Are we already in WWIII, even if most of us haven't realized it yet? It is a scary thought, but one weighing heavily on a few minds.
Sir Richard Dearlove, former chief of the British foreign intelligence service MI6, recently suggested in a Sky News interview there is an "actual war" underway with the Russians, albeit through non-military "hybrid conflict" such as acts of sabotage.
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, said in an October speech that WWIII had "already begun," citing multiple conflicts in different countries and the risks this all posed: "We run scenarios that would shock you. I don't even want to mention them."
NATO's European states are quietly preparing for it. Russia's President Vladimir Putin and his allies are warning of it. And the Ukraine war is already a global affair, as international partners support either side with personnel and materiel.
Conflicts are brewing or breaking out everywhere, from Europe to the Middle East and the Far East, some interrelated to Russia's war on Ukraine.
So is this now a moment in which we can say WWIII has already begun? Newsweek put the question to a range of experts. This is what they said.
Olevs Nikers, President, Baltic Security Foundation; Senior Fellow, Jamestown Foundation; Former Adviser, Latvian Minister of Defence
I would strongly agree that we are somewhere in the very final stages of a pre-World War III situation. In my opinion, this is still kind of a Cold War, at extremely high but still tolerable temperatures, which is about to "boil" anytime soon if not prevented.
Actual war in Europe (Ukraine) still is a regional conflict. At the same time, parties of eventual global conflict are clearly looking at the worst scenario in perspective.
In terms of threat assessment, defense spending, societal engagement in defense, and development of defense industries across the region clearly demonstrates the trend.
I would argue that we are not in the situation of WWIII yet, as the major powers are not directly engaged in military conflict with each other, while the conflicts are about to happen in "peripheral" zones.
The ice is very thin, it can break out between the great powers due to a number of reasons, which all are on the table right now (China/Taiwan, spread of Russia's aggression on to NATO countries).
The global war can still be prevented, or some of the sources of the global conflict can be excluded in Europe, fully denying Russia's further aggression, which at this stage is already a quite difficult if not impossible mission in many ways.
David Stevenson, Emeritus Professor of International History, London School of Economics and Political Science
No, we are not in a third world war yet, though the risk of one is substantial.
Most of the characteristics of a new Cold War have existed between Russia and the NATO countries for several years. More recently, by supplying arms and munitions to Ukraine NATO has engaged in a proxy hot war against Russia.
Sir Richard Dearlove's comments seemed to be primarily about Vladimir Putin's state of mind, and some of Putin's statements support the view that he considers himself already to be at war with the West in all but name.
That being said, the two sides are not at this point in a state of all-out armed conflict, and we would speedily notice the difference if they were, even without the use of nuclear weapons.
Moreover, the strengthening ties between Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran heightens the danger that if any one of them engaged in a hot war with the West, the fighting would become global.
Edward Newman, Professor of International Security, Co-Director, Centre for Global Security Challenges, University of Leeds
We are not in a state of World War III traditionally understood, or on the brink of this (yet).
Existing norms of deterrence still operate, even if they are being tested, and so direct, large-scale military conflict between major adversarial states is unlikely, although the risks are heightened.
Barring very serious miscalculation, the incentives to initiate open military conflict between Russia, China, the U.S. and other NATO countries are still low, and the costs are very high and recognized as such.
What is more likely is an escalation of hybrid war tactics: A combination of conventional and irregular techniques involving sabotage, disruption, infiltration, and a consolidation of spheres of influence by coercion and interference.
This is being exacerbated by a broader 'polycrisis' comprised of multiple, interconnecting, and compounding global security challenges across social, economic, geopolitical, ecological and demographic systems.
Existing multilateral institutions of global governance are certainly inadequate to address this polycrisis, including the geopolitical crisis that we currently see.
Ian Ona Johnson, P.J. Moran Family Associate Professor of Military History, The University of Notre Dame
Many times since 1945, those alarmed by conflict across the world have concluded World War III had either begun or was imminent.
The great fear has been that two or more nuclear-armed great powers would directly wage war against each other, rather than engage in the limited conventional wars often fought against or through proxies.
