Their argument is that, by definition, it can’t be a world war unless all economic surplus is dedicated to war purposes.

I tend to agree with both of you, and that by extension, we will never see another world war unless society as we know it collapses significantly.

Things have changed since I was a kid. We've gone from saturation bombing and dropping nukes as the big kahuna to being able to do point assassination strikes.

Topical the Israelis just killed Khamenei.