Today, both World War I and World War II are ancient history. Time moves on fast. But it’s impossible to overstate how deadly and devastating both of those conflicts were, and how much they changed the trajectory of nations and entire cultures ever after.

After a long post-war period of nominal peace, one punctuated by intermittent smaller-scale warfare, most folks alive have discarded the idea that a true globe-spanning conflict could occur again. But, it seems, many are coming around to the idea.

Tensions are high all over the globe in the wake of the economic and social devastation caused by the pandemic, and its superpowers are once again rattling sabers and moving beyond doing business with proxy states.

World War III is once again on people’s tongues and minds. Is it possible? Who will be involved? Who will start it and most importantly when will it start? We’ll talk about it and look at some possible scenarios in the rest of this article.

How Have Historical World Wars Started?

If you want to predict the future, look to the past. Good advice, and a nice, laconic saying, but the funny thing about history is that it encompasses a whole lot more than you learned in school. That is just our government’s prescribed and sanitized version of history.

The real reasons why the previous world wars started are incredibly complex and varied, and it requires a holistic view of civilizations, politics, and the contextual interactions between all of them.

You probably know off the top of your head that World War I started because Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist…

But arguably, the real reason is that that single event was the small pebble that started an avalanche: the avalanche being an incredibly intricate and Byzantine interplay of alliances and war guarantees between different powers in Europe and beyond.

World War II, what some people call the last truly noble war, was ostensibly started because the Nazis were incredibly evil and intent on exterminating people and taking over much of the world.

The more prosaic reason is because Machiavellian maneuvering instituted between states for influence, land, resources, and political gamesmanship finally culminated in a succession of alliances that eventually sucked half the world into the conflict.

Keep that in mind as you comb through news reports, blogs, and more looking for what might be considered the spark or genesis of World War III; it probably won’t look like any big deal at first.

Accordingly, it’s extremely difficult to predict with any kind of accuracy what the first shot will be, but I will do my best below…

Has World War III Already Started?

There are plenty of folks that argue we are in World War III right now, and have been for some time.

On the back side of the Cold War, superpowers continued to wage war only they did it much as they always had, using proxies, deniable assets, and other, smaller nations as “cat’s paws” to inflict harm on opponents and stymie their political objectives.

At all times, keep in mind that war is just a continuation of politics by other means, and that is a fact however you might feel about it.

Throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and going all the way through the 2000s with the Global War on Terror, the whole world has been embroiled in armed conflict for decades on end, without ceasing.

And at its absolute most conservative, the United States has continually had troops, ships, and warplanes engaged in war overseas for two decades at the very least. Doesn’t that qualify as a world war?

I suppose it depends on who you ask, but both World Wars have a hallmark to them that sets them apart from the lesser wars and police actions that followed: Total War.

Total War in this case does not mean scorched earth, although that’s usually a facet of such wars, but it indicates that a belligerent nation has committed the totality of its economy and workforce to the war effort.

It’s not turning out tanks, bombs, shells, and bullets; civilians will be stamping out ration tins, working the mines, or doing any other countless tasks needed to sustain offensive and defensive operations.

Arguably, you’ll know when the big one has arrived when mass conscription has taken place, and the domestic economies of participants are retooled accordingly.

Because most of the big power players have themselves been in a simmering state of conflict for decades now, armament stockpiles are very low, and so wartime and defense industries would have to spin up to accommodate a surge of military projection.

Right now, the citizens of many Western nations believe that a true World War is likely in the next 5 years, 10 years tops. For instance, more than half of British citizens think that World War III is likely.

Possibilities

If we are to look forward into the future and predict the incident, attack, or action that starts WWIII what would it look like from where we stand right now in 2024?

I, and many others, would put our money on the following…

US Implosion, Other Powers Take Advantage

My personal favorite theory for what the creation of World War III will entail involves a US domestic implosion. No, I’m not necessarily saying this means a Red Dawn type of scenario, but it will nonetheless lead to World War. Let me explain…

Whatever you might think about it, there’s no arguing that America, particularly post-World War II, has been seen as the world’s policeman. If America thinks it is good and just, it can go on, but if America thinks it is bad, we intervene.

We come to the aid of countries that need us and we drop the hammer on the evildoers. More than that, our allies in Europe typically look to the United States to hoist the battle standard before they commit their own forces to any endeavor.

With American society in so much upheaval, with battle lines being drawn amongst political sides, state lines, and more, and trust in the government at historic lows, America looks very winded and unsure of itself.

That’s because it is. Let’s not even get into absolutely crushing debt, diminishing trust in the American dollar, and a domestic economy that’s in the toilet.

America herself is a ticking time bomb heading for a domestic implosion. Increasingly, she is looking to foreigners to fill out ranks of the military since her own young men have been categorically called villains by the powers that be and half of society.

Sadly, those are the men you need to willingly believe in the calls to sign up and go to war on your behalf- if you are the government! As of now, they are intent on staying home, and with good reason…

If a conflict that demands America’s attention on the world stage were to break out, and America cannot muster a coherent, effective response, or any real response at all, what her opponents have long suspected will be confirmed: as of now, the American tiger is looking toothless.

Suspecting it is one thing, believing it is another, and knowing it is something else entirely different.

When other superpowers know they can do what they want and America won’t interfere, that will chill NATO and America’s allies elsewhere who might otherwise respond.