Only the current crisis in Ukraine presents any prospects of widening into that kind of great power war. The ongoing conflicts across the Middle East and Africa, while regionally destabilizing and devastating from a humanitarian perspective, do not seem likely to draw two or more nuclear powers into direct confrontation.
If World War III were to break out over Ukraine, it would be a war of choice, begun because of the introduction of NATO ground or air forces into combat against Russian forces there.
That decision would provoke in turn Russian countermeasures, perhaps nuclear. Despite some public discussions about that prospect, that scenario—while not impossible—seems unlikely at the moment.
Few NATO member states possess the capacity to materially affect the military balance in Ukraine. Of those that do—particularly the United States—none have the popular support necessary to expand the war. And even if they did, it is unclear that any strategic gains made by doing so would outweigh the risk of a nuclear exchange with the Russian Federation.
World War III has not begun, and with a modicum of prudence on all sides, it could be avoided once again.
Matthew C. Zierler, Associate Professor of International Relations, James Madison College, Michigan State University
Saying that wars are occurring is very different than saying a potential WWIII has begun.
Yes, there is a lot of conflicts going on throughout the world, and there is a lot of uncertainty about what comes next.
We are facing both old and new threats, and the nature of transatlantic relations, the actions of Russia, and the global reach of China also challenge our understandings of what we might anticipate the direction of international security is taking.
But change, uncertainty, and violence does not mean we will face a new conflict akin to the previous two world wars. There is still strong memory of the legacy of those conflicts that are unlikely to be repeated anytime soon.
Stephen Van Evera, Professor of Political Science Emeritus, MIT; Author of "Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict"
No, WWIII has not already begun. And it won't start soon as long as the United States adopts prudent policies toward the world's other major powers, China and Russia.
Most major wars of the past stemmed from competition for security among the great powers. Most great powers often feared aggression by other great powers.
Hence they sought to control resources or strongpoints it needed to enable it to defend against others' aggression, or to cut others down to size, or to or to replace other regimes with nicer leaders.
The invention of nuclear weapons made this thinking obsolete by making conquest among the great powers impossible. Nuclear weapons are immensely destructive, small, cheap, quite easy to hide, and easy to deliver.
As a result, major powers can reliably maintain nuclear forces that can survive all-out surprise attack by all other powers and inflict unacceptable—annihilating—damage in retaliation.
So, conquest is among great powers is now essentially impossible. It's off the table. Due to the nuclear revolution (and also due to the width of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans) there is no plausible scenario under which China or Russia could disarm and conquer the United States, or vice versa.
Hence the major powers longer need to compete hard to survive. Instead, they can ensure their sovereignty quite easily, by maintaining a secure deterrent force. More than ever before, a power that defends against an aggressor now has the advantage over would-be aggressors.
Great powers continue to compete, but over secondary issues—what among to matters of convenience, or pride, or domestic politics. None can pose an existential threat to the other.
Major powers do face a potential existential threat, but this is a threat they pose to themselves if they fail to understand the situation that nuclear weapons have created.
History offers worrying examples. Conquest among great powers is rare but it happens. Usually this is because states fall prey to illusions about national security.
The common scenario in recent centuries: A power exaggerates the national security threat posed by other powers; it responds with unwarranted belligerence; it thereby provokes the formation of a powerful countervailing alliance that destroys it. Falsely fearing a non-existent threat, the state responds by conjuring up a real threat.
Some history: On eight occasions since the 1790s, a great power has been completely defeated and overrun by adversaries.
In at least five of those eight cases (France 1815, Germany 1918, Austria-Hungary 1918, Germany 1945, and Japan 1945) the conquered state brought about its own ruin by going on a rampage to avert threats that were in fact illusory.
In two other instances (France 1870 and Italy 1945), the conquered power also provoked its own conquest by its own belligerence, although its belligerence was somewhat motivated by non-security concerns as well as security concerns (which were equally foolish concerns to be sure).
