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'''World War Three''' is a term used to describe a ] conflict on the scale of ] or larger. Most usages of the term assume the use of ] such as ]. '''World War Three''' is a term used to describe a ] future conflict on the scale of ] or larger. Most usages of the term assume the use of ] such as ].


In the latter half of the 20th century, military confrontation between the two ]s was considered to pose an extreme threat to establishing ], when the ] saw the ] ] face the ] ]. If this confrontation had ] into full-scale war, it was widely thought that the conflict would become "World War III," and that the end result would be the destruction of most life on Earth, an ] or, at the very least, the partial collapse of ], with total casualties exceeding 1 billion. (See also ].) This outcome ranks with ] or ] ]s, worldwide ], and catastrophic ] as one of the major ]s that could befall humanity or even all life on Earth. In the latter half of the 20th century, military confrontation between the two ]s was considered to pose an extreme threat to establishing ], when the ] saw the ] ] face the ] ]. If this confrontation had ] into full-scale war, it was widely thought that the conflict would become "World War III," and that the end result would be the destruction of most life on Earth, an ] or, at the very least, the partial collapse of ], with total casualties exceeding 1 billion. (See also ].) This outcome ranks with ] or ] ]s, worldwide ], and catastrophic ] as one of the major ]s that could befall humanity or even all life on Earth.
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Revision as of 23:45, 28 July 2006

For other uses of World War III, World War 3, World War Three or Third World War, see World War Three (disambiguation).
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Nuclear arms are generally hypothesized to play a decisive role in any future world war.

World War Three is a term used to describe a hypothetical future conflict on the scale of World War II or larger. Most usages of the term assume the use of weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear weapons.

In the latter half of the 20th century, military confrontation between the two superpowers was considered to pose an extreme threat to establishing world peace, when the Cold War saw the capitalist United States face the communist Soviet Union. If this confrontation had escalated into full-scale war, it was widely thought that the conflict would become "World War III," and that the end result would be the destruction of most life on Earth, an extermination of human life or, at the very least, the partial collapse of civilization, with total casualties exceeding 1 billion. (See also Mutually Assured Destruction.) This outcome ranks with asteroid or comet impact events, worldwide pandemics, and catastrophic climate change as one of the major mass extinction events that could befall humanity or even all life on Earth.

The term has carried on beyond the Cold War, and now usually refers to any potential future global conflict which would involve nuclear weapons. In modern times, the possibility of WWIII taking place between superpowers has been replaced by the threat of a nuclear attack by a smaller party, which could incite retaliation and cause a destructive domino effect.

Historical close calls

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War, an apocalyptic war between the United States and USSR was considered likely. The Cuban missile crisis in 1962 is generally thought to be the historical point at which the risk of World War III was closest. Other potential starts have included the following (see External links below for further examples):

  • July 26, 1956 – March, 1957 — Suez Crisis: the conflict pitted Egypt against an alliance between the French Fourth Republic, the United Kingdom and Israel. When the USSR threatened to intervene on behalf of Egypt, the Canadian Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Lester B. Pearson feared a larger war and persuaded the British and French to withdraw.
  • October 27, 1962; Cuban Missile Crisis: the conflict pitted the United States against an alliance between the USSR and Cuba. The USSR was attempting to place several launch sites in Cuba in response to the United States installation of missiles in Turkey. The United States response included dispersal of Strategic Air Command bombers to civilian airfields around the United States and war games in which the United States Marine Corps landed against a dictator named "ORTSAC" (Castro spelt backwards). For a brief while, the U.S. military went to DEFCON 3, while SAC went to DEFCON 2. The crisis peaked on October 27, when a U-2 (piloted by Rudolph Anderson) was shot down over Cuba and another U-2 flight over Russia was almost intercepted when it strayed over Siberia, after Curtis LeMay (U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff) had neglected to enforce Presidential orders to suspend all overflights.
  • October 24, 1973 — As the Yom Kippur War was winding down, a Soviet threat to intervene on Egypt's behalf caused the United States to go to DEFCON 3.
  • November 9, 1979, when the US made emergency retaliation preparations after NORAD saw on-screen indications that a full-scale Soviet attack had been launched. No attempt was made to use the "red telephone" hotline to clarify the situation with the USSR and it was not until early-warning radar systems confirmed no such launch had taken place that NORAD realised that a computer system test had caused the display errors. A Senator inside the NORAD facility at the time described an atmosphere of absolute panic. A GAO investigation led to the construction of an off-site test facility, to prevent similar mistakes subsequently.
  • September 26, 1983, when Soviet early warning system showed that a US ICBM attack had been launched. Colonel Stanislav Petrov, in command of the monitoring facility put the warning down to computer error and did not notify his superiors.
  • November 1983: Exercise Able Archer 83 — The USSR mistook a test of NATO's nuclear-release procedures as a fake cover for a NATO attack and subsequently raised its nuclear alert level. It was not until afterwards that the US realized how close it had come to nuclear war. At the time of the exercise the Soviet Politburo was without a healthy functioning head due to the failing health of then leader Yuri Andropov, which is thought to have been one of the contributing factors to the Soviet paranoia over the exercise.
  • January 25, 1995 (see Norwegian Rocket Incident), when Russia almost launched a nuclear attack after a Norwegian missile launch for scientific research was detected from Spitsbergen and thought to be an attack on Russia, launched five minutes from Moscow. Norway had notified the world that it would be making the launch, but the Russian Defense Ministry had neglected to notify those monitoring Russia's nuclear defense systems.

