this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026
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None whatsoever. There's just a certain kind of internet denizen that has now decided that every war is World War 3, without exception.
War is bad. All wars are bad. Even when countries enter wars for good reasons, there's still nothing good about the war itself. You don't need some ridiculous fantasy about a regional conflict spiralling into a global one to justify why you think war is bad.
It, frankly, suggests a serious lack of concern for the lives of the people actually living in those regions affected directly by this. If the only reason they can seem think of as to why a war sucks is because it might eventually affect them directly, that seems like a pretty selfish worldview.
It really depends on how far it spreads. Remember that WW1 ans WW2 didn’t have all countries jumping in at the same time, and for a while people thought those were also isolated until it grew.
Problem is now, people want immediate definitions and are just waiting for the shoe to drop to say “see, we were right!” Could this be the start? Possibly. Could it just be another isolated skirmish? Also possibly. Time is the only true constant here.
WW1 and WW2 weren't accidents. They didn't just happen because woopsie someone killed an arch-duke oh well. Those wars were going to happen sooner or later. The question wasn't "Will a world war happen as a result of this spark?", it was "Will this be the specific spark that starts the almost inevitable world war?" Anyone who was paying attention could see that the conditions were in place. We have contemporaneous accounts of people ringing alarm bells. During the signing of the Treaty of Versailles people were saying "This is going to lead to another world war in twenty years."
The idea that any random conflict can spiral into world war is nonsense.
And you don’t believe this one will? Israel is attempting to push further in Jordan, China is just biding its time until the US is stretched thin and then is going for Taiwan. Russia is still fucking up in Ukraine.
By themselves, they can all just be considered local skirmishes, but at the point they intersect (such as China invading Taiwan) then it will most likely spiral and escalate.
But ultimately, what do we know. We’re both just armchair pundits with different opinions. Without a look into the inner machinations of global powers, it’s all just guessing.
I don't believe this will turn into a world war, because I've seen zero compelling evidence that it will. And I gotta point out that you're not offering any here either.
Could China take advantage of this situation to make a move on Taiwan? Maybe. But I don't really see how this meaningfully impacts the US posture in the South Pacific. Unless it actually starts drawing away resources to the point where there's a real opening, it's not actually going to change the math for China.
Russia is, as you've pointed out, already tied up in Ukraine. They've made no indication that they intend to meaningfully back up Iran in this conflict, and there's no reason to expect that position to change now. At best they'll funnel weapons and money to them like they did with North Korea and North Vietnam.
I think there's absolutely the possibility for this conflict in the Middle East to sweep up more regional powers. That's absolutely a justified concern. But again, that's not a world war, and there's no clear cause and effect that would turn it into one.
Within 4 weeks, the US will siege one of Iran's islands in the Gulf. They'll use that to control the flow of oil to Asia and Europe. This will cause a depression that the US will ride by printing dollars in exchange for letting oil through.
With that stranglehold, they'll move on to Malacca and Nigeria within 5 years, in an attempt to corner the oil market and make the world fully subservient.
This might not cause a World War. But it should, and I think the odds are dire.
Exciting stuff. When does your first novel come out?