Only if the opening move would be to unload its entire nuclear arsenal in every direction. And then they "win" a big charred ball of ash.
this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2026
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There would be no winners.
This is defense contractor erasure.
What good is money when everyone is dead?
Some people think it goes to nukes immediately. I don't think so. It will stay sidelined like chemical weapons that were used in WW1 but avoided and unused in WW2.
The US does not have the industrial capability that it once had and has struggled with manufacturing of electronic components. Now maybe that can be changed, but maybe not fast enough to matter. But as far as current capability they got combat experience and are the only nation that has proven ability to project military power worldwide. As long as logistics keep up they can kick serious ass.
China makes a ton of stuff already, and that would make a hell of a wartime production rate that can scale too. Their military is untested, but large, new and growing. They are the gorilla in the room. Hell they might think Russia is the easier fish to fry and take them on first.
But there's also the chance of everything falling apart where most nations desintigrate into a long term state of fracture with infighting and homeland problems overriding any possibility of winning a global fight, and therefore preventing a large world war like we've seen in the past. Rand calls it neomedievalism
If there is a third world war I think either everyone will lose in one day (nuclear weapons), or it will be sabotage and 'special military operations' everywhere for decades, and not named as a world war until later.
If that's right were already in it
By some standards WWIII is already in progress. And no, America isn't winning. Its power and influence are contracting rapidly.
Caused by ITSELF
All loses the USA is taking are all fucking own goals.
The USA is the equivalent of starting the game up 100-0 (due to WW2) and then proceeding to just unload 30 meter bangers into its own goal.....
America is unable to function by itself and is on tour to implode. How are they going to win a war, no one in the country is willing to put up a real fight either.
It is the most divided political landscape on the planet right now, on the brink of a potentional civil war, which is the only fight they will do if they decide to grow a spine.
Which America are you referring to? North, meso, or south?
In case you are referring to the United States of, they are losing allies and partners fast. They would have to fight wars on many fronts and that never ends well.
Furthermore, they are moving towards a civil war, so one of their fronts will be on their own soil.
Their arrogance and entitlement will prolong the war, but in the end, they'll lose.
No one wins.
The only winners will be the people selling the guns.
So America?
Probably Switzerland.
I can't make head or tails of who would be fighting whom in that war.
If a WW was to break tomorrow, it would probably be because of Trump making true his threats to attack NATO in order gain definite control over Greenland?
Probably USA would be its own side without allies?
Then there would probably be NATO as one side, most likely with Australia and Japan on the same team as NATO. And, I'd say, probably all of Southern and Central America.
And the Russia and Iran with China? Pakistan would probably be on their side, so India would seek something else. More likely NATO than USA?
But then again, WWIII would be such a big deal that it feels weird imagining it might end up a three-sided war. The loosest piece on this board is USA... If it allies with one of the sides, will that side be that of NATO or that of the Russia?
Hm. Well, if it allies with China and the Russia, it gets super difficult for NATO to keep shit together. Then again, the Canadian border is not all that far away from DC, and Latvia is not far away from Moscow. We'd probably also have Ukraine on our side, and they can teach a lot about modern warfare!
All in all: If USA manages to ally with someone, that side is likely to win. If it remains alone, it will probably lose. I would say that in a situation where USA doesn't ally with anyone, NATO would be the side losing the least.
But, in the end nobody wins in a war.
I think if Trump attacks NATO there will be a serious possibility that the USA erupts in civil war
Idk, I think the most likely cause of a world war breaking out tomorrow would be Russia either making an antagonistic move towards Poland, or else deciding to use nukes in Ukraine. I expect that this would play out in the EU/NATO/Anglosphere/possibly liberal asia (but not the US) fighting Russia and whoever is unwise enough to ally with them (Iran, Belarus, and NK being obvious candidates). Russia, now vastly outgunned in conventional warfare, starts deploying its aging nuclear weapons against Europe, but because the Russian military is a trash fire, about half of them can't even launch, half that launch fail to make it to their destinations and harmlessly fall out of the air or fail to detonate on impact, and some are caught by advanced anti-icbm tech that NATO developed 20 years ago but has kept secret. At least one icbm detonates on the lauchpad and irradiates the surrounding area, which the Kremlin will try to spin as a retaliatory nuclear attack. Europe and its allies, being boy scouts, stick to conventional warfare.and quickly overrun Moskow, but spend the next several years routing out the Russian military from secret ICBM bases.
The US, always the main character, has a sub-plot where they mostly-nonviolently oust Trump from office and install an aw-shucks middle aged white man in the White House, who deploys the US military just in time to join the European forces to take Moscow. The US, being the largest single military in the alliance now, will pat itself on the back in its history books for the next 50 years for once again saving liberal Europe.
I am extremely dubious about the likelihood of the US actually taking significant military action in Greenland. The impression I get of the current US administration is that Trump is an aggressive and stupid bulldog that more powerful and sane interests have successfully leashed and collared. They let him run around and break shit as he pleases as long as it doesnt affect their interests and occasionally point him in a certain direction as an intimidation tactic in order to gain leverage. But the US putting itself on the losing side of a global conflict is not in their best interest, so they will always reign him back in before he actually starts any real shit.
I honestly don't believe humanity survives WWIII.
I assume you're worried about nuclear war? It'll be bad, but there simply aren't enough nukes in existence to pose a threat to humanity as a species.
You might be underestimating just how many nukes there are. As a species, maybe we could survive a full-scale nuclear war, if they all go off under ideal conditions to minimize fallout and radiation spread, and it doesn't range far enough or last long enough for the radiation to shorten lifespans or sterilize us into a population bottleneck, and the climate effects don't make the planet uninhabitable so quickly that even with what remaining functional technology our increasingly limited population and damaged infrastructure can continue to cobble together, we simply can't adapt fast enough (like most of the other life on the planet). These kind of play against each other a bit though, the safest places from radiation are likely to be remote, minor islands and places like Australia, but they have some of the least resilient infrastructure and are also going to be hit very hard by rapidly changing climate conditions.
It's not going to be a good situation and I don't think we can really accurately predict whether human life will survive it, there are way too many variables. We are tough and resilient, but nukes will put the entire planet, nevermind human civilization as we know it, into a really really tough place which there may genuinely be no coming back from.
That's a very complicated question.
Which nations are on which sides?
What's the competing ideologies?
What was the inciting incident?
Without those details and many more, nobody could hope to predict.
I'd get the Japanese American treatment. 👀
(I'm Chinese American)
So it depends on what you mean by "America"....
The constitution? Nah, its definitely dead and buried in a ww3 scenario.
Rich cis-het white conservative christian men? Yea they'd win, if you count living in a bunker¹ with trigger happy soldiers/security ready to overthrow them as a "win"; I bet the entire bunker will go into psychological breakdown after no outside + sunlight for a year.
¹Cuz Nukes went 💥🌇
Who are the allies of each side?
Nobody wins. Someone just gets control of the official narrative.
But who’s the “you” you’re asking here?
The US would lose faster than most, as it is a higher priority target for nuclear weaponry.
The question shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of war. The purpose of war is to defeat your enemy and make them lose, it was never about making you win.
Its not like a video game where you just deal enough damage or accumulate enough points and your adversaies give up to grant you a victory.
War is an eternal conflict until the last man is standing. Its never been about winning always about not losing.
We should do our very best to make sure it doesn't...
America would lose. It's full of morons. Like a huge percentage.