In addition to the above there are two other points during the Cold War that may have resulted in world war. These, however, are not generally listed as they do not relate to the United States-Soviet Union rivalry, but rather the events following the Sino-Soviet Split of 1960. The ideological split between Maoist communists (represented primarily by China) and Stalinist communists (represented primarily by the Soviet Union) divided the entire communist movement worldwide — which controlled governments or significant rebel factions on most continents. Thus a war between China and the Soviet Union may well have resulted in world war, whilst not necessarily involving the U.S. and the capitalist west (although the U.S. may have opportunistically intervened whilst its two communist rivals were distracted by war with each other). The two points the communist powers almost entered into all-out war over were:

  • March 1969, when border clashes broke out between Soviet and Chinese troops over Zhen Bao Island in the Ussuri River. In total, the Soviets suffered about 90 casualties to 800 for the Chinese (these numbers are based on Soviet claims). At the time there were almost one and a half million troops deployed along the border.
  • 1978 and 1979, in which the pro-Soviet Vietnam invaded the pro-China Cambodia and removed Pol Pot. China in turn invaded Vietnam in retaliation and the Soviets denounced this action strongly, although it fell short of taking action. The next year the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and the Chinese claimed this was a continuation of a strategy of encircling China with Soviet allies that had begun the previous year with the invasion of Vietnam.

Preparations for war

OPLAN (Operations Plan) 1000 was the standard U.S. military plan for the first hours or days of a national emergency such as World War III. Unclassified annexes included grounding all civil aircraft in the United States and controlling all navigation beacons. In the 1950s and 1960s, this included CONELRAD (Control of Electromagnetic Radiation), in which all radio stations broadcasting in the U.S. would operate on low power on two frequencies — to prevent Russian bombers from using them for navigation. Certain features of OPLAN 1000 were instituted during the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. The actual U.S. nuclear response was detailed in numerous Single Integrated Operational Plans from 1960 to the present day.

Certain sources also state that the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System was specifically designed to contain several sections which were flat and straight, to be used as emergency runways for nuclear bombers. However, the United States Department of Transportation strongly denies that such a purpose exists in the Interstate highway system. Nonetheless, several other nations, such as Finland and Taiwan have done so. The original freeways (autobahn), as produced by Germany, were built this way for planned World War II military use.

Use of the term

The mushroom cloud from the first "true" Soviet hydrogen bomb test in 1955.

Cold War

The term World War III has been used by Project for the New American Century (PNAC) to describe the Cold War of the 20th century, while the War on Terrorism is referred to as World War IV. PNAC has numerous members who are senior officials in the George W. Bush administration in the USA as well as in other high positions of influence in the United States. James Woolsey, a founding member of PNAC, stated during his opening statements while speaking on April 2, 2003 on a panel discussion at UCLA entitled "America, Iraq and the War on Terrorism, UCLA":

"A few words about this war we're in, which I don’t really call a war against terrorism. I have adopted a formulation of my friend Elliot Cohen who teaches at Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies calls it World War IV. World War III having been the Cold War. And I think that more accurately characterizes the degree of commitment that we are going to have to be engaged in, and the scope of what we are going to be engaged in now for some years. This Fourth World War I think will last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II did for us, hopefully not the full four-plus decades of the Cold War."

