The popular image of a world war is sudden catastrophe, mass mobilization, and unmistakable collapse. That is not what we see today. However, the world is in a great power competition, a distributed struggle for influence, security, and control of critical resources. World War III is not looming. It is underway right now. 

It is hard to determine an exact moment when this comprehensive conflict began, but it took shape sometime around the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of China as the major global competitor of the United States.