A point worth considering is the difference between agency of the belligerents vs. the consequences of the war. Even in WWII, the consequences of the war were mostly local for the belligerents; France and Germany, Russia, Japan and China were all much more affected by the destruction of their cities and fields than they were anything that happened with international trade or similar.
The nuclear winter scenario is one that affects all countries similarly, insofar as nuclear winter is the worst thing for the neutrals and also the worst thing for the belligerents, even granting multiple nuclear strikes. Depending on how a person ranks swift incineration vs inevitable starvation, being a belligerent might even be less bad.
I’m not sure how to weight it, but a point worth observing from the WW2 comparison is the absence of colonial possessions and the presence of diplomacy or opportunism to bring additional countries into the war on either side. For example, British India resulted in modern Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan all being involved in the war based on the European theatre of the conflict, as opposed to the much closer and materially-more-relevant China/Japan theatre. An example where the conflict could easily extend is that both Russia and the United States maintain military assets in different host countries. Examples: Syria is host to Russia’s assets which operate in the Mediterranean, which is NATO’s underbelly; Japan and Korea host American assets which can reach Russian territory.
Regarding China, which is the largest x-factor in terms of both outcome and this criteria: it seems to me that the only thing preventing their involvement through a similar string of diplomatic escalations is the judgment of the Chinese government. Among other things, it becomes hugely in Russia’s interest to bring them into the war, in a manner analogous to it being in Britain’s interests to bring the US into WWII.
There are too many vectors for a NATO/Russia conflict in Ukraine to extend throughout the rest of Asia at least for me view this is as just a European war by default.
A point worth considering is the difference between agency of the belligerents vs. the consequences of the war. Even in WWII, the consequences of the war were mostly local for the belligerents; France and Germany, Russia, Japan and China were all much more affected by the destruction of their cities and fields than they were anything that happened with international trade or similar.
The nuclear winter scenario is one that affects all countries similarly, insofar as nuclear winter is the worst thing for the neutrals and also the worst thing for the belligerents, even granting multiple nuclear strikes. Depending on how a person ranks swift incineration vs inevitable starvation, being a belligerent might even be less bad.
I’m not sure how to weight it, but a point worth observing from the WW2 comparison is the absence of colonial possessions and the presence of diplomacy or opportunism to bring additional countries into the war on either side. For example, British India resulted in modern Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan all being involved in the war based on the European theatre of the conflict, as opposed to the much closer and materially-more-relevant China/Japan theatre. An example where the conflict could easily extend is that both Russia and the United States maintain military assets in different host countries. Examples: Syria is host to Russia’s assets which operate in the Mediterranean, which is NATO’s underbelly; Japan and Korea host American assets which can reach Russian territory.
Regarding China, which is the largest x-factor in terms of both outcome and this criteria: it seems to me that the only thing preventing their involvement through a similar string of diplomatic escalations is the judgment of the Chinese government. Among other things, it becomes hugely in Russia’s interest to bring them into the war, in a manner analogous to it being in Britain’s interests to bring the US into WWII.
There are too many vectors for a NATO/Russia conflict in Ukraine to extend throughout the rest of Asia at least for me view this is as just a European war by default.