The short answer is yes. The longer answer is that the conditions which have historically produced large-scale wars between major powers are more present right now than at any point since 1945.
That's not a prediction. It's an observation about risk.
The factors that stabilize the international order, shared economic interests, functioning multilateral institutions, clear deterrence frameworks, basic diplomatic communication, are all under more strain than they were twenty years ago. The US-China relationship has shifted from competitive partnership to something closer to structural rivalry. Russia's invasion of Ukraine ended the post-Cold War assumption that European borders were fixed. Several other conflicts with real escalation potential are active simultaneously.
Nuclear deterrence has held for eighty years, which is genuinely remarkable. But deterrence depends on rational actors who correctly understand each other's red lines. Miscalculation is the most likely path to catastrophic escalation, not intentional first strikes. And the conditions for miscalculation, multiple active conflicts, degraded diplomatic channels, domestic political pressures on leaders across several countries, are more elevated than they've been in a long time.
What makes this moment different from the Cold War isn't that the risk is necessarily higher, though it may be. It's that the guardrails are fewer. The arms control treaties that structured US-Soviet competition are mostly gone. The institutions designed to manage international conflict are weaker. And the populations of most democracies are less informed about foreign policy than at any point in the postwar period.
A third world war is not inevitable. Humans have pulled back from the edge before. But assuming it's impossible because it hasn't happened yet is the wrong lesson to draw from that record. The right lesson is that it takes sustained, deliberate effort to keep it from happening. That effort is less visible than it used to be.