Even earlier, historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote that the "Second World War had barely ended when humanity plunged into what can reasonably be regarded as a Third World War, though a very peculiar one." (The Age of Extremes: A History of the World)

Korean War

During the Korean War, Gallup polls in the United States showed that a majority of Americans believed that World War III had already begun. The Korean War shared an important feature of previous World Wars, namely the conflict between two coalitions of opposed nations. However, hostilities were restricted to a relatively small geographical area, and loss of life, while high, did not compare to the earlier World Wars. In retrospect, no historians consider the Korean War to have been a "World War."

Gulf War

During a press conference soon after the start of the 1991 Gulf War, King Hussein of Jordan and King Olav V of Norway directly referred to the conflict between the United States and its coalition of allies against Iraq as "the Third World War" but there was no indication of any other world leaders accepting the definition.

War on Terrorism

Some historians have suggested that the War on Terrorism, in retaliation to the September 11 2001 attacks, may become known by future generations as the third of the world wars due to its global impact and the number of countries involved. However, others say this is hyperbole and argue that it is highly unlikely that the current military conflicts in the Middle East and central Asia will escalate to the point that the USA would be engaged militarily with at least one other major military alliance, such as Russia or China becoming allied with Iran. In either case it is noteworthy to point out that the war on terrorism marks the first time since its creation that NATO has unilaterally opted to enact its war action and participation articles.

In a statement in the Wall Street Journal the father of one the passengers who died on hijacked United Airlines Flight 93, David Beamer, referred to the acts of the passengers of that flight as: "our first successful counter-attack in our homeland in this new global war, World War III." On May 5, 2006 U.S. President George W. Bush stated that he agreed with that assessment.

In a July 15th 2006 article in the Seattle Times, Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has stated that in the coming days he plans to speak out publicly, and to the Administration, about the need to recognize that America is in World War III. Seattle Times Article

Artistic treatments

A vast apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic science fiction literature exists describing the likely aftermath of either, describing the impact of weapons of mass destruction. None of it describes a very happy world. Many science fiction works are also set in a far future in which a WWIII-type conflict is a historical event.

The genre of post-apocalyptic science fiction often uses post-World War III scenarios. Such stories were found mostly in Western science fiction publications; Soviet writers were discouraged from writing them.

Prophecies

Some people believe Nostradamus, as well as the Apocalypse, describe what appears like a World-scale War. Mystic interpreters and conspiracy theorists believe that the World War III has been prophesied and we are led to it by secret societies and current political events. In some of these interpretations, the war will be followed either by the end of the world or the millennium.

The Gulf Crisis, the Kosovo War, as well as the Iraq War were thought to fulfill those prophecies and commence the war, something that didn't occur.

A chain e-mail circulating over the Internet after WTC attacks, quoted a fake prophecy of Nostradamus according to which, the fall of the 'two brothers' would be the origin of the third war. See also Nostradamus in popular culture for this hoax.

According to some religious scholars an extensive "code" of sorts exists in the bible the author being of a higher power in origin or otherwise. These individuals predict growing tensions, circulating primarily around the US, to escalate into war in 2006. These claims are heavily disputed. See: Bible code

Film and television

Several notable movies have been made based on World War III, including the following:

Literature

Notable literature dealing with World War III include:

