So the US, Israel, and Germany have been directly involved in this conflict thus far.
Russia is currently in a war with Ukraine as we know, and has announced their support of Iran. North Korea has been sending troops to this conflict. US and much of western Europe is already involved in some way.
China has been reported sending some kind of undisclosed aid to Iran already.
Currently unrelated but Pakistan and India just had a border skirmish. Pakistan does border Iran.
There’s a lot of instability and World Wars worth of countries involved already. It truly wouldn’t take much to start connecting some of these conflicts. If that happens it gets much bigger
General instability does not make a world war. It takes quite a lot of deliberate effort for that to happen. Undisclosed aid to Iran means nothing, and Pakistan India border skirmishes are unrelated to Iran.
The most likely scenario I could see is if the US gets bogged down in a drawn out war with Iran, and other powers, China specifically, exploits that situation to do their own expanding. It helps that the US has never been weaker, and that its leadership is easily exploitable of course. Although it is also unpredictable.
The US already moved multiple ships from East Asia to facilitate the attacks on Iran. If Iran responds by retaliating against US based in the region, the US will probably commit large amounts of forces and get itself into another Iraq/Afghanistan style situation.
This removes US forces and restocking capabilities from East Asia. Now China can expand itself in that region, which the US had thought to contain by its military presence.
The US has been trying to “pivot” out of West Asia into East Asia for over a decade now. This also explains Israels attacks on Iran now in an attempt to force the US to maintain focused on the region. Think of it like the older child throwing tantrums when their younger sibling is getting more attention.
This is serious, but I’m not seeing how this is the beginning of WWIII. China attacking Taiwan could be that, but this really isn’t.
So the US, Israel, and Germany have been directly involved in this conflict thus far.
Russia is currently in a war with Ukraine as we know, and has announced their support of Iran. North Korea has been sending troops to this conflict. US and much of western Europe is already involved in some way.
China has been reported sending some kind of undisclosed aid to Iran already.
Currently unrelated but Pakistan and India just had a border skirmish. Pakistan does border Iran.
There’s a lot of instability and World Wars worth of countries involved already. It truly wouldn’t take much to start connecting some of these conflicts. If that happens it gets much bigger
General instability does not make a world war. It takes quite a lot of deliberate effort for that to happen. Undisclosed aid to Iran means nothing, and Pakistan India border skirmishes are unrelated to Iran.
The most likely scenario I could see is if the US gets bogged down in a drawn out war with Iran, and other powers, China specifically, exploits that situation to do their own expanding. It helps that the US has never been weaker, and that its leadership is easily exploitable of course. Although it is also unpredictable.
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Well guess what the US bombing Iran makes more likely.
How?
There is three major “theaters” right now:
The US already moved multiple ships from East Asia to facilitate the attacks on Iran. If Iran responds by retaliating against US based in the region, the US will probably commit large amounts of forces and get itself into another Iraq/Afghanistan style situation.
This removes US forces and restocking capabilities from East Asia. Now China can expand itself in that region, which the US had thought to contain by its military presence.
The US has been trying to “pivot” out of West Asia into East Asia for over a decade now. This also explains Israels attacks on Iran now in an attempt to force the US to maintain focused on the region. Think of it like the older child throwing tantrums when their younger sibling is getting more attention.