was a world war, how similar would it be to past conflicts? There are a lot less deaths in war these days and with being in a computer/digital age, there will be different methods and different shifts of what power means, so what would a global conflict look like now? Even more scarier than that is what would be required to win it? How far will someone go and what power will they have at their disposal? I think there is to much monitoring these days to allow a serious threat to manifest itself, but it's possible and if we all choose to be ignorant to the possible that is what will allow this to happen, hopefully if it's on people's minds we can get through times like this without unleashing any of the possible horrors that man is capable of.

I knew the world was going to come to an end, sooner or later.

There will be a WWIII one day. Humans can't learn from history, and the further in the past WWII was, the more it is forgotten.

The EU is an unaccountable dictatorship. I can see a day when they squeeze their people too much and civil unrest breaks out.

The Middle East is driven by a mad idealogical religious faction. I'm surprised those wars haven't spilled out already.

North Korea is an isolated island. If they attempt anything they'll cease to exist. China is using their association with NK for political leverage. I don't believe China would go to war over NK. Nk gives them nothing and no advantage.

Russia is a wild card. They have always sought expansion of their borders. I can't see anything happening in the short term, but if the EU ever collapses Russia would take full advantage of that.

There's no way you would recruit enough egoists to make a world war viable.

Russia's "incredible act of aggression" amounts to "a stunning willful choice" by Putin to invade another country on a "trumped-up pretext," Kerry said

Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Yugoslavia, now some four or six countries.

That was the EU and NATO, and The Great Powers, League of Nations, and the US paper tiger, all agreeing.

When the citizens of a country are divided by language, culture, historic ties, they can break apart.

In Yugoslavia, NATO attacked the Serbians, for trying tio keep Yugoslavia one country.

The citizens of the east and south will vote a majority to break from Kiev and the west.

They can form their own country, the one with the industry, gas, and Russian lease payments for the Navel Base.

The West, can pay their $5 Billion in back gas payments, and pay twice as much for future gas.

The West it seems have declared war on Russia. That is grounds to cut off all supplies coming from Russia, which is just about everything they have.

Recent reports say the National Reserves were found to be missing, when they went to loot them.

The IMF is expecting a big payment in April.

They cannot pay government workers, or the army, buy anything, or pay their debts.

Their arms are old and marked CCCP. Russia will not sell them ammo on credit.

They are demanding $100,000,000 a day from the EU, US, IMF, for several years, and they are going to default on their Soverign Debt, so twice $35 Billion.

Add a war with Russia on top of that.

The NATO countries of Europe all import their gas from Russia. They also pay in goods, so it is a large part of their economy.

When Georgia used force on some provinces, met Russian resistance, their NATO application was denied.

Ukraine is not part of Europe, EU, or NATO. Some did want closer ties with the EU, some with Russia, and some with China. Perhaps China will send an army to fight Russia.

All of the people born before 1993 have CCCP on their birth cirtificates. They could get Russian passports.

So could their children.

If the East and South want to form their own country, they can, and if they want to join Russia, they can.

Russia has not invaded them, they have taken measures to keep the south and east from being invaded by the non government of Kiev. They have not formed a government, held elections, a street mob took over.

The south and east do have elected governments that have renounced the new mob in Kiev. They chose to fly the Russian flag.

They can also renounce all the National Debt.

Western Ukraine is poor, rural, a welfare state, that lived off of taxing the industrial south and east.

They are now Europe's problem. That is if they can survive being themselves.

They do not have the money to continue payrolls and pensions, they are out of gas.

The situation in Ukraine and the Crimea is so hellishly complicated that the best thing the West can do is stand back and let the local population work it out for themselves. Here's a rough summary:

1) The majority population in Crimea are Russian but not all support Russia

2) In the 1960's Crimea was given to Ukraine by international treaty.

3) Russia maintains a massive naval base in Crimea where the Black Sea Fleet are based. This base is rented from Ukraine and paid for by giving Ukraine a 30% discount on their natural gas supplies.

4) Russian forces are allowed overland access to the naval base but ONLY under strict control of Ukrainian forces. As of a couple of days ago this agreement has been torn up.

5) Currently Russian forces are surrounding a Ukrainian military base that contains a regiment of Ukrainian Special Forces.

6) Ukraine is bankrupt, they owe various countries billions of USD and a lot of this debt is due in the next six weeks. Russia was going to lend them 15 Billion USD but now that the Ukrainian population have removed their president (who is friends with Putin) this will probably not take place.

World War III? No. But the whole situation is very VERY unstable and I cannot predict the outcome.

Not to worry about war. Obama should go to Moscow to talk to Putin and get from him a promise that he has no more territorial demands to make in the Ukraine.

Thus, there will be peace in our time.

ruveyn

Saying WW3 would break out from clashes would be pre-emptively making it sound worse.