Why do people keep asking when World War 3 will happen?

Are you being sarcastic? It kind of sounds like it. The world being more globalized means that more countries will be involved should another world war should come. It will be much easier now than in WWII. The world is a lot smaller now.

Do you remember WWI was called "the war to end all wars"?

Since when did the illegality of something stop criminals or madmen? Did you know that it was "illegal" by international law and treaty for Germany to build up an army after the First World War? Guess what? It happened and no one but Winston Churchill in England cared. I don't see very many people in our government care about doing what it takes to stop terrorism or win the war in Afghanistan. We have the power, but we will not use it because of politics.

We had another "Pearl Harbor" over eight years ago - remember 9/11?

I tend to agree that there will never be another world war for most of the reasons you listed. There will of course, be smaller wars, as there are in several places in the world at the moment. Terrorism is of course a threat, but the worldwide war on terror as it has been called is not really a war in the sense that people mean when they discuss a third world war. I do think that it is only a matter of time though, before a terrorist or some unfriendly nation releases a killer bio weapon. Something on the older of smallpox, but maybe juiced up a little. Surely a couple of fairly mediocre bio-scientists with an average lab could put together an effective strain sometime in the next 20 or so years. That to me is the more likely scenario and the scarier one. I would rather deal with the Wermacht or Soviet Hordes pouring threw the Fulda gap than a killer germ.

I hope you're right, there won't be a WW III and I tend to kind of agree with you, but you never can tell.

Nobody can be sure today that a crazy dictator, like the ones in North Korea or Iran would not use a nuke if they got their hands on one. MAD worked with the US and Soviet Union, hopefully 2 relatively sane countries through the cold war. And a nuclear strike by Iran or North Korea would probably end with their destruction, not the world's. But still, you can't rule out the possibility completely.

No Blitz type bombing probably won't occur, but 'surgical' strikes can do an awful lot of damage. And don't think it could not come back if some world leader thought it would work for their advantage.

I think wars like Iraq and Afghanistan will be the future, not WW III, but in the beginning of 2000 I predicted we would not be getting into wars in this century, little did I know. Don't count on me for predictions.

I wish everything you said was true. The problem is things can happen, tensions rise, and a spark ignites it. Once a nation goes to war, those 'rules' like ariel bombardment, or carpet bombing are thrown out the window if it will help your country win.

Right now, the biggest deterrent to a global war, is MAD (mutually assured destruction by nuclear weapons), not any rule by the UN, or trade agreement, or a globally linked economy.

Noone can predict the future. Hopefully, World War 3 will not occur at all.

For a long time, one potential scenario for a trigger of a nuclear war is North Korea, but they seem to be alienating their own allies at this point, so most likely any potential future conflict would not escalate to a World War level.

One thing that is helping prevent World War is the US deployment of the anti-missile missile defense system. Yes, the program originally nicknamed "Star Wars" that Ronald Reagan originally proposed, for which the Democrats made fun of him. We are fortunate that he was forward-thinking on that matter. Prior to this technology, one rogue nation could trigger a chain of events with a missile launch that could potentially escalate to World War. It would be nice if eventually ICBMs would be rendered obsolete globally by missile defense technology

What makes you think the UN is going to be around forever? The world economy will probably fail sometime sooner than you think. And when and if that happens, well just remember what happened when the Nazi party rose in Germany before WWII. Then Nazis came into power in a time when the German economy was in shambles after WWI, then began a world war.

How do you know we're not in a WWIII? I mean, this could be like the 'Cold War' sort of incident.

Perhaps it is just a war the U.S. has to deal with; Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

we're probably going to have one of those wars where we don't really confront a country [North Korea, Russia, and Iran].

but i believe that WWI wasn't really a world war... it should've been noted as 'The European War of 1914' or something like that.

Although Mao said that democracy comes out the end of a gun barrel, there are many more ways of subjugating a country now than old fashioned warfare. Eventually, the US will be taken over by China, to whom it currently owes billions of bucks. And not a shot fired.

Countries like North Korea, Cuba, and Iraq all have nuclear weapons and are not on really good terms with the world. With bomb threats, stocks plummeting, and crime on the rise it looks like before WWII where democracies were failing.

Though WWIII isn't for sure it does seem that it may come.

Lets hope not

ah but what about civil war? others tout that resources are drying up,and almost everyone lives in fear , telling them to stop doesn't help,the only thing one can do is think, learn,listen and prepare,and if they don't those who live off the fears won't be out of a job.