  • Robert Heinlein's story Solution Unsatisfactory was written as early as 1940, when the Second World War was still to run most of its course. Heinlein predicted that the US would develop radioactive dust as the ultimate weapon of war and use it to destroy Berlin in 1945 and end the war with Germany. The Soviet Union would develop the same weapon independently, and war between it and the US would follow, still in 1945, which would become known as "The Four Days' War." The Americans would destroy Moscow, Vladivostoc and several other Soviet cities, win the war and establish a complete hegemony over the world, but a military dictatorship would emerge in the US itself.
  • In Domain, the 3rd book in The Rats series created by James Herbert, there is a nuclear war and London is destroyed, and very few survive underground in bunkers, sewers, and subways. After the war, man-eating rats attack the survivors. The prime minister and royal family are killed in their bunker. In the end, it says that the Middle East was on the brink of war and acting like if they were putting the world on ransom, and China started the war (this book was made only in 1984).
  • In Poul Anderson's "Psychotechnic League" series - a Future History when written in the early 1950s, now an Alternative History - World War III broke out in 1958, with a Soviet pre-emptive strike and a land invasion which reached France. However, the Western retaliation was far more lethal, thoroughly destroying the Soviet Union and China - with survivors reduced to cannibalism. Afterwards, there were still years of bitter fighting when undergrounds throughout Europe fought to get rid of the stranded Soviet garrisons. All of this is in the series' background, with the stories themselves describing power struggles in the devastated post-war Europe and the efforts of the refounded United Nations to create an effective world government and avert new wars.
  • "The Third World War: A Terrifying Novel of Global Conflict" by Humphrey Hawksley tells of a war between an alliance of fascist generals in Pakistan and North Korea with the rest of the world.
  • Fail-Safe , a book which was adapted into two movies, described above. Due to faulty procedures, US bombers get a mistaken order to destroy Moscow and cannot be recalled; following the destruction of their capital, the Soviets prepare to launch a full-scale attack on the US; as a desperate last measure to avoid total destruction of both nations and the whole world, the President of the United States (unnamed but modeled on Kennedy) orders an American bomber to destroy New York and thus redress the balance and avoid the Soviet attack.
  • The Martian Chronicles, a sequenced collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury in which, among many other threads, the Earth is destroyed by nuclear war while human Martian colonists watch helplessly; especially poignant and poetic is the short story titled There Will Come Soft Rains;
  • On the Beach (1957), by Nevil Shute, was also made into movies of the same name (1959 and 2000); ISBN 1842322761.
  • Alas, Babylon, by Pat Frank, dealt with the survival of the fictional town of Fort Repose, Florida, after a Soviet missile strike obliterates most of the United States; ISBN 0060931396.
  • The Third World War, August 1985, by General Sir John Hackett, set in a 1980s war based on the NATO scenario; ISBN 0025471600. Hackett also wrote a sequel, The Third World War: The Untold Story which expanded upon the original story; ISBN 0450055914. This same NATO/Warsaw Pact scenario was also used in Harold Coyle's novel, Team Yankee; ISBN 0425110427.
  • Warday (novel), by Whitley Strieber & James Kunetka. Presented as an extended piece of journalism, two writers tour America five years after a limited nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States. The work assembles a fictional documentary of life in the aftermath, weaving together interviews, government documents, and the chronicle of their travels - written with a aim of showing how horrendous would be the results of even a "limited" nuclear exchange ; ISBN 0030707315
  • Red Storm Rising, by Tom Clancy, presents a detailed, realistic scenario of World War III fought only with conventional weapons (although tactical nukes were considered) in the 1980s.
  • The Sum of All Fears also by Tom Clancy is about an almost nuclear exchange between Russia and the US caused by Islamic terrorists.
  • The World Aflame, written by Leonard Engel and Emmanuel Piller in 1947 and set amidst a protracted nuclear war from 1950–5.
  • Red Army, by Ralph Peters, told from the Soviet perspective; ISBN 0671676695.
  • Yellow Peril by Wang Lixiong, written under the pseudonym Bao Mi, about a civil war in the People's Republic of China that becomes a nuclear exchange and soon engulfs the world. It's notable for Wang Lixiong's politics, a Chinese dissident and outspoken activist, its publication following Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, and its popularity due to bootleg distribution across China even when the book was banned by the Chinese Communist Party.
  • The City of Ember, by Jeanne DuPrau, is set in a post-apocalyptic community, the City of Ember, built underground. The protagonists, Doon Harrow and Lina Mayfleet, are on a quest to find the way to get out of Ember, because the city is beginning to run out of lightbulbs, the only things keeping the Emberites from dying in darkness. In the sequel, The People of Sparks, we learn that the world above has been reduced to small roving bands of humans, with the settlement the Emberites emerge upon having a population of 300, and that being considered prosperous. The remaining humans occasionally scavenge the cities for things from the past society. They only partially believe in the fables of telephones, televisions, and passing references to the Internet. Surviving books show that the death knell was a combination of plagues and atomic weapons.
