(OPINION) Imagine, for a moment, that the Iranian government announces it has developed a nuclear bomb and threatens to use it on Israel. The United States reacts with the threat of military intervention, as it did in 1991 and 2003 in Iraq.
Iran signals that it will not tolerate a third Gulf war and looks for allies. American forces mass to enter Iran, which orders national mobilisation. Russia, China and North Korea express their support for Iran, and Washington expands its intervention force, bringing in a British contingent.
Russia enters the game, raising the stakes in the expectation that the West will back down. A nuclear standoff follows, but with tense and itchy fingers on both sides, as leaders gamble on the risk of not striking first, it all ends in disaster. The Third World War begins with an exchange of nuclear fire, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Or picture this: Chinese frustration over the status of Taiwan prompts a build-up of invasion forces. The United States is preoccupied with its own domestic political crisis.
Japan anxiously watches the exchange of harsh words between China and Taiwan, wondering whether to intervene. The United Nations condemned Chinese actions, and China repudiated the censure and ordered invasion, confident that a quick victory would prevent others from intervening, as Hitler hoped when he invaded Poland in 1939.
The United States now activates contingency plans to save Taiwan, and each side uses tactical nuclear weapons against the other’s armed forces. North Korea and Russia side with China.
There is no general nuclear strike, but Russia warns Europe to keep out, dividing American strategy between the two theatres, as it was in the Second World War. The conflict continues to escalate.
Now let’s consider a totally different kind of global conflict. The growing division between the democratic West and the arc of authoritarian states across Eurasia has entered a dangerous new chapter.
Neither side wants to risk outright war, but there is a possibility that destroying satellite communications will undermine the military and economic capability of the other side. Without warning, the West’s satellite communication system is attacked and massive damage is done to its commercial and military electronic networks.
No one claims to have launched the missiles, but, in the chaos that follows, blame is quickly directed at anti-Western states. Retaliation is difficult to mount with the collapse of communications.
Uncertain what to do, military mobilisation is ordered across the Western world, but Russia and China demand that it ceases. As in 1914, the wheels, once set in motion, are hard to stop, and the crisis grows. Welcome to the First Space War.
These three scenarios are possible, though not one of them, I should make clear, is probable. Predicting – more accurately, imagining – the wars of the future can produce dangerous fantasies that promote anxiety over future security.
Even the most plausible prognosis will likely be wrong. The development of nuclear weapons has substantially changed the terms of any future global conflict.
There are no doubt contingency plans prepared by armed forces everywhere to meet a range of possibilities that might otherwise be regarded as fanciful in the real world. And while history may help us to think about the shape of a future war, the lessons of history are seldom learnt.
Yet the question of how a third world war might erupt haunts us today more than at any time since the end of the last world war. The very act of guessing is proof of our expectation that warfare of some kind remains a fact in a world of multiple insecurities.
Conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar and Sudan are a reminder of that ever-present reality. And regular threats from Russia about using nuclear weapons suggest that our fantasies may not be so wide of the mark after all. (READ MORE)
