World War III could break out at any moment… Where would it happen?
World War III in 2025? 2024 seems to have left a dangerous legacy for its successor. It has been decades since the world witnessed a dangerous international environment like this, with unsettled, ongoing conflicts in some of the world’s most critical parts.
It will take skillful, mature statesmanship to avoid even bigger conflict this year, but the circumstances we find ourselves in demonstrate that agile statesmanship might be in short supply.
No one wants another global conflict, but in some ways, we’re already in a potential World War III. The Russia-Ukraine War, one of the most significant conflicts that the world has seen since World War II, has had far-reaching global impacts. These have touched upon the parts of the world where Russia, the European Union, China, and the United States have interests, which is the entire international system.
None of the 4 conflicts we’re about to discuss are separate from the others. Just like the different theaters of WWII, they each affect the balance of power and danger in the other regions. So let’s not waste any more time. Continue reading and let us know in the comments where YOU think World War III might break out.
China vs. The US
This might just be one of the most significant potential conflicts leading to World War III on our list. The “Thucydides Trap” threat has recently become an influential talking point in Sino-US. Some analysts would argue that Thucydides’ analysis of the Sparta-Athens relationship is a shoddy analogy for that between China and the United States of America.
Nevertheless, it’s indisputable that China’s rise and military buildup transformed the balance of power and dangerously influenced enough points of contention in northeast Asia. The most dangerous aspect of these friction points is that they involve third parties: Japan, Taiwan, the South China Sea, or North Korea, which could all spark a localized conflict that gets out of hand pretty fast.
The most potentially dangerous are the territorial arguments that could be challenged in the maritime sphere: in waters and territories near China that Beijing holds and would likely contest if the status quo was modified against its interests.
First is the possibility of conflict between Japan and China regarding the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, covered by the US-Japan defense treaty, as the US Deputy Defense Secretary restated recently. Another potential crisis is the South China Sea, where the Philippines, another US treaty ally, is increasingly unnerved by Chinese island-building in the Spratly Islands.
The US has been more reluctant about helping Manila than leaping to Tokyo’s defense. Yet, both areas fall within China’s “core interests”: code for something it’s glad to fight for. Probably the most significant unresolved “core interest,” though, is Taiwan.
The surprising swinging of the military balance away from Taiwan to China has been one of the most noteworthy changes to East Asian security in the past decades. The Project 2049 Institute recently announced that “contrary to reports, Taiwan can deny air superiority to China, and it’s likely to retain this capability well into the future.”
That might be so, but in any crisis, that fundamental matter would be the United States’ response to this. Washington’s “abandonment” of Taiwan would have devastating impacts on its reputation as an alliance partner, compelling it to come to the island’s defense.
In doing so, the US military would find itself within range of Chinese systems specifically developed to restrain this. As you can imagine, a direct hit on any US aircraft carrier by China’s DF-21D ASBM would take the entire concern to the next level, while any attack on US bases in Japan would bring Tokyo into the fight.
What would happen after that would depend on the appetite of both sides for ongoing conflict or whether leaders in either nation would feel forced to push the button on World War III.
North Korea vs. South Korea
Pyongyang’s decision to directly interfere in the Russia-Ukraine War rocked the always uneasy relationship on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea’s participation in the war seems to ensure a quid pro quo from Moscow, giving the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea the backer that it has sought since the destruction of the Soviet Union.
The overall impact of Russian support for North Korea is still uncertain. But it’ll undoubtedly help support the DPRK’s energy situation and make it more straightforward for Pyongyang to obtain advanced military technology. It might also make North Korea more adventurous about its relations with the Republic of Korea.
For its part, South Korea is contemplating developing its relationship with Ukraine as a response to the deployment of North Korean troops. Also, South Korean domestic politics have been jolted by an apparent attempted self-coupe, in which President Yoon Suk Yeol cited the North Korean danger as a reason for the imposition of martial law.
The eventual repercussions from these decisions is impossible to foresee, but could spell significant trouble for crisis stability on the Peninsula. Would this lead to World War III?
Russia vs. Europe:
The biggest story since it first began was what exactly was going to happen in east Ukraine. Multiple border violations by Russian troops, the shooting down of an airliner, and the annexation of Crimea had added up to force a considerable reevaluation by the West of its association with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
The intelligence and speed of the Russian campaign bode ill for NATO and other multilateral organizations, including the EU, which a committee-led strategy has tied to decision-making that slows down their response times.
In all fairness to NATO, the alliance is conscious of this and has made a few attempts to strengthen its position in Eastern Europe to thwart the beginning of World War III.
At the Wales summit, it started working out the details of a Readiness Action Plan that would include extremely rapid reaction forces and deploying pre-positioned supplies and equipment along its eastern frontier. NATO must also work on a way to win the information battle, which Putin has managed as skillfully as any confrontations on the ground in Ukraine.
These tactical concerns aside, at the core of the issue is NATO’s eastward movement, which Russia obviously disagrees with, and Moscow’s claim that it had the right to “protect” Russian-speaking minorities in other nations, which NATO would have to react to if member nations like Poland or the Baltic states were endangered.
Middle East Entanglement
The ongoing crisis in the Middle East: whether it’s Iraq, Gaza, the Islamic State, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Israel, or the fallout from the Arab Spring, is so confusing, mysterious, awful, and insurmountable that the only thing we can say in its favor is that at least it hasn’t led to World War III.
For something like this to happen, the nuclear footing in the region would have to go entirely out of kilter. The obvious way this could happen is if Iran gets the bomb and, in response, Israel uses its “widely suspected unmentionables.” Another possibility meriting more scrutiny than it gets is whether the Saudis would upgrade their ballistic missiles, which is something that’s heavily rumored.
Or if they were to fit the older, less accurate DF-3s with nuclear warheads. Another aspect of this scenario is the question of which way these missiles would be pointed: at Israel or Iran?
Other wildcards include the North Koreans helping out the Islamic State or the Assad regime, somehow gaining a previously unknown stockpile of fissile material and weaponizing it. In this light, US attempts to block Iran from getting the bomb make even more sense.
What are your thoughts on this whole World War III situation? According to Nostradamus Foresees Donald Trump, World War III and the Antichrist: Prophecies About the Modern Age, we can expect to experience World War III soon. What do you think? Please feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comments section.
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