A fact: the Middle East is, in general, far from most of the people on Earth. How can it be then, that speculation about World War 3 is ubiquitous in social media in the West based on a few days of war? My theory is the following: Globalization (in this case, the connection via mobile phones and social media) has made everything happening in the world seem closer to everyone and you can also feel to be a part of it. I think, you reacting to the war happen ”real-time” on social media is, in a sense, the equivalent of people going to war in earlier times. My estimation is this: The conflicts in the world tend to stay more local than earlier because people now have the opportunity to feel and react to wars from their homes. When everyone, including the leaders, in your country feel like the war is part your day, the less reason there is for your country to go to war for real.
It seems that countries of certain defence alliances act as if they were a political party. For example when USA bombed Iran I saw various political leaders from NATO countries repeat the same message; ”We wish for Iran not to develop nuclear weapons.” This was said by many leaders in the aftermath of the attack. It’s as if there was a strict ”defence alliance” discipline on opinions such as they were a political party in Europe where differing opinions from party-discipline is looked down upon and might even get you removed from the whole party. This is not to approve or condemn Iran’s nuclear program, it’s just to point how similar the response from various countries to USA’s attack on Iran was that it brought to my mind like-minded party-politics to which a European who follows their own countries‘ affairs is no foreign to.
Israel is fighting Iran based on their survival-instincts, as I see this case. The worry about Iran’s nuclear warheads is that they would actually be used. Weapons are not dangerous unless you are actually going to use them. It’s worth pointing out that even with Iran the choice to, in fact, use nuclear weapons would be a huge decision and they know it would most-likely bring mutual destruction of the same magnitude. Israel, however, says: ”This is not a matter where we are willing to take any risks!”
Akseli Hänninen blog 