I want to think the NATO countries are wise enough to not start WW3 if they get an excuse. If a fighter jet or something gets downed, it'd be in the interests of everyone to play it down.
The amount the world and Europe in particular has changed since WWI is astounding. The entire world was deeply belligerent in a way that really surprised me and seems foreign to our modern sensibility. The only country of today that acts/thinks this way seems to be Russia, but leading up to WWI almost every single country in Europe was still planning for the conquest and destruction of their neighbors. Everyone (the major powers anyways) just assumed “ya, we’re gonna fight a huge multi-million person war and we’re gonna win.” I really don’t see that kind of belligerence in the minds of the world anymore.
Of course, there were some academics at the time of WWI saying the same thing, so…
They can't get through eastern Ukraine. What world war? They have no means (and the mediocre means they had before the beginning of the war in Ukraine, have been slashed in half, to say nothing of vast degradation of still quasi-operating hardware), they'd get stomped by NATO within a month and throw the nuclear card on the table to end it.
Iran? Trivial to contain within their own borders, and we'd ignite an armed revolution by flowing massive amounts of weapons into Iran.
Belarus? Barely has a military worth mentioning in this context.
And there's good reason to be skeptical of China joining Russia in a world war.
That's what everybody assumed all along that World War III meant. Russia's antiquated invasion of its neighbor is quaintly parochial compared to that... so long as that's where it stays. But if somebody, somewhere, gets an itchy trigger finger at just the wrong time, everybody everywhere becomes part of WWIII all at once.
That's why people keep referencing Russia and WWIII.
You don't seem to have an understanding of basic strategy. China will probably use this opportunity to take back Taiwan. And North Korea might as well invade South Korea while we're at it.
There is the potential for great misery and destruction from NK, but that's mostly due to the fact that a lot of well off urban areas are within NK artillery range.
I'm not so sure about Taiwan, either. Ukraine is right on the border of Russia, no shipping, no mountainous terrain, and no direct treaties with the US. China has already said in the event of a shooting war they'd consider US allies as legitimate targets, so a Taiwanese war means Japan, Australia, SK, and maybe NATO entering the fray. It would be an ugly, mountainous fight, possibly leading to a guerilla war / insurgency.
In 20 years after technology (chips, etc.) transfer back to the US there isn't really any reason for the US to give a shit. Why risk Ukraine-ing yourself when you can just let economic and demographic forces do it for you?
Why take back Taiwan when they can take back parts of Russia that Russia previously annexed?