WWIII is already underway, but because it is not likely to be similar to WWII with well-defined front lines, we don’t think of it as a global war.
Typical for the new warfare will be wide use of terror and guerrilla tactics. Civilian population will be used routinely as shields or as provocation fodder.
For example, the pro-Russian insurgents would deliberately set machine gun nests in apartment blocks, with the hapless residents still in them. That way if the regular army holds the fire trying to spare civilian lives, they get a military advantage, and if the regulars hit the building they get a propaganda advantage to elicit more Russian aid. When the Ukrainian army is not close enough for them to engage it they would deploy a squad of mortars, shell their own territory and quickly disappear, creating another story how the Ukies kill civilians.
The civilized nations will fight at a distance, with drones and from aircraft carriers, in order to shift the balance of power on the ground.
That is the face of the new war. We saw it in Chechnya, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya and Syria and now we see it in Ukraine.
The regular Russian Army is in Ukraine, they are not “pro-Russian” they ARE Russians.
“That is the face of the new war. We saw it in Chechnya, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya and Syria and now we see it in Ukraine.”
Asymmetric war everywhere.
I understand WWIII is already underway, what I should have said is when the west wakes up to that fact. They are all hoping Putie will stop somewhere, he won’t.