  • A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller.
  • JLA by Grant Morrison. Under influence by a space-faring entity, populations fight amongst themselves.
  • The Amtrak Wars by Patrick Tilley are set in America after a nuclear holocaust.
  • Robert C. O'Brian's "Z for Zachariah" in which a nuclear war leaves a small valley untouched and follows a young girl who is seemingly the only survivor.
  • Robert McCammon's novel Swan Song opens with a massive nuclear exchange, involving a description of the destructive firestorm created by a nuclear missile. While much of the novel involves supernatural elements, the backdrop is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and a central plot development involves several opposing, marauding, guerilla armies trying to seize power in the aftermath.
  • A series of novels under the title World War III by Ian Slater, follows the key players and a number of related characters in campaigns around the planet.
  • "Arc Light", by Eric L. Harry, describes a nuclear exchange between Russia and the U.S. as well as the following U.S. invasion of Russia.
  • "Neuromancer," and the rest of the "Sprawl Trilogy" by William Gibson is set in a post WWIII world.
  • China War and the Third Temple by Irvin Baxter, Jr. is a fictional scenario based upon Bible prophesy.
  • First Clash by Major (Retired) Kenneth Macksey, MC, is a fictional scenario based on the actions of a Canadian Brigade Group in a defensive action in the Federal Republic of Germany.
  • Counterstroke by Major (Retired) Kenneth Macksey, MC, is a follow-up to First Clash. In it, a Canadian Brigade Group fights in an offensive action in the Federal Republic of Germany.
  • The trilogy Kinderen van Moeder Aarde (Children of Mother Earth), written by the Dutch Thea Beckman tells about a completely changed world after the two days during WW III
  • The Chrysalids, A novel by John Wyndham, about a post-apocaliptic society several hundred to a thousand years after a nuclear war.
  • "The Illustrated Man", A science-fiction series of short stories by Ray Bradbury, uses futuristic settings and modern humans to deploy the ideas, devastations, and comings of a nuclear World War III along with other scenarios.
  • V for Vendetta by Alan Moore is set in an England controlled tightly by Norsefire, a totalitarian government, after a brief nuclear war.
  • Farnham's Freehold is a science fiction tale set in the near future by Robert A. Heinlein. It is a post-apocalyptic tale, as the setup for the story is a direct hit by a nuclear weapon, which sends a fallout shelter containing a man, his wife, son, daughter, daughter's friend, and black domestic servant into the future.
  • Robert L. O'Connell's The Cuban Missile Crisis: Second Holocaust is an Alternative History description of a world in which the 1962 crisis escalated into war. After a confrontation between American and Soviet ships off the Cuban coast, a Soviet missile is shot from Cuba and destroys Washington, D.C., killing Kennedy, Johnson and most other civilian decision-makers. The American generals embark on an overwhelming retribution: completely destroying Cuba and the Soviet Union, killing 95% of the island's population, 80% of the Soviet Union's and a large part of the population in the East European countries and continuing the bombing long after all military resistsance had ceased. As a result, the US is completely isolated and ostracised in the post-war world and accused of having perpetrated genocide, the "Second Holocaust" of the title. (Published in the collection What Ifs? of American History, 2003.)
  • In a similar vein, Brendan DuBois' Resurrection Day is an Alternative History set in 1972, ten years after the Cuban Missile Crisis escalated into a major nuclear exchange. The United States is under martial law and in an ironic twist of fate is now a beneficiary of English charity (the reverse of the situation after World War II), while the Soviet Union has been bombed back to the Dark Ages.
  • In Robert Merle's Malevil, published in French in 1972 and translated to English in 1975, a group of friends meet to drink wine and enjoy themselves in the cellar of Medieval castle - and being in the cellar saves their lives as France and rest of the world are devastated by nuclear war. In the grim struggle which ensues among the bands of survivors, the protagonists must restore the castle to its original purpose.
  • L Ron Hubbard's Final Blackout is a short novel about a company of soldiers who survive WWIII and have to re-establish society when they leave the continent and return to England.
  • Many Philip K Dick stories involve post-apocalyptic scenarios. He mentioned that he much preferred to deal with the aftermath of such events and how humans survived than with how humans created them in the first place.
  • Plan of Attack by Dale Brown involves a clandestine effort by the Russians to stage a Thermonuclear war against the US using a secret Tupolev Tu-22M Backfire fleet based in Siberia in retaliation to US operations in Turkmenistan.
  • Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban discusses the life of a "Connexion Man" in a primitive post-World War III society.
  • There are many short stories that deal with the consequences of World War III, including:
    • Tomorrow's Children by Poul Anderson and F.N. Waldrop
    • The Last Objective by Paul Carter
    • The Figure by Edward Grendon

