NATO and World War III (Semester 2, Post #2)

So, you probably read the title and were pretty confused. Let me clarify: my guiding question is essentially, could the formation of NATO have lead to another world war? A few other questions spawn off of this, such as what classifies a "world war," as there were certainly conflicts involving NATO, but that comes later.
When we learned about the Formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which consisted of the United States, Canada, and Europe, the first connection I saw was that NATO was not entirely different from the alliances leading up to World War I. I mean, just like the Triple Entente and the Central Powers, NATO is a military alliance of nations, except this one spans multiple continents. If, during the Cold War, NATO was showing that these nations were willing to use force to contain the spread of Communism, how is that different from how the Central Powers began in case of a war. Just like how Germany needed Austria-Hungary to back them up in case a war broke out, the United States wanted assurance that they would have allies if a war broke out with the Soviet Union. This leads to my second part, which is that, if a world war is one that spans multiple fronts and continents, could the Cold War be World War III? Could we just as easily be referring to things such as the Vietnam Front or the Korean Front instead of the Vietnam War and Korean War? I understand that it looks different from the other world wars, but warfare and the definition of what is "conventional" changes constantly. I mean, looking at the conflicts we have learned about in this class, we have seen differences in what a war can be. Anything to a revolution to total war to the more modern insurgency, we have seen change about what it means to fight a war. And so, to leave you with some questions; Was the Cold War essentially World War III? If not, what are the differences? Lastly, could NATO have boiled into the beginning of World War III, or did it already?

-Chavez Rodriguez