It has the potential to make England v Germany at football, India v Pakistan at cricket and the oil dispute between the US and Iran all look like little boys squabbling in the playground.
Because when it comes to war, the big battle being fought out there just now is the Battle of the Gadgets - between Apple in the West and their arch rivals Samsung from the East.
And it's taking place in the messiest, most bloodthirsty, most intimidating setting possible.
No, not the highest level in Call of Duty. The courts.
Because in a courtroom far, far away (San Jose, California for those not keeping up-to-date) the maker of the Galaxy has been accused by the maker of the iPad of stealing iPhone features like scrolling and multi-touch.
That makes the stakes massive. The two warring parties have been involved in a string of patent lawsuits across Europe, America and Asia in the past few years - but this one is what the French call 'Le Crunch'.
Apple is being tested on its worldwide patent strategy against Google's Android operating system, while Samsung faces the threat of sales bans on its Galaxy line of phones and tablets.
Samsung has sold 22.7 million smartphones and tablets in the US, reaping $8.16 billion in revenue. Apple is seeking damages of over $2.5 billion. Both sell over half the world's smartphones.
On the battlefield - the lush carpet of the San Jose District courthouse - Apple attorney Harold McElhinny showed slides that featured old Samsung phones from 2006 and compared it to the Korean company's newer smartphones from 2010.
The key question, McElhinny said, would be how Samsung moved from the old phones to "these phones."
McElhinny blasted: "Artists don't laugh that often when people steal their designs."
Samsung's legal eagle Charles Verhoeven countered that many iPhone features, like its popular minimalist design, had already been thought up by others before its release.
"Samsung is not some copyist, some Johnny-come-lately doing knockoffs," he told the seven men and two women jurors.
"There's a distinction between commercial success and inventing something."
But Apple's McElhinny replied: "The evidence will be that Apple has made a unique vision a reality. So much that it really is hard to remember what phones looked like before."
Oof. Do keep an eye on the battle, sorry I mean case, in US District Court, Northern District of California, between Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, No. 11-1846.
It's going to be more epic than Braveheart, Apocalypse Now and Saving Private Ryan combined.
© 7Days 2012