Computer and other games

  • Crystalis — Action RPG for the NES
  • World War 3 (online game) — online real-time browser-based game in combination of Risk game and strategy. Involves military combat in 1000+ cities around the world combined with weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and intelligence. Running since 2001, last updated 2006.
  • World War Three in 1985 — This scenario collection, created with the Harpoon3 naval / aerial warfare simulator, takes a look at what might have happened had the Cold War gone hot in September 1985. The scenarios focus on technical detail and a solid historical background, and is intended to give an accurate account of the war that never happened.
  • World War III: Black Gold — real-time strategy game: Released late 2001, WWIII:BG depicted a U.S. invasion of Iraq for oil, Iraqi terroism in the United States and Rebel Soviet Generals seizing the Russian Federation. Due to its time of release, the game never became as popular as any of the Earth 21** games made by the same games company, Reality Pump. Game's website
  • Command & Conquer — real-time strategy game: terrorists (the Brotherhood of Nod) fights against a UN organisation (the Global Defense Initiative).
  • Command & Conquer: the Red Alert Series — real-time strategy game where an alternate time-line leads to conflict between the Soviets and other nations. The first confrontation was technically not a World War III conflict; in this world, World War II never occurred; however the events of Red Alert 2 — a full scale invasion of the United States — would be the start of World War III.
  • Wasteland — computer role-playing game set in a post-nuclear world after World War III in 1997.
  • Fallout — computer role-playing game set in a post-nuclear world with retro-50s style, after World War III in 2077. Said to be the unofficial sequel to Wasteland.
  • Superhero League of Hoboken, a tongue-in-cheek lampooning of the post-apocalyptic genre
  • Computer War (Thorn EMI) and WarGames (Coleco) — similar titles with real-time strategy elements, based on the "War Games" movie, for ATARI 800/XL series computers.
  • Theater: Europe, a strategy game pitting NATO forces against the Warsaw Pact during an attempted Soviet invasion of Central Europe. Written for primitive 1980s Apple, Atari, and Commodore computers, the game's objective is to endure and deter the invasion for 30 days (1 day per turn) without triggering a massive nuclear attack.
  • Missile Command, a stand-up arcade game, also published for numerous early PCs, in which the player must defend cities and missile bases by manually targeting (via track-ball or joystick) incoming nuclear warheads with ground-based ABMs. The game becomes progressively more challenging and ends when all of the players assets are destroyed.
  • Raid Over Moscow, an arcade-style game for the C64 and ZX Spectrum in which the player has to destroy Soviet nuclear missiles being launched at the U.S.
  • Battlefield 2 which takes place as a postmodern war between the People's Liberation Army of China, the fictional Middle Eastern Coalition, the United States Marine Corps and European Union forces.
  • The Strength of Nations in which three nations struggle for dominance in a world devastated by nuclear holocaust.
  • The Day After: Fight for Promised land, Released in 2005, is a stand-alone of Nival Interactives Blitzkrieg, where the Cuban Missile Crisis back in 1962 results in a nuclear apocalypse and trigger World War III, where USSR invades Europe and Middle East, defended by American, British, French and German NATO troops and a Chinese invasion of USSR and Asia.
  • Act of War: Direct Action a real-time strategy game developed by Eugen Systems and published by Atari. The game is based on the Command & Conquer concept of modern warfare RTS. The game was released in March of 2005.
  • The Armored Core games take place after an event referred to as the "Great Destruction", where mankind devastated the surface of the Earth in a nuclear war and was forced underground to survive.
  • In Ground Control (computer game) WWIII is part of the game's background story and is referred to as The Sixteen-minutes War.
  • The Morrow Project is a tabletop science fiction role-playing game (RPG) set after a devastating nuclear war. Created by Kevin Dockery, Robert Sadler and Richard Tucholka. Published by TimeLine Ltd. The game is based around the idea that a group of industrialists predict the coming of an apocalyptic nuclear war and create a plan for an infrastructure that will survive it. This plan becomes the "Morrow Project".
  • World in Conflict With the Soviet bloc on the verge of economic collapse Warsaw Pact forces invade West Germany and Soviet Forces land in Washington State sacking the city of Seattle.
  • Half-Life 2 takes place an unspecified amount of time after a Seven Hour War.
  • Warhammer 40,000 is an example of such a war on a galactic scale and millennia, rather than mere decades or centuries, in the future

