looking at it the same way your meaning I think. The events of ww1 led to ww2 with a pause between the two events? If so the pause between ww2 and ww3 is now 80 years. The EU is about to go to war with Russia and the US is about to go to war in the Indo-Pacific with China. If the US gets too involved with Europe China will attack the nations in the Indo-Pacific so we need complete control of the Panama Canal so that China has to go around Africa's southern tip or South Americas to get to the east coast. Trump is securing the borders,DOGE is shaving every penny possible and we are suggesting the EU build up it's military's because we are about to go to war. One battlefield is Europe the other is in the south Atlantic between Africa and South America and the other is in the Indo Pacific. WW3 has begun but people have not realized it yet.
Well, what's changed after WW2 is the nuclear option.
That's why major world powers are not stupid enough to go into direct conflict with each-other because of mutually assured destruction.
This is why world powers have been fighting and continuing to fight proxy wars only, to test their latest weapons.
The people are the ones who suffer in this madness but the world has enjoyed 80 years of relative "peace" due to major powers having nuclear capabilities.
They have learned that the best move is not to play and thus, they avoid the action-reaction scenario that i keep mentioning over and over.