There is a lot of turmoil going on in the world these days (2022 & 2023). Everybody is constantly talking about war(s). When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th, suddenly thoughts about World War III appeared in in everyone’s mind. People on the street are talking about it. News is bombarding us with information about war, and what would happen is Putin decides this or Biden decides another thing.
If you look up term “World War III” on Google Trends you can easily notice big spike in February, when Putin announced his special military operation in Eastern Ukraine.
Related: Why are wars still happening?
This spike is nothing weird. People got scared so they started doing what is normal in scary situations – turn to Google for help. But the answer unfortunately cannot be found. Nobody knows what Putin will decide and what is in his thoughts. And especially no one knows what Biden will decide. To be honest Biden himself doesn’t even know what he will decide or say the next second for that matter. But that’s another, very sad story of the modern world and its politicians.
In one of my previous articles, I have written extensively about hypothesis of a world without weapons and wars. This construct to me seems like the only rational one. We homo sapiens have been on this Earth for 250 thousand years. Perhaps even more, depending on the newest findings of bone artifacts.
Nonetheless, we are constantly leading different wars. Seems like humanity is not even close enough to be wise enough to stop wars once and for all. 99,99% of normal humans don’t want wars of any kind. Yet, wars are happening all the time. Constantly throughout history. Whether they are happening because of greed, vanity, insanity or just economic profit, no one knows. Perhaps military–industrial complexes (MIC) are responsible for constant war rage. Who knows, but President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s tried to warn American people (and the world) about military–industrial complex during his Farewell Address in 1961.
I would for sure recommend that you watch this video as it will give you goosebumps and clues why humanity is in constant conflict.
What would be the first trigger for WW3?
Unfortunately, things are as they are. The world is cruel, people are angry, and nations are almost behaving more insanely than ever before.
And so, in this situation we need to ask ourselves what will happen if World War Three really starts.
Who would trigger the first nuclear weapon? What would happen then? Which countries would be impacted the most? And what would happen with regular people, economy or security.
One thing is for sure – our lives would change drastically for the worse.
So then, let’s dive deeper into potential scenarios and consequences.
First thing that comes to mind is that Putin could go completely berserk and just say: “f*ck it – I am going to destroy everything. I am already 70 years old, what do I care? At least I will be remembered as the second president who decided to bring up the big gun, that is nuclear bomb.”
Hm… yet, nobody likes to be second. President Truman already did that. Ok to be fair it was not a nuclear bomb but atomic. As everyone surely remembers Truman decided to drop an atomic bomb on Japan on August 6, 1945.
But hey, technology progressed so Putin could actually be the first person to throw an actual nuclear bomb to another nation.
So then, let’s get on with couple of possible but hopefully scenarios that will not be realized:
Scenario 1: Putin decides to launch tactical nuclear bomb on Ukraine
Most experts agree that Putin probably wouldn’t use nuclear bomb in such a way as it was used during Hiroshima and Nagasaki devastations. A more probable scenario would be to strike attack with so called tactical nuclear weapons before escalating further.
According to US intelligence approximations, Russia has organized around 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons. Those are very different from strategic nuclear weapons like intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which can travel more than 5500 kilometers and deal gigantic damage.
So, in the case of tactical nuclear weapons – what could happen? Putler, I mean, Putin just wakes up one day with clear mind in his head –
“I am going to do this, so let’s see what happens”.
The process around firing nuclear weapons is a complicated one. At least that’s what we’ve been told for so many years. Rare people actually have any idea how the process really looks like so let’s not delve into details around that.
Let’s just hypothesize that nuclear weapons are fired to Ukraine.
If we were to trust Biden this will not happen. But, it’s hard to trust Biden as he is completely lost most of the time anyway. CNN asked him how realistic it would be for Putin to use a tactical nuclear weapon, Biden responded: “Well, I don’t think he will.”
Good one Mr. Biden!
Nonetheless, if it were to happen. Now what?
How the US and NATO would respond to any nuclear use is hard to predict. They may not want to escalate the situation further and risk all-out nuclear war, but they also might want to draw a line.
Let’s say that Russia fires small nuclear weapon as a warning, not killing any civilians. Would that cause World Ward 3?
I don’t think so, but…
The very first tactical nuclear weapon used in Ukraine would probably result in the collapse of the global economy. This economic crisis could easily last longer than the Great Depression. This could then mean – millions of deaths worldwide, either from starvation, sicknesses or other consequences of a big crisis.
So, again, to conclude with Scenario 1. I don’t think (and many military experts would agree), that this would lead to a complete World War as was the case in World War 1 and 2.
Related: What would happen if someone attacked Switzerland?
Scenario 2: Putin completely loses his mind and starts total nuclear attack
In this case it’s better not to spend too many words as everybody knows what would happen. Let’s just put some numbers here:
- Russia — 6,257 (1,458 active, 3039 available, 1,760 retired)
- United States — 5,550 (1,389 active, 2,361 available, 1,800 retired)
What are those numbers you may ask? Well, those numbers represent nuclear weapons that each of these countries have.
Just try to imagine what would happen if total nuclear war started. With the aforementioned numbers of nuclear weapons per country, humanity would be eliminated very fast.
Oh yeah – include China in that equation and doom would happen even faster. Apparently, China has “only” 350 nuclear weapons, but it’s hard to believe their numbers. It could be less; it could be more. I would bet they have more.
Scenario 3 – Biden completely loses his mind (if that didn’t happen already)
I could easily copy the whole previous paragraph here to describe what would happen. USA and Russia have almost identical number of active nuclear weapons. So, if the USA decides to start nuclear war, the same thing would happen as in Scenario 2.
Perhaps even worse.
Scenario 4 – False Flag Attack
As per Wikipedia, a false flag operation or attack is an act committed with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility and pinning blame on another party.
False flag attacks happened many times in history with dire consequences for the blaming party.
In this case who knows which party could start false flag operation. Could it be Russia or USA. Or even Ukraine with help of NATO. It is hard to hypothesize about those things, but end result could be very similar as described in Scenario 2 and 3.
Just imagine the following false flag example:
- You wake up one day and every news media is stating that Russia fired nuclear weapon on Ukraine. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
- If it’s in the middle of nowhere then there is no real proof.
- But that’s catch 22 – without real proof you could blame either party.
- USA now “must” respond. And they must respond immediately.
- And we’re back to square one (nuclear war), however in this case there were no originating nuclear weapons as it was false flag operation.
Scenario 5 – Putin and Biden both pass away in their sleep in the same week
If this were to happen, would everything suddenly stop? I am not sure, but it would be very confusing for everyone.
However, if you look at it from a realistic perspective – they are both old. Sure, Biden is much older, but there are a lot of rumors around Putin’s alleged sickness (cancer).
So in that case we would have Kamala Harris (where is she anyway??), and Mikhail Mishustin on opposite sides. That is on paper only, of course, as Kamala is USA Vice President and Mikhail is serving as the prime minister of Russia since 16 January 2020.
Would they sit together at the table and have grown up conversation?
Probably not.
Political games would continue while innocent people die either on battlefield or because of destroyed economy.
To Conclude
Neither of mentioned scenarios would be a good one. And there could be hundreds more of those hypothetical scenarios. But one thing is certain – gigantic shifts are happening between global powers and we could easily be on the verge of a new era.
Will this new era bring humanity closer together? Or will we continue into complete physical and spiritual destruction which will lead to an entirely new human (re)volution?
Again, time will tell. But I think, this time, time is not on our side (pun intended).
