A senior European intelligence official has warned that Russia could launch an attack to test Nato’s resolve in a matter of “months, not years”.
Michal Koudelka, head of the Czech Republic’s BIS security service, told The Guardian ahead of this week’s UN General Assembly that a “limited incursion” into Nato territory bordering Russia that involves “false-flag provocations” and a “massive influence campaign” could be imminent.
A Politico poll earlier this year found that voters in the US, UK, France and Canada think the outbreak of World War Three is more likely than not within the next five years, with Russia seen as the biggest threat to peace in Europe.
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Russia
With peace talks over Ukraine stalled, both sides have escalated drone and missile attacks against each other’s capitals and key energy infrastructure. Last weekend, as voters in Russia went to the polls to elect a new State Duma, Kyiv launched its largest strike on Moscow since the start of the war four and a half years ago.
Moscow “increasingly views Ukraine’s strikes inside Russia as attacks by Nato countries because alliance members provide Kyiv with weapons and intelligence”, said Bloomberg. People close to the Kremlin warn that the current fighting “has not yet reached its peak level of escalation”.
Vladimir Putin has previously warned that he is ready to fight a war with Europe if necessary. Should this happen, it would probably come through the provocation of Nato’s European allies at a “number of pinch points – especially in the Baltic, the North Atlantic and through the Balkans”, said The Independent.
The Kremlin has already begun testing Nato defences and resolve with a series of airspace incursions into Estonia, Romania and Poland. Last week, Finland requested Swedish help to monitor its border with Russia for incursions. Germany is expected to impose further sanctions for a drone attack at Leipzig airport in August, believed to have originated in Russia, while Slovakia last week foiled an arson attack on a drone factory.
Last week, Polish PM Donald Tusk told his parliament that intelligence assessments suggested Russia might launch an attack with drones or missiles on Nato territory in the coming months, as part of efforts to prove that “Article 5 is more theoretical than practical”.
Middle East
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has lashed out at the US for failing to respect international law, following Donald Trump’s threats to “annihilate” his nation. Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Pezeshkian said Iran would not surrender in the war with the US, but believes in diplomacy to try to end the conflict.
US and Iranian envoys met this week for the first time since June, hoping to revive a peace process that had effectively collapsed.
In a sign of the many ways tensions in the region could escalate, Iran-backed Houthi rebels threatened on Wednesday to attack US interests in the Middle East and to “close Bab el-Mandeb completely to American ships” if Washington joins Saudi-led military operations against the group in Yemen. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, through which around 12% of global trade passes, has increasingly been used as an alternative route for oil exports bypassing disruption in the Strait of Hormuz.
The weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and the decommissioning of Hamas mean Iran has lost much of its proxy influence across the region. But Tehran’s ability to retaliate against Gulf states and Western bases in the region, and effectively block the strait, which before the war accounted for a fifth of the world’s seaborne energy supply, has surprised many and made the risk that a regional conflict could turn into a global one more – not less – likely.
There is a “sense in the Western military community” that, were tensions to escalate further, and “the US to get sucked into a ground war in the Middle East”, China and Russia would “waste no time” in exploiting the situation, said Richard Shirreff, former deputy supreme allied commander of Nato in Europe, in the Daily Mail.
Beijing could “seize the opportunity” to launch its “longed-for invasion of Taiwan”. That’s a Third World War “in anyone’s book”, with “all the major powers” going into the conflict “possessing weapons that could kill billions”.
Those who see “the spectre of a third world war are both right and wrong”, said Doug Stokes, head of the School of International Relations at Modul University Vienna, in The Spectator. They’re “wrong if they mean a singular, cataclysmic escalation”, but they’re “right” if they mean that a “structural contest between the United States and a loose Sino-Russian-Iranian axis” is “well under way”, and will be “fought through proxies, economic leverage, and the systematic contestation of strategic geography”.
China
It has long been assumed that the greatest threat to geopolitical stability is rising tension between China and the US, with Taiwan expected to be at the centre of any future military confrontation.
