We are currently fighting insurgents in various locales in the Mid-East.
North Korea plans to test a nuke.
If NK begins offensive military action, will that be the start of a third World War?
Who would be on North Korea’s side? Another Korean war wouldn’t serve anyone’s interest. Even China would slap them down.
Hasn’t North Korea been in the nuke-planning stage for 15+ years by now? Anyway, a nuclear attack by them on anyone invites counter-nukes in a wide swath north of the 39th parallel, destroying much of the gigantic army they’ve been threatening South Korea with since the 'fifties. Kim better make his first punch count because he’s not getting a second.
Al Qaeda.
Al Qaida? Why would they ally with North Korea? North Korea is an atheistic communist dictatorship. And even if North Korea became best buddies with Al Qaida, what exactly would that mean?
What capabilities would North Korea gain? What capability would Al Qaida gain? The only scary scenario here is that North Korea gives Al Qaida a nuke and Al Qaida operatives smuggle it into a western city and set it off by hand.
And that just means the core of a western city destroyed by a nuke, Hiroshima style. Not WWIII. Where’s the follow-up?
North Korea has absolutely no hope of sustained military operations against South Korea and the US, even if China, Russia, and Japan don’t get involved in operations against them. All they can do is threaten massive bombardment of civilian targets in South Korea if we invaded them. But once the war starts, and they’ve already performed their terror bombings, they’re done.
So how does that lead to WWIII? It leads to the Second Korean War, not WWIII. It could only lead to WWIII if China and/or Russia backed North Korea militarily. And there’s zero chance of that happening, rather the reverse.
Technically we’re already at war with North Korea, so does that mean WWIII started in 1950?
Any particular reason why you think Al Qaeda would throw in with a secular dicatorship in an almost entirely non-Muslim nation? And how exactly would an axis of North Korea-Al Qaeda constitute a sufficient enough threat that the ensuing conflict would be deserving of being called a “World War?” The last two World Wars were called such because it involved large scale battles on virtually every continent on the globe, fought by every major polity at the time, with both sides of the conflict being roughly equal in strength. Your WWIII scenario involves precisely one standing army and one smallish, already compromised group of terrorists on one side, and (almost certainly) NATO, Russia, China, and just about every other nation on Earth that’s capable of projecting any military might at all. The absolute worst case scenario here is that Kim Jong Il butchers South Korea before his entire nation is bombed into rubble and the ruins of both nations get absorbed by the PRC. The entire process would be done within six months.
In other words, no. WWIII is not imminent. At least, not on the terms you’ve presented here.
The enemy of my enemy is my freind?
Political and cultural differences can be temporarily ignored to achieve immediate goals.
You still haven’t shared how Al Qaeda teaming up with North Korea would achieve any immediate goals, or even what goals they’d have in common.
Did you read the earlier posts?
Sure, North Korea and Al Qaida could join forces into some sort of…Alliance? Confederation? Union? Anyway, some sort of grouping of evil. So we’ve got Al Qaida and North Korea on one side of the war, and the rest of the world on the other side. So how is that WWIII?
For WWIII you need major powers squaring off and trading blows. Major powers: the US, Russia, China, Japan, Germany, heck, even Britain and France for old time’s sake. These are the major military powers of the world. So you’ve got the US, Russia, China, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, and all the rest of NATO and South Korea one one side of WWIII, and North Korea and a couple of guys in a cave on the Afghan border on the other side. Seems like a pretty short war. The war phase anyway. North Korea flattened, and Al Qaida back to planting bombs on subways and cutting the heads off of journalists.
So there could be a war…but it’s not gonna be WWIII unless China steps in on the North Korean side again. Which–as we said–they aren’t going to do. So there ain’t gonna be no WWIII.
World War 3 was imminent in 1962 (cuban missile crisis) and 1979 (Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) and, well, pretty much the whole period from the end of WW2 and the fall of the Berlin wall. Nothing remotely close to WW3 is imminent now, in any real sense of a world war. A nuclear war in Korea would be pretty horrible, but nothing like the global confligration a US Soviet war would have been.
The only way I can see Al Qaeda and NK teaming up is if NK sells AQ a nuke. But I think AQ’s more likely to get a nuke from some rogue Pakistani or Russian, if they get one at all.
Cite to a declaration of war by the U.S. on North Korea? I’ll be very surprised if you find one…
Well, we are still involved in a “police action” in Korea.
I believe Axis of Evil is the term du jour… 
Got a nice ring to it, fits in with the old “Axis Powers” moniker of WWII so a bit of tradition as well.
Besides, some big leader in the West coined the term a few years back for exactly this situation (Iran, Iraq, NK), so it must be true. I forget who it was though…
The real nightmare scenario is if Russia decides to move into the ‘axis of evil’. It’s been sidling closer to Iran for some time now, and the rhetoric over there seems increasingly hostile to the U.S.
Not that I think Russia is itching to start another cold war or get into a scrap with the U.S., but these things have a way of spiralling out of control. All it would take is for Russia to do something crazy like sign a mutual-defense pact with Iran in return for oil concessions and arms sales, and we’d have a real problem on our hands. If Russia’s nukes come into play when we attempt to negotiate with Iran, we’re going to have a hell of a time.
Not sure that’s too likely. The money Russia is getting from Iran from Bushehr and sales of weapons is dwarfed by the money it can make from the west thanks to its oil/gas reserves, even allowing for follow up projects for Bushehr.
Also, while Iran is currently happy to state Chechnya is an internal matter, how long before they start to question the way in which Russia is slapping down this predominantly Muslim region?
China, on the other hand - heavily dependant upon Iranian oil anyway, happy to sell them weaponry, and more than happy to upset the US. That seems a more likely combination to me.
A cease-fire was declared on July 27, 1953, but no formal end to hostilities has ever been agreed to, let alone signed. So technically, the war is not over.
But while Russia and China might be happy to make money at the expense of the US, they certainly aren’t going to go to war to protect Iran or North Korea. The most they’ll do is veto any UN security council resolutions authorizing military action against Iran, and fight like hell to prevent (more) economic sanctions against Iran.
But if the US started bombing Iran tomorrow, are Russian and/or Chinese fighter pilots going to be shooting down American bombers? Not going to happen. Yes, China and Russia have economic ties with Iran…but their economic ties to the US are an order of magnitude larger.
The only issue that could trigger a war with China is Taiwan. And that only happens if China decides to invade Taiwan and the US navy starts sinking Chinese troop transports.