WW3 is not going to happen. Proxy wars like Ukraine, yes. But not all out WW3 for the following reasons:
0. If some European countries were not tied to NATO, they would not have supplied arms to Ukraine. Look how much time it took for Germany to agree to send tanks to Ukraine. France was also not keen on the war and Macron was involved in early negotiations.
1. The EU is already thinking of having its own army so that it is not reliant on the USA. This is being spearhead by France.
2. The so called powerful countries were not able to defeat a rag-tag group of ill armed terrorists after 20 years and spending trillions of dollars on bribes and modern weapons. Most of them have learnt that in this day and age wars are not viable. It just increases immigration.
3. Look at some of the countries that are not siding with the countries against Russia: India, China, Israel, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. Out of these, Israel and Saudi Arabia are US allies; India is a QUAD member, and South Africa is a major African economy and part of BRICS. Watch a recent podcast interview of ex-Israel prime minister Naftali Bennette on who really was responsible for escalating the Ukraine war. He, like French President Macron, was involved in early attempts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
4. India, which this year will be hosting G20 summit, has started talking about the "Global South", the countries that are already struggling financially and due to climate change. This group will be given a voice for the first time in this "exclusive club of the 'rich'". Most of the world have different priorities and want to move away from the cold-war like situation, let alone a world war. They have their citizens to look after and fight poverty and climate disasters.
5. A full-scale war between India and China is unlikely because both have an agreement that they will not use lethal weapons on the border. The last time they fought war, that was in 2020, and both sides used sticks and stones. I am not kidding, two nuclear powers fought a war with sticks and stones! The only lethal weapon used was batons wrapped with barbed wires to kill Indian soldiers.
6. India is not going to attack Pakistan because Pakistan has openly declared that it will use tactical nuclear weapons against India if there is an attack.
7. China will not attack Taiwan because it already did a trial run in Hong Kong of its strategy and to test to what level the rest of the world will intervene. China will not take control of Taiwan by force. It will take indirect control of its parliament, and then overtime it will take complete control. It knows the risk of direct war.
The template for wars in this age is what is happening in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Ukraine. It will be proxy wars, and the losers will be the "pawn countries". These pawn countries ultimately get divided on sectarian, ideological or religious lines.
The news channels earn their bread and butter by scare mongering. So don't always believe in what they say. The most who benefit from wars is defense industries, finance industry (due to money laundering), news media and politicians, in that order. Everyone else loses.