Anyone still extremely worried about WW3 starting?

[Starrynight999]

So I have to avoid the news completely, unfortunately I work in a pub so lots of customers talk about it a lot so I can’t always avoid it .. all I keep hearing is about national conscription and it won’t be long before ww3 starts and it will be an all out nuclear war etc? Does this make anyone as in edge as me like ridiculously anxious daily 😔

Well, I do think we could be in the build up to WW3 and yes, it is a concern, albeit I'm not consumed by anxiety about it.

Well if it starts what can anyone do? Will worrying prevent it?

No.

No

I think war is more likely than ever before (recent times), but I do still think it is still more likely to not happen.

It is definitely a strange new world, and we have some awful people are in power, but the vast majority of people (likely even including Donald Trump) do not want widespread war. I think although tensions will be high, and I think times slightly tumultuous but I do have a cautious hope that a widespread war will be avoided.

Ultimately though I cannot control if it does or does not happen. All I can do is focus on the here and now. I won’t spend the next 2-5 years in a panic over something that I have absolutely zero chance of changing. I’m going to go on more days out, have more chocolate, spend more time with my kids and put my focus on the joy in my own life.

No.

I suggest your pub gets a jukebox. Or a nice big telly to show the football on. Your customers sound weird and in need of normal interests.

Firstly I completely agree with your view and indeed various opinion polls show that there would be very low support for conscription if this country was under threat and even less if a third party country was under threat.

But I think you raise a really interesting point on "rights wing Britain first" types. If the UK was indeed under threat then it would most likely come from an authoritarian or extremist religious type regime that would seek to restrict individual freedoms and liberalism. This would adversely impact the liberal left far more than the conservative right- indeed the conservative right might even fully agree and welcome such an authoritarian regime and crackdown on the liberal left.

So it seems ironic that the liberal left would at best hide behind or at worst sneer and mock the conservative / patriotic right for being willing to fight to defend the individual liberties and freedoms as well as the liberal left itself.

Logically if you were from the conservative patriotic right then you should be even less willing to sign up to protect the liberal left than the liberal left itself.

It's all rather reminiscent of the "Tommy Atkins" poem.

We are at a dangerous point in history absolutely. America always had the will and the ‘big stick’ to stabilise and keep world order in check but now Trump is disrupting that and dropping the rope on the UN.

Unless Europe seriously get together and work out a robust and cohesive military defence, the goal is left wide open for all the world’s dangerous despots and bullies to take power and cause real harm.

There is no need to panic quite yet but I’d be very cautious about where the world is headed in the next few years…

So, look, no offense to the customers in your pub, but there are so many channels for rubbish news and views now via social media and the like, and people are drawn to bullshit like flies.

I think it's best to work on yourself - things like living in the moment, appreciation for what we have now and awareness that we can only control what's in our control.

@Screamingabdabz

"Unless Europe seriously get together and work out a robust and cohesive military defence, the goal is left wide open for all the world’s dangerous despots and bullies to take power and cause real harm. "

But firstly Europe has been used to the "US security blanket" for the last 70 years and will find voters very reluctant to accept higher defence spending in place of say healthcare or social security.

Secondly the citizens themselves are very reluctant to be willing to join up to defend those liberal western rights.

And thirdly there is a worrying degree of self hate within the West that makes it difficult for any defence of those same liberal rights that ironically allow the right to express these self hate views to exist in the first place.

No.

Media scaremongering I think. I don’t agree with conscription for all but I do think joining our military should be advertised more heavily to target kids leaving school that maybe feel they don’t have any prospects. My husband was a young offender and it just took one recruitment officer to take a chance on him which basically changed the rest of his life and he stayed in for 29 years. It’s not for everyone but I think sometimes it’s seen as a negative thing which isn’t necessarily the case for all

Not just the OP asking though…just clickbait?

www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/may/10/are-we-heading-for-another-world-war-or-has-it-already-started

No I am not considering moving due to the threat but I wish we were more like Switzerland being more neutral and peaceful as a country. My Nan came from a little village in the alps and the Italian speaking part of Switzerland and her mother was born in Kyiv when it was part of the USSR .i didn’t like the way we jumped in so fast to take a side. Would have liked more of a push for peace and diplomacy but Johnson wanted to be the next Churchill didn’t he and the BBC lapped it up with their Ukraine cast. But where was this war heading how will it ever be solved?

Made a thread about this maybe a year ago and got called a war monger. Most the mugs on this thread would let a knife attacker with his knife out walk right upto them and stab them by the sounds of it. We are literally walking into the jaws of death and no one seems to give a shit. We aren't the same military power as in the cold war, we are literally defenceless. Anyone who has an understanding of international military powers knows we are screwed. People need to wake up seriously. Im all for peace but im all for a strong military to keep the peace. Everyone else on here seems to hate Russia, usa and China yet doesn't care about us having a strong military to keep them away when push comes to shove lol (like that kid who used to insult absolutely everyone in school but could never actuallyback them self up) .Bit of a rant that.

You know what's funny most right wingers want a strong military to keep the peace with people like putin, Donald and xi. Yet leftists hate Trump, xi and putin but would never fight them themselves lol. Leftists are so hypocritical.

Spot on, said it better than me 😂

Ye I dont think they should worry about ww3 at all, forget stocking up on food so you dont starve when there's food shortages, just live, laugh, love.

However strong our military, it’s fuck all use on its own against the US. The US has also successfully demonstrated ever since the end of WW2 that it doesn’t keep peace - wars have continued throughout the world, often encouraged or provoked by the US if it is hostile to a regime. Now it is doing that on steroids, without hiding behind diplomacy, because it is being run by a cult of personality, with a sociopathic narcissist at the helm and manipulative psychopaths at his side - not looking so very much different from Nazi Germany, really. Europe tied its fortunes to the US and is now caught in a trap where the US is turning the screws and doesn’t look any more appealing as an oppressor than China. Even when the UK spent more on its military, it was all tied up with an understanding that the US and NATO were on its side. The right also embraced global capitalism, which knows no borders and which effectively allowed the country’s assets and bright ideas to be snapped up overseas. How much of our technological innovation was sold by its creators to giant US tech companies? Can we even provide clean, running water to our population, let alone even go out and fight a war? Not if living in the South East, it seems.

Starmer shouldn’t try to involve us in any wars until we have a military that can look after the security of our own country first.

We don’t have time to get to that position before we have a choice between war or subjugation to a foreign power, if Trump stays in power.

Nope I’m not worried at all.

And if Trump does stay in power, nobody would piss on it if it were on fire in future - in the long term, acting like you need no friends is not in the interests of the US.

Anyone can take on the u.s if they do it right. Look at the taliban and Vietnamese.

They managed to keep the US at bay - on their own soil - until they US withdrew.

But this feel different. Bigger.