Are We Really Barrelling Towards World War Three?
The recent military escalation in the Russia-Ukraine war, following North Korea’s entrance into the conflict on Russia’s side, and the provision of more effective weapons by the West to Kyiv, has increased the sense among many that we are edging towards a Third World War. Recenty, the head of Britain’s armed forces, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, hinted at this when he declared that the world stood on the edge of a “third nuclear age”, defined by profound global instability and weakened safeguards. Even though he added that there was only a remote chance of Russia launching a direct nuclear attack on the U.K. or its NATO allies, the possibility of a nuclear confrontation between Russia and the West has grown larger of late in many peoples’ imaginations.
In previous world wars, most citizens and their leaders didn’t realize that a global conflagration was at hand until the salient precipitating factors made it so. People today still tend to associate events like the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, or the bombing of Pearl Harbour in 1941 as fundamental causes rather than the final triggers they were. Some have argued that world wars originate by from a series of small wars and crises that build up over time then suddenly flare into a large global one. LCF Turner and LJP Taylor are two 20th century historians who chronicled the origins of the First and Second World Wars respectively, by way of smaller, and much earlier, conflicts in their lead-up.
If a similar chain of causal events is currently at play, then future historians, writing about our times, may say that the Third World War had its origins in previous conflicts in its leadup. The Syrian Civil War would be one such episode. During that conflict Russia and the United States tested each other’s capacities and red lines, as Germany and its future enemies did during the Spanish Civil War before World War Two.
Vladimir Putin’s invasion and annexation of Crimea was another key test not unlike Germany’s conquest of the Sudetenland prior to World War Two. In both cases, one side was emboldened by its infraction, the other, intimidated and thrown into a kind of geopolitical stupor.
These simmering tensions boiled over into war in Ukraine in February 2022. The front lines became clear as the West awakened from its slumber to rally a reaction to Russia’s transgression. The largest land war in Europe since World War Two focused minds and hardened spirits in the West. But it also created a schism with much of the rest of the world that was with neither side, and perceived blame in both.
The wars in the Middle East triggered by the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 added yet another global divide and front (even though the sides are not as clearly cut as the wars discussed above). Still, the violent nature of the Gaza war raised the global political temperature, owing partly to the West’s unfettered support of Israel on the battlefield. Images of enormous explosions, civilian deaths, and mass displacement have caused emotional levels across the world to spike, triggering apoplectic reactions in the public space. Many are in a fragile and angry state of mind where it takes less to spill over into violence. The risks of further conflict and anarchy has gone up.
The culture-altering impacts of our digital habits add greatly to this chaos. These conflicts, experienced by many of us through the prism of social media debates and graphic online videos, has not only ramped up political polarization and bickering online, it has conditioned out of us the ability to compromise, and to mentally reconcile opposites and contradictions. These are crucial prerequisites of mindset for peace-making. With such a level of global anxiety and anger, it is hard to see how reactions to further crises would be sensible and calibrated. The stage is therefore set for worse and the recent chatter about World War Three is reflective of this state of affairs.
There may be a hiatus nearing as US President-elect Trump attempts diplomacy in both Ukraine and the Middle East, trying to put out fires in his more business-like way. If it works, at a minimum, time will be bought for more positive and constructive interventions. If he fails, matters may get rapidly worse.
Among the fault lines that could truly add up to a world war is the Baltic Sea region, also home to Russia’s heavily-armed exclave territory of Kaliningrad. The area could serve as a forward outpost for Russian military action, or a trigger, like the Danzig Crisis on the eve of World War Two. Other scenarios include a full military confrontation between Israel-Iran, a war in the Korean Peninsula (and possibly drawing in Japan) and perhaps the greatest and potentially most serious crises of all: a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Should any, some, or all of these occur, without other fires having been put out, and while inflamed minds around the globe remain white hot, then the designation “world war” might finally be adopted as the major powers make cross-linkages between related zones of fighting and conflate their battles.
Even then, it is not inevitable that any “world war” will cross the threshold into weapons of mass destruction, whether nuclear, chemical or biological. However, the introduction of AI and hypersonic cruise missiles onto the scene will signify a new watershed of destruction and psychological terror. Both technologies diminish the human capacity to control, or react, to events, whether by literally handing decisions over to a machine or by generating speeds of attack and decision that increasingly lie beyond the human response threshold.
One could propose various political and diplomatic measures to alleviate these tensions and conflicts, but they are unlikely to be taken. What is truly required—and is the most difficult thing to achieve—is a state of calm, sobriety and larger contextual thinking among both leaders and their citizens. That would allow not just time for minds to cool down from their piping white heat, but also for leaders and their nations to shift towards a solution that they have so far refused to consider: an attitude of mutual respect.
This mindset is the fertile ground upon which conflicts are resolved and prevented. But it is one we are untrained for. It requires the realization that, as our battles are now interlinked, we are locked-in with each other psychologically. This understanding can lead to a sense of responsibility—not only for one’s own defence but also how our actions affect others, including an enemy. A dawning sense that others are impacted by threat and insecurity as much as we are may germinate the beginnings of such mutual respect. That may be the very challenge and demand that really needs to be met as a result of the barrelling cascade of events we are now living.
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