Music

  • The song Guerilla Radio by Rage Against The Machine uses the term, in the line "transmission third world war third round".
  • KMFDM an industrial rock group based in Seattle, Washington has a song called "WWIII" on their 2003 release of the same title. The album is extremely critical of George W. Bush's administration. Frontman Sascha Konietzko stated that the album was more specifically pointed at criticizing the American war machine.
  • Anarcho-punk band Crass emulate the reaction of a nuclear attack, in the song "They've Got A Bomb", with a chorus countdown ending in an abrupt stop and a period of silence. The band later explained that the idea of the space in the song, when performed live, was to "suddenly stop the energy, dancing and noise and allow the audience to momentarily 'confront themselves' and consider the reality of nuclear war."
  • The punk rock band the Clash wrote a few songs about nuclear war, notably London Calling and Ivan Meets G.I. Joe.
  • Old school hip hop legendary MC, Melle Mel releases the single, "World War III" in 1984
  • Several early-80s synth pop bands responded to Cold War tensions with nuclear war songs, including Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Two Tribes", Ultravox's "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes" and Nena's "99 Red Balloons".
  • Ska-funk band Fishbone sing about WWIII with energy and humour in the song "Party at Ground Zero".
  • Ex-Smiths frontman Morrissey compares a seaside resort town in winter to a post-nuclear holocaust world in the song "Every Day is Like Sunday".
  • Depeche Mode expresses the desolation of a destroyed Europe after nuclear weapons detonate after receiving a nuclear-attack warning only a mere two minutes prior to the explosions in "Two Minute Warning" on the 1983 album Construction Time Again. Various tracks on the album generally addressed the various topics (nuclear, environmental, social welfare) of pathos and angst felt by European Generation X living in a world pulled perhaps senselessly in two opposing directions by the two sides of the Cold War.
  • The satirist Tom Lehrer gained renown for several apocalyptically-themed songs, including "So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III)" and "We Will All Go Together When We Go". In his introduction to the latter he said "if we want any good songs to come out of the next war, we had better start writing them now".
  • The heavy metal band Megadeth has numerous songs dealing with nuclear war such as the songs "Set the World Afire", "Rust in Peace... Polaris" and "Black Curtains." Nuclear war is also the inspiration for the band's name (see megadeath).
  • Much of the post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor's work deals with apocalyptic destruction and its consequences (see the lyrics to their song "The Dead Flag Blues").
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic penned a satirical song called "Christmas At Ground Zero", that appears on the album Polka Party!, about the Christmas holiday after a nuclear war. He also mentions the prospects of World War III specifically in an early song called "Happy Birthday" that appears on his first, self titled album "Weird Al" Yankovic.
  • The pop punk band Simple Plan in their song "Crazy" briefly compares World War III to how children may feel about marital problems their parents may have.
  • California punk band Bad Religion has a number of songs about WWIII, including Part III and World War III.
  • Pop singer Pink refers to the destruction of traditional family as World War Three in her song Family Portrait
  • Pink Floyd's 1983 concept album The Final Cut ends with the beginning of a nuclear war (Two Suns in the Sunset).
  • UNKLE released a mix album titled "World War III" in 2003.
  • Bob Dylan wrote a song called "Talkin' World War III Blues" in 1964.
  • A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall by Bob Dylan was written at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis and is purportedly about nuclear Armageddon, although Dylan himself has denied any explicit allusions to nuclear fallout in the song's title.
  • "We Will Become Silhouettes" by The Postal Service is an upbeat song about living through the aftermath of a nuclear war.
  • The song "Electric Funeral" by Black Sabbath talks about the consequences of a nuclear war.
  • The 2003 album "Absolution" by Muse deals with an apocalypse that can be assumed to be the result of a third world war from the military march in "Intro" and the nature of songs such as "Ruled by Secrecy" and "Apocalypse Please".
  • Though not referencing it by the actual term "World War III", two albums from the progressive metal act Ayreon deal with a devastating war in 2084 that completely destroys all life on Earth; The Final Experiment, which tells the story of telepathic messages sent in post-war Earth to a blind minstrel named Ayreon in Authurian times and his attempts to warn the population of the growing threath, and The Universal Migrator which chronicles the past lives of the last human being alive.

See also

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