we heading for a new world war?

As Russia moves more and more troops to its borders and nearly all western countries are pressuring back the danger of a new - big - war seems ominous. The interesting thing i observe in my social bubble: Many people WANT the situation to escalate! I think the best parallel would be the time just before the first world war, the "Kriegsbegeisterung" that could be observed in many populations.

do people want a big one?

Nobody "really" wants a war, but the changes a war - and the time thereafter - might bring. In the west we are now mostly living in a somewhat static society, especially in Germany. If you are poor, the chances are big that your children will be poor, if you are rich your children will be rich. The social flexibility our grandparents experienced is a thing of the past. Of course, the life that a poor person in the Germany of 2022 lives is much, much better than that of their grandparents... but the feeling that you are stuck in place still stays. So, this is the first part of the people here in the west who want a big war, to break the stalemate of society. Then there are some ecological fanatics who just want to burn down modern society (and kill off a big chunk of population) to save the climate... (yeah, great friends do i have..). At last there are the people who are rightfully concerned about the fate of the Ukraine, who just don't want to see a free country taken by an aggressor... but weirdly in my personal social bubble these are the absolute minority.

will it go boom?

My opinion: Yes

On the one hand there are the viable strategic goals Vladimir Putin could achieve if he takes the Ukraine, like the offshore gas fields and to establish the Ukraine as a new puffer-state between the NATO and Russia, on the other hand one must not forget that Putin is just a human being as oneself. He has witnessed the "golden age" of the soviet union as a child and the downfall of it. I can wholeheartedly imagine that his biggest dream could be to restore his motherland to a (perhaps imagined) forgone glory.

So, yeah, i sincerely think we will see a war starting within the next few days to weeks... possibly even unintentionally started by an "accident" in this overheated atmosphere on both sides. The only question that remains is, if it will escalate to a big one or if it will stop within the borders of Ukraine.