World War III

World War III is a hypothetical future global war, commonly imagined as a direct conflict among major powers and potentially involving nuclear weapons.

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Cuban Missile Crisis: A 1962 confrontation between the United States and Soviet Union over Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. Its near-escalation into nuclear war offers a historical model for catastrophic great-power crisis.
Nuclear deterrence: A strategy that seeks to prevent attack by threatening unacceptable nuclear retaliation. It is meant to prevent the very great-power war that World War III scenarios predict.
Cold War: A prolonged geopolitical rivalry between the United States and Soviet Union, marked by competition and avoidance of direct full-scale war. It shows how intense great-power hostility can persist without becoming a world war.
Nuclear winter: A hypothesized global cooling caused by smoke from large-scale fires blocking sunlight after nuclear war. It describes a possible worldwide environmental consequence of extensive nuclear exchanges.
World War I: A global war fought from 1914 to 1918, centered on rival alliances and industrialized mass warfare. Its escalation from regional conflict shows how a war can expand beyond its initial cause.
Escalation: An increase in the intensity, scope, or stakes of a conflict. Each side’s response to an attack could widen a limited clash into a major-power war.
Proxy war: A conflict in which outside powers support opposing local forces without fighting one another directly. Proxy conflict can involve major powers while stopping short of direct war between them.
Mutual assured destruction: A deterrence condition in which opposing nuclear powers can each inflict unacceptable destruction even after being attacked. It explains why a nuclear world war threatens catastrophic losses on every side.
World War II: A global war fought from 1939 to 1945, involving most major powers and ending with the first use of nuclear weapons in war. It supplies the historical precedent behind the imagined numbering of a third world war.
Crisis stability: A condition in which states have little incentive to use force first during a confrontation. Low crisis stability can make leaders fear that waiting will leave them strategically worse off.