Are we heading for World War Three?

China and Russia could launch simultaneous attacks on Western allies that could plunge the world into another global conflict, the head of Nato has warned.

Mark Rutte set out a scenario in which China's President Xi Jinping could try to seize Taiwan while urging Russia's Vladimir Putin to launch a parallel attack on Nato countries, "potentially sparking World War Three", said London's The Standard.

Ongoing wars in Europe and the Middle East and "increasing cooperation among China, Russia, North Korea and Iran", all raise the prospect of a large-scale conflict within the next 10 years, said the Atlantic Council. This view is shared backed by a growing number of US and European citizens, according to recent YouGov polling.

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Russia

Donald Trump ran for re-election last year with a promise to bring about a quick end to the war in Ukraine, and since entering the White House has repeatedly used the threat of the conflict escalating into World War Three as a way to get both sides around the negotiating table. But months of diplomacy, bullying and flattery appear to have yielded little progress.

Having suffered a series of embarrassing setbacks on the battlefield, Vladimir Putin had been hoping an extended period of unrest in the Middle East would distract Western resources and attention away from Ukraine.

With fighting showing no signs of letting up, fears are growing that an emboldened – or threatened – Kremlin could look to escalate the conflict.

Rutte's recent "dire warning comes amid growing fears that Putin may be eyeing the Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – all Nato members and formerly part of the Soviet Union", said The Standard.

All three, as well as Poland and Finland, are withdrawing from a landmark landmine treaty as they seek to shore up their border defences with Russia.

Nato Secretary-General Rutte warned in June that "Russia could be ready to use military force against Nato within five years". He reminded Nato member states of the history lesson that "to preserve peace, we must prepare for war" and announced ambitions to increase defence spending across the alliance.

While the Baltic states are the most likely target for a Russian invasion, Putin has also begun ramping up production of hypersonic missiles. The intermediate-range weapons "are capable of striking targets up to 3,415 miles away, which puts locations across Europe and even the western US within their potential reach", said The Economic Times.

If Russia takes military action against any Nato member state, it would force the military alliance into an all-out conflict. In that scenario, Russia could call on its allies to join in a global war. "Serious analysts express concern that Russia may escalate and the world, as it has done so many times in the era of mass warfare, may sleepwalk its way into an engulfing conflict", said The New Statesman.

In reality, the likely threat from Russia is not a "full-scale invasion" but a "test: something ambiguous and tricky that will divide Nato, and thus discredit it", said Edward Lucas in The Times. But with Russia's new supersonic missiles able to stretch from Moscow to any point in Europe, we are all "the eastern flank now".

Middle East

For a few days last month it looked as though the war between Israel and Iran would explode into an all-out regional conflict, dragging in the US and Western allies on one side, and potentially Russia and China on the other.

In little more than 24 hours, the US launched air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, and Iran retaliated against an American airbase in Qatar. Just hours later Donald Trump announced a US-mediated ceasefire, which has so far held.

It marked the latest flashpoint in a region that has been in a state of chaos ever since Hamas launched its surprise attack against Israel on 7 October 2023. That led to the subsequent invasion of Gaza, weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and the Israel-Iran conflict.

Last week, the Pentagon announced the massive wave of strikes against Iran had set the country's nuclear programme back by just one to two years. Talks between the US and Iran on the latter's nuclear programme are set to resume next week. Israeli officials are confident that Trump will give them the green light to launch further attacks if the Islamic regime revives its nuclear ambitions, said Axios.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu used his visit to Washington this week to discuss how to secure a lasting settlement in the region, and hand his host at the White House a letter nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

"The award has become Trump's ultimate fixation," said CNN, "one he says is well deserved for his efforts to end conflicts around the globe, including the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza."

But "a lasting resolution to that 21-month conflict will depend, in part, on Netanyahu's willingness to accept a deal that stops the fighting entirely", something Trump has been pressing for several months but which the Israeli PM has so far been reluctant to agree to.

China

It has long been assumed that the greatest threat to geopolitical stability is rising tension between China and the US, which could force other countries to align with either superpower. This risked pushing the globe to "the brink of a third world war", the Straits Times reported.

While recent attention has been on an escalating US-China trade war, most expect a future military confrontation to centre on Taiwan. Beijing sees the island nation as an integral part of a unified Chinese territory. It has, in recent years, adopted an increasingly aggressive stance towards the island and its ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which it has denounced as dangerous separatists, but who won an unprecedented third term early last year. At the same time, the US has ramped up its support – financially, militarily and rhetorically – for Taiwan's continued independence.

In recent months, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has conducted live-fire military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, drills 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.

This year China has "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.

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 London's 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.

But 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".

Politicians, military chiefs and industry leaders "can no longer afford to ignore the prospect of a full-scale invasion", said the Daily Mail. In such a scenario, the US – Taiwan's most powerful protector – may be forced to respond in its defence. It would "shake the foundations of the world as we know it and could well trigger a Third World War".

North Korea

Since 2019, Kim Jong Un has "focused on modernising his nuclear and missile arsenals", said Sky News.

At the start of 2024 he announced that the hermit kingdom had eliminated "the idea of a peaceful unification between the war-divided countries", said The Associated Press. The South has since scrapped a "2018 non-hostility pact aimed at lowering military tensions", The Independent said. This indicates the "psychological warfare" had "tipped over into real escalation".

South Korea said in April its soldiers had fired warning shots at North Korean troops who had crossed the demarcation line between the two nations – some of whom were armed.

Dr Sean Kenji Starrs, lecturer in international development at King's College London, told the Daily Mail that "the more likely scenario" than North Korea invading South Korea would be China "encouraging or pressuring" it to do so "in order to expel US troops". That would "open a new front against the US so that China could more easily take Taiwan".

In April, North Korea conducted the first test-firing of the weapons system of a "Choe Hyon-class" 5,000-tonne warship it recently unveiled, according to state media KCNA. North Korea's navy may "accelerate nuclear armament for maritime sovereignty and for the sake of national defence", Reuters cites Kim as saying.

The new naval destroyer can apparently launch nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, which security and defence analyst Michael Clarke told Sky News "shows the level of their ambition".