World War III

Afghanistan and Iraq are occupations, not wars specifically. I'm mostly being contentious since you're not saying that with any scope of history.

A few million troops probably have to be involved from a dozen or so nations allying with different sides to be considered a world war.

 

Lode - future member of the White House PR dream team

 

You have a good point. But wars these days are fought more with information/misinformation than with weapons and troops.

Economies are where the real power lays. Idealisms are a close second. This is a much different age than the days of WWI and II

 

when push comes to shove, the real deciding factor will always come from the power of actual destruction of life

 

war will begin in the middle east this year

 

You would probably change your stance if the US and China started shelling it out over GHB laced toys. Economies cause wars, misinformation was as common during world war 2, and different cultures cause lack of understanding which undermines diplomacy.

 

Iraq = War
Afghanistan = Occupation

?

 

Terrorists=Freedom Fighters

Infidels=The Liberated

It all depends on which side of the board you're looking at it from. This is why I don't believe in reality.

 

Not quite. There are people in both Afghanistan and Iraq who seek to repel "foreign invaders"...because they believe they have come to rule.
You could deem them "freedom fighters" if they didn't also kill their fellow countrymen.
However, there are some terrorists in both places too.

Do you mean "liberators" = Infidels?

I prefer ""if you aren't with us your against us"

 

No, that's not what I meant. At all

 

What did you mean?

 

It's all perspective. A hundred people can look at the exact same thing and all call it something different.

Reality is based in human perception, which differs so drastically from person to person, that there is no 'reality' as most people see it. And if there is, what does it matter if it's not acknowledged, or misinterpreted by the masses?

Everything is just a swirling vortex of energy anyway. But I digress.

 

A couple of points...

A) We are out of oil... its all gone
B) All our trees fell down last night
C) Our mines are on the point of collapse...

Now that we got it straight that we have nothing america wants, we should be safe...

Now, is wwIII happening? Not even close... is it coming? I don't know, I thought for sure we were headed there during the russia thing a while back...

But to keep it in perspective...

WWI; over 100 countries involved... total troops involved: 65,038,810, total dead: 16.5 million

WWII; countries involved, all except a handful.. total troops:Unclear, at least 75 million total dead: 60 Million+

Keep in mind that these numbers arent 100% accurate... most sources disagree slightly in everything, but they are close... the total dead, includes civilians...

 

Ok. I understand your point. However I don't ultimately believe it holds true in your previous e.g...because there is definitely a consensus one way or another. The majority rules after all.

 

I was looking up the numbers and countries involved in the mid-east deal, but I can't find anything online that has all the numbers up to date.

Even if it's not here yet, this is building up to something.

 

Well, you have to keep in mind that the numbers are nothing right now (a couple of hundred thousand)... that really doesn't mean anything though, as the amount of damage one soldier can do, has been increased 100 fold or more since wwII...

But it wasn't quite the numbers of troops that I was pointing out... the last two world wars, were called such, because the whole world was involved in some way. Even most of the countries that werent actively involved, were helping out one side or the other in some fashion... The whole world was focused on the wars... hence... world wars...

Right now, there is nothing going on that holds that same 'drawing power'... although I'm not sure if this is because it isn't a global conflict or because of the changed nature of the world since wwII...

As for if we really were at the start of it, and the answer to your quesiton;

Look at the timeline for war declarations WWII;

After the German invasion of Poland
Poland: 1 September 1939
Australia: 3 September 1939
France: 3 September 1939
India: 3 September 1939
New Zealand: 3 September 1939
United Kingdom: 3 September 1939
South Africa: 6 September 1939
Canada: 10 September 1939
Denmark: 9 April 1940
Norway: 9 April 1940

After the Phony War
Belgium: 10 May 1940
Luxembourg: 10 May 1940
Netherlands: 10 May 1940
Egypt: 9 September 1940
Greece: 28 October 1940
Yugoslavia: 6 April 1941

After the invasion of the USSR
Soviet Union: 22 June 1941 (cooperated with Axis during Invasion of Poland)
Tannu Tuva: 25 June 1941 (annexed by Soviet Union in 1944)
Mongolia: 9 August 1941

After the attack on Pearl Harbor
Panama: 7 December 1941
Costa Rica: 8 December 1941
Dominican Republic: 8 December 1941
El Salvador: 8 December 1941
Haiti: 8 December 1941
Honduras: 8 December 1941
Nicaragua: 8 December 1941
United States of America: 8 December 1941
China: 9 December 1941 [28]
Guatemala: 9 December 1941
Cuba: 9 December 1941
Philippine Commonwealth: 9 December 1941
Czechoslovakia: 16 December 1941

After the Declaration by United Nations
Mexico: 22 May 1942
Brazil: 22 August 1942
Ethiopia: 14 December 1942
Iraq: 17 January 1943
Bolivia: 7 April 1943
Colombia: 26 July 1943
Iran: 9 September 1943
Liberia: 27 January 1944
Peru: 12 February 1944

After D-Day
Ecuador: 2 February 1945
Paraguay: 7 February 1945
Uruguay: 15 February 1945
Venezuela: 15 February 1945
Turkey: 23 February 1945
Lebanon: 27 February 1945
Syria: 27 February 1945
Saudi Arabia: 1 March 1945
Argentina: 27 March 1945
Chile: 11 April 1945

Each country tried to avoid accepting what was happening until they pretty much had no choice...

I don't think it will be much different the next time...

 

Panama joined world war two before we did because of Pearl Harbor eh? :biggrin:

 

I imagine that was just a matter of the process each country had to go through to make the declaration...

Panama was more efficient is all... lol

 

Yeah, world war 2 was ratified by congress; I don't know about Panama's government during the 40's... I just thought it was funny.