The conquest of France by Germany in 1940 is the sole instance since well before the French Revolution (1789) in which a major power experienced conquest that it did not provoke by its own unwise belligerence.
The potential danger of a Third World War stems mainly from what might be called the Pogo Principle in action: "We have met the enemy and they are us." (Recalling Pogo the cute cartoon character.)
The U.S. is secure from conquest by foreign powers for the foreseeable future, even if the power of China relative to the US continues to grow. This safety from conquest is a blessing that allows the U.S. to avoid high-risk policies that could bring a military confrontation with another power.
By doing this the U.S. can reliably avoid a "World War III" situation. But Americans must guard carefully against falling prey to our own illusions and our own folly.
Walter Dorn, Professor of Defence Studies, Royal Military College & Canadian Forces College
No, WWIII has not begun. World wars are cataclysmic events where the majority of nations are officially at war and are engaged in open warfare. They send their soldiers into combat across large fronts.
These are not the conditions of today. It is more like the Cold War, where great powers are not fighting each other physically but are engaged in proxy wars to exert influence and to uphold their respective systems and ideologies.
No one can predict the future with any certainty, but it is doubtful that the world as a whole will go to war, as happened twice in the last century. However, wars between great powers are possible.
Kristian Gleditsch, Regius Professor of Political Science, University of Essex; Director, Michael Nicholson Centre for Conflict and Cooperation
I do not think it is warranted to say that WWIII has already begun for a number of reasons.
What constitutes a world war is not a very well-defined concept, but one would generally take this to mean something like i) very severe warfare and ii) some kind of connection among different armed conflicts around the world that warrant seeing them as part of a larger overarching conflict, for example involvement of the same actors or close alliances.
Standard data sources on violent conflict such as the Uppsala armed conflict data suggest that the number of recorded conflicts and recorded battledeaths have increased in recent years.
But a large share of the increase in the number of conflicts is due to Islamist movements, and the most severe recent conflict as of 2023 (the last year for which we have complete data) was the Tigray war in Ethiopia, and not the war in Ukraine.
The U.S./NATO may be supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia, but none of these countries are closely involved in the conflict in Ethiopia, and they are not clearly on opposing sides in many other conflicts elsewhere in the world such as Islamist insurgencies or even the Syrian conflict (recall that the U.K. government under Prime Minister David Cameron first wanted to bomb the Assad government but later argued for armed action against IS that would in effect strengthen Assad).
As far as I understand, I think Dearlove was trying to say that we are currently in a hostile situation where Western support for Ukraine could be seen by Russia as involvement and trigger a military response, and there is always some risk of escalation in ongoing armed conflicts.
I agree that there are many risks of smaller conflicts escalating and becoming larger conflicts (whether due to intended or unintended consequences), and escalation appears to be highly unpredictable from what we know from existing research.
But I do not think the situation now is fundamentally different from after the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The West is unlikely to send troops to fight in Ukraine, and most of the alleged Russian red lines short of direct intervention are unlikely to generate a military response.
Prediction is difficult, but to me at least de-escalation seems more likely than escalation in Ukraine at the moment. Western support for Ukraine faces many challenges and seems unlikely to increase substantially.
Both Ukraine and Russia face many logistical challenges that prevent investing more in the war effort (e.g., recruitments, artillery etc), and both have suggested more willingness to negotiate recently, even if it is difficult to see how a formal settlement can be reached at the moment.
A shift to less intense fighting or a "frozen" conflict with less active fighting but without a formal settlement seems more likely now than major military escalation.
The conflict in Syria may reignite if Russia has less ability to prop up the government militarily and government forces prove unwilling to put up a fight if challenged by armed opposition groups, but I do not think that Russia or the U.S./West would be likely to intervene more directly in the conflict, and I also do not see most other ongoing conflicts in the world closely related to Russia-West tensions.
During the Cold War there were generally poor relations between the U.S./West and Russia and many proxy wars, but this did not escalate into a World War III, and there are many factors that may induce caution and constraints on escalation.
I think the current situation seems more like a new Cold War (if much more asymmetric now) rather than the events leading up to World Wars I and II.
Newsweek