Are we heading for World War Three?

European nations have quietly begun to "lay down the foundations for possible war with Russia", said Newsweek, after asking military experts to game out how they see the start of a potential Third World War.

Nato is preparing for "several scenarios" including "an all-out shooting war", and "the more likely but less obvious scenario" where well-worn techniques are employed to "undermine stability among member states".

Any of the current conflicts in eastern Europe, the Middle East or Asia could escalate into a global war that would "almost certainly arise from tensions" between Russia, the US, North Korea, Iran and China, retired US Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery and former acting US Secretary of Defense for Policy, James Anderson, told the magazine.

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Middle East

After more than a year of instability that has seen the Middle East come perilously close to an all-out regional war, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria has come as a major blow to its main backer in the region, Iran.

At the same time, Israel has been quick to take full advantage of the situation by launching devastating attacks on Syria that have "peeled away another layer of Iranian defences in the region", exposing Tehran "more than it has been in decades", said the Washington Post.

The regime's "growing vulnerability" has alarmed its government, "stirring fears that its steadily escalating conflict with Israel could soon enter a more dangerous phase".

"Iran was exposed already", Gregory Brew, an Iran analyst at the Eurasia Group told the paer, referring to the previous wave of Israeli strikes on Iranian military facilities. With Hamas seriously depleted in Gaza and its most powerful proxy group in the region, Hezbollah, forced to agree a ceasefire with Israel, the fall of the Assad regime leaves Iran further weakened. This has led some hardliners in Tehran to talk "more openly” about "developing nuclear weapons as a deterrent to attacks", said the Washington Post.

Tensions are already running "high" over Iran's nuclear programme, Al Jazeera reported, "which critics fear is aimed at developing a nuclear weapon – something Tehran has repeatedly denied".

The US and UK are "increasingly concerned" that Russia is sharing secret information and technology with Iran, which could "bring it closer to being able to build nuclear weapons, in exchange for Tehran providing Moscow with ballistic missiles for its war in Ukraine", reported Bloomberg.

Due to the "complex web of alliances and rivalries" across the Middle East, conflicts between Iran and Israel could see the US brought directly into the fighting, said The Independent. Trump has been a vocal hawk against Iran, so his second presidency will do little to temper concerns.

Russia

The Biden administration's decision to allow Ukraine to fire US-supplied missiles inside Russia drew a furious response from Vladimir Putin, who immediately lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike, allowing Moscow to respond with nukes if it is attacked by any state using conventional weapons. Russia now also formally considers an assault on its territory by a non-nuclear power that is supported by a nuclear power to be a joint attack. In short, said Sky News, US missiles fired by Ukraine "meet the new criteria".

Moscow's strident declarations are "understandably worrying", said The New Statesman. "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."

Ukraine's former military commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny said the direct involvement of North Korean troops in Russia means the Third World War has already begun.

But there are "compelling reasons" why Russia won't follow through on its latest threat to escalate the conflict, said Sky News, not least because Putin is "unlikely to risk incurring the wrath" of a new Trump administration poised to be more sympathetic than its predecessor.

China

It has long been assumed that the greatest threat to geopolitical stability is the growing tension between China and the US in recent years, most notably over Taiwan and the question of its sovereignty.

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 (DPP), which it has denounced as dangerous separatists, but who won an unprecedented third term earlier this year. At the same time, the US has ramped up its support – financially, militarily and rhetorically – for Taiwan's continued independence.

In October, Beijing launched new military drills near the island in what it described as "punishment" for a speech given by Taiwan’s President William Lai, when he vowed to "resist annexation" or "encroachment upon our sovereignty".

The move, which China said represents a "stern warning to the separatist acts of Taiwan independence forces" raises "tension" in Asia, said Sky News, and could be a dangerous precursor.

Earlier this year, the top US military commander in the Indo-Pacific said that Beijing is maintaining its goal of being able to invade Taiwan by 2027. Admiral John Aquilino told the US House Armed Services Committee that China wants to build up its People's Liberation Army (PLA) "on a scale not seen" since the Second World War.

The year 2027 is seen as "magical" because it marks the centenary of what was to become the PLA, said Robert Fox in the London Evening Standard. The idea that this anniversary could coincide with a serious military operation by Beijing has become a "fixation" in Washington, said Defense News. It has "impacted the debate over China policy – a shift from the long term to the short term" while also helping to steer billions of dollars towards US forces in the Pacific.

Foreign Policy said Beijing and Washington have become "desensitised" to the risk these circumstances pose, and in the "militarisation of foreign policy and the failure to grasp the full significance of that militarisation, the pair are one accident and a bad decision removed from a catastrophic war".

Any invasion "would be one of the most dangerous and consequential events of the 21st century", said The Times last April. It would "make the Russian attack on Ukraine look like a sideshow by comparison".

But leading Taiwanese officials have "moved to ease concern" about the "potential fallout" of a second Trump term, said Bloomberg, arguing that the technology restrictions promised by the Republican against China would outweigh the risks to the island.

North Korea

Since talks with Trump in 2019 broke down over disagreements about international sanctions on Pyongyang, Kim Jong Un has "focused on modernising his nuclear and missile arsenals", said Sky News.

In his New Year's Eve address last December, he warned that the actions of the US and its allies have pushed the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war. And he announced that the hermit kingdom had abandoned "the existential goal of reconciling with rival South Korea", said The Associated Press.

While no direct military action has been launched from north to south since then, there are signs tensions are rising. Earlier this year, the two sides were involved in a "tit-for-tat" balloon war, said The Independent, with North Korea floating 200 balloons filled with rubbish and waste in June. That was in response to "activists" from the south, who have been sending balloons "carrying propaganda material about their democratic society and memory devices with K-pop music videos," into the north.

The south has since scrapped a "2018 non-hostility pact aimed at lowering military tensions", the paper added, indicating the "psychological warfare" had "tipped over into real escalation".

The increasing hostility has already seen the US become further involved, conducting a "precision-guided bombing drill with Seoul" in June along the peninsula for the first time in seven years as a "warning against North Korea", said The Independent.

And officials in Seoul said in October that North Korean troops are preparing to "blow up the roads that cross the heavily militarised border" between the two countries, said Sky News. "Destroying the roads would be in line with Kim Jong Un's push to cut off ties with South Korea and formally cement it as the North's principal enemy."