There was some other thread here betting on the next war and I put my money on India. India has been the real beneficiary from this war. Cheap oil, fueling their ever growing country. India, like most nations wants what the West has had for so long, prosperity. The difference being between them and other nations is their growing power. They have become an economic powerhouse, its not exactly a large leap to think by 2040 they also shift to becoming a superpower themselves.
India is also going to face some other issues that might drive action out of them. Climate change, climate shift , call it what you want, places are getting hotter. I don't know what parts of India will look like 2050 and prior to that a lot of their major water sources I suspect will be dwindling. I don't know what that means for them, or the world. Or perhaps that stunts them.
Don't know.
I think near term wars will be fought in smaller periphery states. The cold war model. Personally i see more flashpoints in places like Venezuela-neighbors, Cambodia-Thailand. Basically countries where the west and east are at frontiers of influence. India-Pakistan, both nuked armed isn't likely to spill into a bigger war because the stakes are too high.
India needs a ton of resources and i think they need and hope to look like the China of today. They like China have a ton of human capital, so how do they retain it? So many young Indians today are clawing to get into western countries. It's kind of annoying tbh to look around and see half the company being filled with Indians.