system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why are conflicts going on in the world right now not a world war? And when will it become one?
gpt
Never before has world has been in a state of peace such as this. There are almost no active wars going on now, which is unprecedented.

World War is a hazy term, but generally speaking you'd want large nations wage active war against each other. Proxy war does not quite suffice, for example, Cold War was fought as a proxy war between US and Russia, never did the two nations troops directly clash, they merely supported different sides of various conflicts.

Syria is sort of a proxy war, for example, with plenty of conflicting interests, but the ones actually doing the fighting are locals for the most part.