I’ll try to answer in the order of what is in the questions details. I don’t see a nuclear war or World War III of any kind for that matter because essentially, I don’t think there would be any ultimate winners. The whole world would be negatively impacted by such a devastating series of events.
As far as world peace, I think that is an exceptionally good goal that every country should help in achieving. Unfortunately, I think areas like the Middle East (Israel vs. Palestine as a prime example) has known nothing but war and strife for their entire existences and they still can’t find logical solutions to work out their differences. I think this is very sad and I earnestly hope they can someday achieve peace.
As far as a brave new world or George Orwell’s 1984, I think we’re kind of moving that way because our Constitution has been taken for granted and abused for far too long and the Patriot Act has infringed on and trampled some of our rights to privacy in America. It seems like Big Brother is watching us a lot more these days than it used to.
I personally am leaning toward being much more optimistic, at least for the next 4 years, with president-elect Obama at the helm. I don’t feel it has been a very good previous 8 years under Bush and I’m hoping for the best. As far as the entire 20 years outward, only time will tell but I hope they’re good ones.