For those of you out there who believe Mitt Romney will start WWIII if elected.....

[AverageJoe90]

73. Even with flashpoints, it STILL isn't anywhere near likely.

I don't doubt there is a lot of potential for major regional conflicts out there, but Kurt, this isn't the 1950s, or the '80s.

I am a student of history. Multilateral war has not entirely passed into the history books, but the fact is it was far more likely 30 years ago. You had a still strong, though slowly weakening Soviet bloc(and a large number of paranoid Politburo people to boot!), and tensions between Russia and the U.S. were far, far, worse than they are today.

However, though, I can concede that it is possible that a second Cold War may come into fruition, especially with a nutter like Romney in the White House. And if it does begin to happen, then the dynamics could very well begin to change for the worst. Right now, though, the triggers for WWIII just aren't there for the most part; on the other hand, you can have a nuclear conflict without the traditional Russia-vs-America scenario; Pakistan could invade India and Iran could nuke Israel(or the other way around!). But due to today's dynamics, it would be far harder to make a plausible WWIII scenario in the present day, even with possible 'chaos' scenarios taken into account, than in the '80s.