Are we heading for World War Three?

Iran plans a "strong and complex" response to Israel's air strikes last month, according to Arab officials.

It "remains to be seen" whether the Iranian threats are "real or just tough talk", says the Wall Street Journal, but officials said that Tehran doesn't plan to limit its response to missiles and drones, as two previous attacks did. Instead, it will include "more powerful warheads".

Iranian officials initially told other countries that it didn't intend to respond to Israel's strikes, but the rhetoric has intensified, with a top Iranian general threatening "an unimaginable response", and the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warning of a "tooth-breaking" response.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"Our military lost people" in Israel's strikes last month, said an Iranian official, so Tehran must "respond", and it could use Iraqi territory for part of the operation that would probably target Israeli military facilities "much more aggressively than last time".

Russia

Ukrainians have reacted with "a mix of trepidation and grim resolve" to the news that Donald Trump will be the next US president, said Politico, after he vowed to "stop wars" in a speech on Wednesday morning.

Kyiv officials have acknowledged that Ukraine would now probably "have to look to its allies elsewhere in the West for support" as it seeks to "fend off" a renewed Russian offensive, backed up by thousands of North Korean troops.

Nato confirmed last month that North Korean troops were operating in the Kursk region on Russia's border with Ukraine, in a "dangerous expansion" of Moscow's invasion.

"The deepening military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is a threat to both Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic security," Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte told reporters. North Korea has already sent ballistic missiles and millions of rounds of ammunition to Moscow for use in Ukraine.

"It's unclear how or when Nato allies might respond to the North Korean involvement" in Ukraine, said The Guardian. Nato allies could choose to "lift restrictions that prevent Ukraine from using Western-supplied weapons for long-range strikes on Russian soil".

Russia has signalled that permitting Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory with Western-supplied missiles would be viewed by the Kremlin as a "major escalation", said Reuters. In September, Putin said such a step would mean "the direct involvement of Nato countries" in the war in Ukraine, because Nato military infrastructure and personnel would have to be involved in the targeting and firing of the missiles.

Despite Ukraine's invasion of the Kursk region in Russia and renewed commitment from its Western allies, Russian troops continue to make slow but steady gains in eastern Ukraine. If Putin ultimately prevails, he will "almost certainly try his luck" in the Baltics, said Dominic Waghorn, Sky News' international affairs editor – "because he will assume the alliance is too spineless to stop him". That view would likely be reinforced if Donald Trump were to carry through with his threats to pull America out of Nato if, as looks likely, he's confirmed as the winner of the US presidential election.

Meanwhile, Moscow's "conventional and hybrid threats to US allies in Europe are intensifying by the day", said Dr Samuel Ramani in The Telegraph, and the danger of an "accidental conflict" in the aftermath of the US elections risks the "very worst" scenario: a "new world war".

Middle East

With Israel's invasion of Gaza passing its one-year anniversary, the Middle East appears more unstable than at any time in the past 12 months.

Israel's response to Iran's unprecedented missile attack on its territory – itself a retaliation for the targeting of senior figures from its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah – means the two nations are now in direct confrontation.

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 assumed second presidency will do little to temper concerns.

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", Bloomberg reported.

Iran's "loose allies" Russia, North Korea and China are "watching events and there is an outside possibility of World War Three, given the conflict in Ukraine", said The Mirror.

"Others believe that has already started – it just looks different in what modern analysts call 'hybrid warfare', which is not only fought in the trenches but behind the scenes, with covert military operations, destabilising missions, disinformation campaigns, election interference and hacking".

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.

Last month, 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" if Trump returns to the White House, 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, 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."