Why World War III is Improbable

I do not think the world is close to World War III, as hysteria mongers claim. Indeed, I think the world is farther from World War III than at anytime since the late 1940s.

World War III is improbable because none of the great powers has military forces large enough to fight a global war. Currently, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) maintains the world’s largest military with around two million people in uniform. In contrast, the US Army alone had 11.2 million soldiers in World War II. The entire US military had around 16 million people in World War II. Today, the US armed forces have around 1.39 million people in uniform.

Indeed, only four nations, China, India, the United States, and North Korea have over one million people in their armed forces, World Atlas estimates. Furthermore, I think the North Korean claims are bullshit. I suspect the North Korean Communist Party is counting all of its reservists and veterans, including 90-year-old Korean War veterans, as “soldiers.”

Importantly, no country has over two million people under arms, today. World War III will not break out because no government has the forces to wage such a war. One reason World War I broke out was that most of Europe’s great powers had giant conscripted armies ready to mobilize. Once general mobilization began in 1914, nobody could stop it. Similarly, before…