CURT: Q: Potential World War 3!?
Not immediately. Over time.
Russia->Ukraine 1st, China->Taiwan 2nd, Iran-NE saudi oil fields 3rd. Turkey->Greek Islands 4th. Instantaneous end of postwar era and european dominance in world evolutionary direction. France has opportunity to militarily take over europe. America must retreat to its hemisphere. China expands to the sea of japan. Gets aggressive with india. Pakistan and China aggress against india. Russia defensively moves to divide khazakstan north russian south turkic. North Korea ->South Korea.
Somewhere in there someone lets loose nukes, eliminating the taboo, and then fucking chaos.
To take out the entire USA requires nothing but a few air bursts to wipe out electricity and electronics. The only thing left is subs and radio. The chinese and russians let loose with anti-sattelite weapons. Something on the order of a third of the planet dies from collapse of world security finance and trade and resulting disease, starvation, uprising and war.
Very fragile world we built here…