Whilst waiting for Wil to get on with his fascinating thread.....
If the world really was divided three ways, each superpower perpetually at war with at least one of the others, sometimes two, is that situation stable as Orwell stated?
Eastasian strength based on the fecundity and industry of its population, Eurasia protected by its huge interior spaces and interior lines of communication and Oceania by its global disposition and ocean borders.
Was it possible for each to be literally unconquerable by any combination of the other two?