America will, in time, get its act together, but by then, it will be pandemonium, and conflicts will begin piecemeal, leading to World War.

Ukraine War Spirals Out of Control

Everybody has their eyes on the conflict between Ukraine and Russia right now.

That’s with good reason, and again, however you might feel about it and whatever the media might be saying about it, this is very much a matter that only concerns Russia, Ukraine, and its neighbors.

For now… Russia would certainly prefer to keep it that way.

But Western powers and much of NATO are intent on throwing gasoline on the fire at all costs, to include shoveling inordinate sums of money into the fight and sending all sorts of sophisticated weaponry to Ukraine.

As described above, this is very much business as usual when it comes to superpowers conducting war between themselves. It’s all cloak and dagger, proxies, and deniability, or else a low level of aid to belligerents that is unlikely to provoke a direct response from the antagonist superpower.

Remember, the goal of the current paradigm of warfare is to get your enemy to overreact and use excessive force in response to antagonism.

Ergo, the onus is on Russia to keep its mettle and put up with these slights and offenses. That’s it.

War itself is much like a fire or an attack dog: Even when mastered, it is unpredictable and has a will of its own. It is unthinkable that meddling from some other country, directly or indirectly, might be a bridge too far for Russia, or vice versa.

If that leads to reprisals, and then counter-reprisals, and on and on, you can easily set the metaphorical pot to boiling over, and the long-since-past Cold War scenarios playing for World War III might get dusted off for real.

Russia Attacks NATO Member

I’m not saying anything about the morality with which Russia is conducting itself, but looking at the situation tactically and strategically, I think Russia has been very smart about their aims in Ukraine.

Considering their direct approach to warfare is brutal, overwhelming force, it would be easy for them to go astray and either overreach or provoke a response from neighboring countries and NATO.

But if Russia decides, or if a Russian commander decides, that they’ve had enough meddling from nearby NATO countries and moves to defend Russia’s interests or Russian troops or assets, you know as well as I do this will be played up in the media for all it is worth: NATO has been attacked, and NATO will answer!

Cynically, wartime and ongoing but low-level regional conflicts are also a great time to achieve tactical and strategic victories on a much smaller scale when uninvolved populations are burned out on war reporting. Historically, this happens all the time!

Done correctly with an eye for timing, countries perpetrating these activities typically get away with it, lost in the shuffle. But not always…

Russia is certainly doing so around the war front right now, and elsewhere, but sometimes little things have unintended consequences, and in this case, those consequences could lead to a bigger war if found out or handled improperly.

China Invades Taiwan

Before the Ukraine war started, remember when everyone was absolutely certain that China was going to invade Taiwan? And, of course, that hasn’t happened. Proved everybody wrong, right? No World War III in sight!

Actually, don’t pawn off that case of MREs just yet: China has been bulking up to attack Taiwan for many years now.

The US military presently believes that China is going to attack Taiwan sometime around 2027. They have certainly given indicators that they are dead serious about it, and I don’t just mean moving around ships, planes, and troops.

China has been stockpiling fuel, oil, food, iron, and other raw necessities. Doing this the whole time while they have been claiming that they are indeed going to invade Taiwan!

Folks, at some point, you’ve just got to believe that the snake rattling its tail is indeed prepared and going to bite.

To me, it looks like a virtual certainty that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is going to occur at some point, and most of the experts and defense installations being off by a handful of years hardly puts that claim to death.

Knowing this, and understanding US defense pacts, relationships, treaties, and alliances in the area, it’s almost entirely certain that we would try and ride to the rescue, but then we have to circle back to my initial premise above: is America in any state to truly render aid?

Regardless, unless the rest of the world can keep its head, never guaranteed, World War III is highly likely should this scenario take place.

Korean War II

The border between North and South Korea is the most heavily defended stretch of land in the world. The bad blood between these two countries goes back decades, and let us not forget that North Korea has a substantial missile stockpile, including plenty of nuclear warheads.

Parsing out the extent of the hostilities between these two nations is an entire series of articles all on its own, but I will say this:

If conflict were to break out properly between these two nations, Seoul, South Korea’s capital, would likely be shelled, bombarded, or even nuked into oblivion, resulting in millions and millions of civilian deaths. It’s just too close to the border for that not to happen.

Naturally, this will bring China and the United States hurtling into the fray, and their allies with them, kicking off a succession of alliances and war declarations that will absolutely plunge the globe headlong into World War III.

Remember: History Occurs Slowly at the Time

Okay, that’s pretty grim stuff to consider! But I must point something out to all of you: when we read about it in books or hear about it on shows, history seems like it takes place pretty quickly.

What I mean by that is that it appears when a bad, inciting incident happens people must have recognized it at the time.

This is a misconception, or you might say it is a “frame of reference failure” on the part of all of us who didn’t live through the era.

The point is that future generations might point to something that has already happened now as the conclusive beginning of World War III, but for all of us, we just don’t know it yet because it hasn’t gone on long enough… or bad enough.

Get Prepared and Stay Prepared Now

No matter where you are placing your bets concerning the start, or probable start, of World War III, it is imperative that you get prepared and stay prepared right now while you have time, opportunity, and resources.

Wars, real ones, big ones, have a nasty habit of stripping unimaginable and ruinous levels of resources away from all participants, one way or the other. And that’s win, lose, or draw.

Once things kick off properly, it will all but certainly be too late for you to lay up a stash of anything you’ll need.

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