The similarities between WW I and the situation now are eerily striking. We had big powers haggling over zones of interest and vital security interests, official and unofficial alliances, a lot of political gunpowder lying around and then a spark igniting the whole thing. Few diplomats and leaders actually wanted the outbreak of a big war, but they miscalculated and when they realized that the alliance mechanisms and security demands in place would escalate a local conflict to a big European war, it was too late to stop it. It is the same as now. There are of course differences, but strong similarities remain. Serbia posed a security threat to Austria via subversive and direct action, much like NATO member Ukraine would to Russia. There is a overzealous superpower wanting to protect its client (Russia back then, now US/NATO), and going too far in attempting that (Russia´s mobilization back then, now US/UK vowing to help Ukraine win no matter what, taking back Crimea and crippling Russia in the process).

We're in June 1914 all over again. Late June...

What i'm trying to get at is that the "slate has been wiped clean" of what can be defined as a cold war since the collapse of the Soviet union in 1991. But I can't deny the similarities between today and early-late 19th centuary Edit: For some reason I wasn't able to fit this into the original comment because....youtube.

The question only has meaning if we accept that the cold war ever ended

When NATO shoots down a Russian Jet = all out nuclear war 2 weeks after that via escalation.

Japan’s Leader Compares Strain With China to Germany and Britain in 1914 Give this article　By Jane Perlez　　　Jan. 23, 2014 BEIJING - Relations between Asia’s two biggest powers, Japan and China, have been strained for months, with near-constant sniping over a territorial dispute and the two countries’ fraught history. Now, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan has escalated the war of words, telling an audience on Wednesday at the Davos conference in Switzerland that the increasing tensions between China and Japan were similar to the competition between Germany and Britain before World War I, a blunt assessment that concurs with recent remarks by prominent historians.

This is much bigger than a simple cold war. If EU detains a Russian oil tanker in international waters, then what is to stop Russia from sinking a giant LNG ship going to EU with one tiny little anti-ship missile, if the ship does not heed warnings to heave to, or for that matter, if the US sinks that LNG ship with one torpedo and blames Russia. The Lusitania or Gulf of Tonkin, your pick. There are plenty of NEOCONS in the US government.

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