How will/should the greatest powers align themselves?(China, India, Russia, USA)

[Kingpoleon]

Despite Russia drawing closer and closer to China, they seem intent on maintaining a seeming counterbalance in India. In terms of military size, these great powers are essentially unmatched. If any war breaks out, China and India will play important roles in matching, man for man, the number of soldiers. Will India move closer to the US? Will China severe its ties to Pakistan and form a grand, triple alliance?

[Kingpoleon]

We are getting back into a pre WWI mentality. This is bad news. The question shouldn't be "how will the greatest powers align" but how the world can avoid a repeat of 1914 in the first place.

The post-Edwardian era powers eventually aligned in an imbalanced way because the US, UK and Soviet Union dwarfed Germany and its allies in terms of output. That meant the world wars, as horrific as they were, were not nearly as bad as they would have been if, for instance, the US and the USSR were forced into a fight to the end. Today, unless it's the US, China and India against Russia, no such dwarfing is possible. That, in combination with the advent of nuclear weapons and other new technologies, guarantees that World War III would be even worse of a catastrophe than the first two.

Only in the sense that alliances with great powers are reforming. And that’s not inherently a bad thing - it was a lack of allies amongst democratic and free peoples that enabled Nazi and then Soviet domination of large swathes of the world.

[Kingpoleon]

India is still not at the same footing as the three others, sheer manpower notwithstanding.

India economically and militarily is as large as Russia...