I think America will get involved in the war with Russia and Ukraine and then involve the uk as we owe them trillions of dollars.
Direct conflict between global powers is very unlikely. The US and UK have special forces operating the Ukraine but thats the most extent of it. The risk of nuclear escalation is too great and Russia doesn't have the manpower or resources to launch a full scale invasion of Europe anymore. It's been proxy wars for a while now.
If NATO had disbanded in 1992 right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia would still be invading Ukraine. They were always going to do this, NATO had nothing to do with it. In fact Russia would have taken the Baltic's first. They would have gone into Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - that enclave Kaliningrad doesn't touch Russia, they weren't gonna let that stand for eternity, they were always gonna connect their borders.
Russia didn't invade Ukraine sooner because basically they were in control of the government politically. The president of Ukraine was a puppet Russian actor that did whatever Russia wanted so Russia had their buffer state. It was only in 2014 when a real democratic election happened in Ukraine that Russia realized soft power wasn't enough to control Ukraine anymore. So this military conflict was inevitable.
The Baltic Sea is basically now a NATO lake. Kaliningrad is completely surrounded. I think at the end of this, Kaliningrad needs to become an independent state or potentially merge with Lithuania or Poland given there history. We'll see.
Today, Russia is one of the few debt-free nations in the world, is consolidating its influence over the CIS and other former Soviet republics, and has a world-class military with little power projection but still orders of magnitude more than what it had twenty years ago. Military wise- America and Russia. Only 2 countries that will send troops to foreign battles on their own (no coalitions). France has been doing this for decades. (They also have the third largest nuclear arsenal.) Economically- America and China. European Union would be here if they were more united in their foreign policy. Nowadays, our world is becoming increasingly multipolar. With the example of Russia, they have a niche of military and cybersecurity in which they project their power, and this is generally the most visible to the public, compared to a country like Germany that asserts its power through political means and by financial dominance of the EU.
Russia is a declining power. Like Britain after the world wars, Russia is settling down from superpower status to great power, or perhaps even middle power status. A large, nuclear backed military, sizable economy, access to vast resources, and an incredibly large expanse of land all help Russia hold on to great power status.
The largest holders of US debt are the American people/corporations/programs (like social security)/funds (like pensions, ect.). The largest foreign holder of US debt is Japan.
Foreign investors hold $7.3 trillion of the national U.S. debt. These holdings declined 6% in 2022 amid a strong U.S. dollar and rising rates.
www.visualcapitalist.com
The thing with the UK is, the US and Great Britain have a military relationship unlike pretty much any other in the history of mankind. We share *everything.* Its mutually beneficial. We've been doing this since World War II. And no matter what the public opinion is, that has never changed. They're not gonna slow down our military cooperation because we all know that when the shit hits the fan we end up generally having the same opinions and being on the same side. the US also has mutual defense treaties with Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, technically Japan plus NATO.
We'll just have a century of proxy wars. Currently we are in the Cold War 2.0 with Russia and especially China. I assume the next World War, if there is one, won't be for a very long time, possibly humanity desperate for resources. Could be space-based but there are ingenuitive, solutions to resource scarcity so who knows.
Otherwise, the worst humanitarian disaster is likely going to be huge refugees crises due to climate change and economic disparity due to global fuel shortages or more likely wealth inequality or something to that extent. But technological development helps keep up with the ravages of inflation/cost of living.
Instead I see more proxy wars, "cyber" wars, economic chicanery, and lots and lots of political posturing. The world overall will be more peaceful, but the "hot spots" will continue to be unstable.
War always leads to scientific and technological breakthroughs so it's likely we'll see huge advancements in cryptography both protecting and cracking it, especially with Quantum computing.
Big downside is we will also probably see huge leaps in AI with no thought given to the larger implications of these leaps due to war justifying it
Race for AI superiority has already begin with the US's Project Maven and rival countries' versions of the same.
"World War 4," and we're already in it. The first two were about military dominance in open warfare, the "third one" was about political dominance, and the "fourth" is about economic dominance.
I'm sure there are US citizens fighting and what they are is probably special forces I'd imagine that there's some US special forces there I've the suspicion that these weapon systems they're touting various deliveries various missiles and such if they've been given access to these various types of missiles I don't believe that they're just given to the Ukrainians I believe there are probably US special forces operating these weapon systems.
They might be testing the weapons, thats part of why our government sustained these bullshit wars in Afghanistan and Iraq amongst all the other reasons it was a convenient place to test in real life these various weapons systems that they're spending a lot of money on and to have a constant kind of live exercise training situation so that they find themselves in the position with a lot of officers and NCO's and such with some level of combat experience which is useful even if it is in an asymmetric warfare type situation
Russia has veterans of its many regional conflicts.