World War III - America, Are you prepared?

Just reading through this thread I'm wondering what people thought just before World War I happened or a few years out from it. I mean there was a consensus that the last war had been so horrible that no one would ever have to face war on that scale again. Whoops.

I must give a nod to those who agree that we aren't in World War 3. Why? Because we're still operating an economy of "peacetime". If you define a Major Conflict on the level of a world war using past instances, you'd see that things like the sale of war bonds and the mobilization of the industry must occur. Not to mention rationing of goods and services as resources are devoted to supporting a larger military force and its supply chain. We have seen little to none of this in the time since 9/11. An argument could be made though that some of the borrowing of money could be a replacement for the bonds, but it's a weak position as governments borrowed alongside issuing bonds during World Wars, it was the war bonds that set those periods apart.

Currently I'm looking into the stigma of World War III as an idea for my Master's thesis. Globalization has changed the playing field a lot, but it's still possible to shatter that in a short period of time. At this point its more focused on trying to dispel the Nuclear War scenario as we're too interdependent to even think of it as winnable at any level than trying to look at a modern war (my idea for a doctoral dissertation some years down the road), but many of the ideas are able to be transferred.

Someone brought up the Israel striking Iran scenario. Russia in 2003 if I remember right said if that reactor was attacked while under construction (it will be technically until 2010) it would be seen as an act of war since Russian advisers were there. The US would be pulled in to protect Israel and the fact that Russia would fly planes over Turkey would likely invoke a NATO response. In three steps you have a world war. Not to mention that China would likely have to get involved because it has a ton of energy interests in the region. If I wanted to start a modern World War, that's the plan I'd take on.