1. Militant French revolutionaries who realize how much they suck rise up against the self-centered conceited French who hold the power. However, after five years of blood, both sides finally realize that this time there's no one to surrender to except themselves. This is unacceptable as the French are "better than everyone else" and surrendering AGAIN to THEMSELVES would make them even smellier somehow. Therefore, the Army of the Conceited French (ACF) will recruit British mercenaries, and the Union of Smelly French Who Realize Their Stench (USFWRTS) hire Russian mercenaries. The British and Russians soon involve their governments in the affair, because whoever wins gets all the plutonium that France is Hoarding. The alliance system is soon put into place, and America joins the UK, China joins Russia, Germany joins America, and Canada joins China. Nukes are soon deployed, not by the aforementioned countries but from angry Spaniards who think the war is silly and want to end it. The US thinks it's Russia, and vice versa; Reagan's fears come true and Nuclear Armageddon happens. After the smoke and dust clears, Mick Jagger (one of the few survivors) emerges as the Supreme ruler of the remaining world.
2. Russia has recently announced that they have developed a strain of the anthrax virus than cannot be vaccinated against. In addition, an American research group has announced that it is working on altering the genetic code of a virus so that it will only attack cells that contain certain genes. They claim that they could program a virus to target people with a genetic disorder (for example, epilepsy) and the virus would attack that person and alter their DNA to correct for the deformity in the genetic code. It's inevitable that if the Americans succeed in developing this virus, the technology will leak out eventually. Then either terrorists or a corporate empire (cough microsoft cough) will use the virus for some sort of racial cleansing.