> This feels like a much bigger development than Russia-Ukraine.

Russia-Ukraine war is 1M+ combat casualties deep and is nowhere near finished. You are out of touch.

Russia and Ukraine are now at war for the fifth year running, you're just used to the fact that there is ongoing war in Europe.

Depends how you count “big”. Russia-Ukraine has had about 1 million deaths, and has completely changed how Europe thinks about security- it’s hardly a sideshow. Then again, not much territory has changed hands and there has been no regime change yet.

No it's not. This is an air strike campaign, no boots on the ground. It'll end in two weeks. There is no chance China or Russia get involved, like last time, so "WW3" is completely non-credible.

Could be more of an intimidation tactic. The United States of Israel wouldnt go to a land war in Iran, that's unwinnable

There's no land campaign. It's an isolated series of strikes for PR reasons and wishful thinking about Iran collapse.

As big as this is, the Russia-Ukraine war pretty much marked the end of the post-WW2 era and redefined global relations between the powers. In that sense, this is yet another major shift within this new era. But also, the series of events that led to this point does connect to the Russia-Ukraine war, and maybe doesn't happen without it.

Otoh, what russia desperately needs in the short term is oil prices to go up, so there is probably a major silver lining for them.

WW3 started with the invasion of Ukraine.

I don't think it's bigger than Russia-Ukraine - it's part of it. This is all about destabilising Iran's incumbent government, which is probably a good thing at the moment. It'll damage supply lines to Russia's Ukraine offensive, give the chance for Iranian citizens to rise up against Khamenei and the IRGC and break the command chain for their foreign proxy operations. Part of Dugan's work on geopolitics, which they seem to be following to the word (c'mon guys seriously?) suggests that Moscow and Tehran should be allied which they are behind the scenes.

As for the nuclear threat, literally Iran said it was going to destroy Israel to the point it had a massive countdown clock in Tehran until Israel blew it up, so meh. If I was on the receiving end of that threat I'd make it a policy to respond to it, escalation or not. I make no claims of the accuracy of the threats past IAEA being unable to verify they aren't enriching stuff.

Doubt it'll escalate into WW3. The only other powers involved are Russia, who are totally hands tied with Ukraine if they like it or not and China is only interested keeping what's left in its sphere of influence later through their outreach initiatives. I suspect most Middle Eastern countries will be quite happy about this conflict as they have persistent problems with Iran as well from the Houthis, Hezbollah and tens of other factions. They won't want to say anything though in case their own citizens turn on them.

The cringeworthy thing is how the US gov are communicating this and that does the operation a lot of damage. It's really quite terrible. Sounds like it was written by a bunch of 9 year olds after too many sugary drinks. Urgh.

More like this is a small piece of the puzzle in Russian-Ukraine war. Iran plays quite a big role in supplying Russians. If Iran is taken out, power balance in that war may change too.

I doubt either of them is keen to enter the fray here. Russia is making shaheeds at home now anyway

Putin said it himself, there are over 2 million russians in Israel - they will not participate