I've seen a few references to the possibility that we're heading towards a new world war and how current events may be playing out just as they did in 1914, but I don't have that sense at all. I presume a regional war is a real possibility, but I don't think there's any chance that anything even vaguely like the First or Second World War is erupting.
Now, if you believe that the Cold War was really World War III, then I think a case can be made that the battle between the west and the forces of militant Islam could become something of a 'World War', but nothing that's happened in the past week has really changed that formulation. The most you could say is that another battle in that war has begun.
