I wouldn't say that a third world war has been in effect yet. I would agree with you that political trends in the last decade will/would predicate such a thing.
China is already in a suprising amount of power compared to the US. The recent hubub about google.cn is a good example of this. The global community has had many points in time in which to confront "human right's violations" commited by China. When we contemplated allowing them in to the WTO. When we continually ignored the imbalance in value between China's currency comparitive to our own. So on and so forth. The balance of power has been shifting for a while, we are just starting to actually see the implications of that change now though.
There was a really good article that I read the other day (lost the link) which talked about the implications of the recent riots over the Danish cartoon and what that means for the concept of statehood and whoo actually impliments norms in those states. That a theocratic community is positing the need and righteousness of tolerance as a means to subversively put constraints on what can be put into the public forum of a foreign soverignty with no ties to that community is awesome in its range of global implications (what a rediculous sentence). And that it worked is even more amazing.
The main figures one should expect to see in this new war of yours; US, A global Islamic theocracy predicated on a religious version of the social contract, China, Europe, and Hugo Chavez...ha.
I just wanna move to Japan. That place will never be fucked with again... Even if they were to be taken over by China or somewhere else, no one is stupid enough to fuck with the technological engine of the world. It would all be paper control. Socially and economically Japan is prolly one of the most stable places for the coming years. Or new zealand.
not to turn this into a crossfire thread...
I think it's interesting that this discussion is even occuring though. The fact that we, a global community of sorts, are openely identifying contemporary events as reflective of something like a world war is pretty intense. The next two decades are gonna be a fucked up place. Just gonna have to sit and watch I suppose.
