If 2023 ends up giving us AGI, room-temperature superconductors, Starships and a cure for cancer, I think we will able to call it a good year...
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No, it wouldn’t. You can have a World War without global superpowers on both sides (you need a wide geographic alignment of such power to, balanced for the relative difficulty of force projection on both sides, reach aggregate near-parity across a widely geographically dispersed set of conflict theaters, but you can do that with a global superpower on one side and a coalition of major regional powers in different regions on the other.
Luckily despite the last ten years of decline in relations and shift in China's positioning, the PRC still seems mostly motivated by trade rather than dick-measuring contests. Let's hope that continues.