But Xi Jinping this week told Donald Trump rather than confrontation, conditions for “achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again go hand in hand” and should be the goal. “We should strengthen communication. China and the United States are different in national conditions, but through candid, in-depth and continued dialogue, our two countries can understand each other better, seek common ground while shelving differences, and build up mutual trust,” said Xi.
Beijing sees Taiwan as an integral part of a unified Chinese territory. It has, in recent years, adopted an increasingly aggressive stance towards the island. It has denounced Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which won an unprecedented third term in 2024, as dangerous separatists. At the same time, the US has ramped up its support – financially, militarily and rhetorically – for Taiwan’s continued independence.
Last year, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted live-fire military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, in what was seen as a “dress rehearsal for a possible real blockade in an attempt to overthrow the government in Taipei in the future”, said the BBC.
China has also “held live-fire drills on the doorsteps of Australia, Taiwan and Vietnam”, tested new landing barges on ships that “could facilitate an amphibious assault on Taiwan”, and unveiled deep-sea cable cutters “with the ability to switch off another country’s internet access – a tool no other nation admits to having”, said The Guardian.
And in June, for the first time, Taipei reported mainland Chinese law enforcement vessels near an island it controls in the South China Sea, a “development experts say could form the basis of Beijing’s effective control in the waters”, said the South China Morning Post.
The Trump administration has long pursued a hawkish stance towards China and its ambitions on Taiwan. Yet its position has softened after starting its war with Iran, and seeing potential in leveraging Beijing’s influence with Tehran.
With Washington’s renewed focus on the Middle East, “what everyone’s looking at is whether China sees an opportunity” and goes for Taiwan sooner than expected, said The Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Greenfield. “That would be how we got to a world war.” The Chinese “insist that’s not the case” but “it must be tempting for people in the Chinese government if they are intent on recapturing Taiwan”.
Many observers anticipate that China will look to invade Taiwan by 2027, which is seen as a “magical” year because it marks the centenary of what was to become the PLA, said Robert Fox in The Standard. The idea that this anniversary could coincide with a serious military operation by Beijing has become a “fixation” in Washington, said Defense News.
If there’s one ally almost every Republican in Washington wants to defend, it’s Taiwan against China, said Time. Beijing knows a full-scale invasion of Taiwan would “risk direct war with the US”.
North Korea
North Korea has rejected US attempts to ease regional tensions and vowed to continue strengthening its nuclear force, in a major blow to the Trump administration.
Last month, the US president ordered a scaling-back of the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises between the US and South Korea, citing his “very good relationship” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
But in a statement carried by state media KCNA earlier this month, a foreign ministry spokesperson said Washington maintained its “invariable hostile policy to wantonly violate the sovereignty, political system and security interests” of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea . Expecting any easing of regional tensions was “pointless” and North Korea’s nuclear weapons were an “absolute guarantee for defending its sovereignty”.
Since the beginning of 2024, Kim has slowly moved the hermit kingdom away from “the idea of a peaceful unification” with South Korea, said The Associated Press. South Korea has since scrapped a 2018 non-hostility pact aimed at lowering military tensions.
“Kim’s government has repeatedly dismissed calls by Seoul and Washington to restart long-stalled negotiations aimed at winding down his nuclear weapons and missiles programmes, as he continues to prioritise Russia as part of a foreign policy aimed at expanding ties with nations confronting the US,” said The Independent.
North Korea has sent thousands of troops and weapons to fight against Ukraine, a move that “has raised concerns Moscow could provide technology that strengthens Kim’s nuclear-armed military” in return.
In April, Kim hailed a “new history of friendship with Russia written in blood” as he presided over the opening of a memorial in Pyongyang built for his troops killed fighting in Europe. Moscow, in turn, pledged to sign a five-year plan for bilateral military cooperation.
The main concern, of course, remains the border with South Korea, one of the most highly militarised places on earth. Earlier this year, Kim called on top military officials to bolster front-line units and turn the border into an “impregnable fortress”. He has since overseen tests of a strategic, nuclear-capable cruise missile, as well as anti-ship, anti-submarine and air defence systems.
