All the theories I read have to have a lot of things line up for it to actually start. However know one has been talking about who would win and mainly I think its because there can be no winners this time around with all the new weapons and bomb tech most countries now own.
We’re practically there. If Poland or Belarus had rolled into the Ukraine conflict (most likely Belarus attacking Ukraine and Poland sending peace keeping troops), we’d have been in a world war with a limited nuclear exchange pretty soon.