How would we know if World War Three had started?

The notion of a “first” world war only came into being retrospectively, upon the outbreak of the second. 

For nearly 20 years the 1914-18 conflict with its many millions of casualties was known as the “Great War”. But when war broke out again in 1939, commentators began to refer to the Great War as the First World War, to differentiate it from the next one.

Now we are again moving “from a post-war to pre-war world”, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said in January. In a February survey, YouGov found that more than half of Britons believed another world war was “likely” in the next five to ten years. That was before Iran launched its first direct attack on Israel, risking all-out conflict in the Middle East. 

World leaders warn that any escalation could send the region spiralling into bloody conflagration – drawing in allies from around the world or sparking nuclear warfare. Add that to conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza and it’s clear “the potential for a spark that ignites World War Three already exists”, said Deborah Haynes, the Sky News security and defence editor. 

What did the commentators say?

In the lead-up to the Second World War, it was a mistake to treat Italian, Spanish, German and Japanese conflicts as “unconnected events”, said Eliot A. Cohen in The Atlantic. To “compartmentalise” the Ukraine war, Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and the Middle Eastern conflict would be a similar mistake.

Actually, these conflicts are part of “one big narrative”, said Adam Taylor in The Washington Post. They can be categorised in terms of allied authoritarian states – China, Russia, Iran (and its Middle Eastern network of proxies) and North Korea (Crink) – versus the world’s democracies, led by the US, Europe and Israel.

Although the Crink nations differ starkly in ideology, the alliance is a “marriage of convenience”. Iran has been providing Russia with drones since its invasion of Ukraine. It has now “bolstered its defences” against a potential Israeli retaliation with Russian weapons, according to US officials this week. 

This “mutually beneficial relationship” mirrors one Vladimir Putin has forged with fellow pariah Kim Jong Un in North Korea, said Taylor. Pyongyang has provided Russia with war materials in exchange for the technology it covets. China has also provided “a trade lifeline for Russia” amid Western sanctions, and has close ties to Iran. 

This global context is what makes the Iranian attack so significant. Crink players are “increasingly willing to use open violence”, said Cohen, and to threaten “much worse”, including nuclear weapons. Their target is bigger than Iran’s campaign to destroy Israel. It is the overthrow of the “American-led world order”.

But Russia is still the “primary pathway” to World War Three, Dr Luigi Scazzieri, of the Centre for European Reform think tank, told Sky News. If it prevails in Ukraine, an emboldened Putin may be tempted to strike a Nato nation, which would demand a coordinated response. The likelihood increases if Donald Trump wins the US presidential election and further undermines the alliance.

In a Nato vs. Russia scenario, Beijing would assist Moscow. If military force against Western powers proves effective, it could further “harden China’s resolve” to reunite Taiwan with the mainland, said Haynes – even if that means invading, which would compel the US to step in.

What next?

“The reassuring news is we are not heading towards the Third World War,” Hugh Lovatt, of the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank, told Sky News. 

The international order is indeed “fraying”. Russia is prevailing in Ukraine while North Korea is increasing its bellicose rhetoric towards South Korea and the US. China is threatening Taiwan and the Philippines. That’s to say nothing of a string of bloody foreign-backed coups throughout Africa, with civil war-torn Sudan near collapse, and an increasingly violent Latin America. But these conflicts and tensions are all “separate and not connected”, said Lovatt – although they have global implications.

Parallels being drawn with the lead-up to the First World War are overblown, said The Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. Nevertheless, this moment “eerily evokes the dynamics of summer 1914, when a war that every power sought to avoid suddenly appeared inevitable, with consequences that no one could predict”.