The Future of Modern Warfare: World War 3 and Beyond

 Editor's note: 

Last summer's outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Iran sadly bore out the prediction made in the previous revision of this blog for the eternal Middle East 'powder keg'. 

Some might say it was inevitable that this particular conflict would come to a head soon, given Iran's determination to get a nuclear bomb, and the old Ayatollah's openly declared intention to use it to destroy the state of Israel. The speed at which it happened does seem to have taken many by surprise, though. Arguably the Iranian regime has, by its actions over the last 40 years, brought its own inevitable destruction on itself. Unfortunately it's the Iranian people who will probably bear the brunt of the suffering that arises from its death throes, which now promise to be quite protracted...... 

For a more detailed look at Trump's options, and the likely outcomes, check out the most recent blog.

Read on for some more background to the conflict....

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As of 1.1.2026, before the start of the US bombing campaign, the smart money seemed to be on eventual regime change, although the hold the regime has on its populace did seem to be progressively weakening before the war broke out in earnest in March 2026. There is still no end in sight, despite Trump's repeated statements that he has agreed a 'great deal' with the Iranians...and assurances from them that he hasn't.

If anything, the war to date will have strengthened the regimes resolve to hold out 'no matter what', given that it is now firmly in the thrall of the IRGC. Despite the economic constraints applied by the US blockade of its gulf ports, it will no doubt be re-gathering its strength as we speak, if nothing else so as to save face. The US has represented the 'Great Devil' since the revolution in 1979, and they cannot give up on vengeance for 40+ years of opposition without losing all credibility.  Whatever pretext to justify such an escalation Iran eventually comes up with, it is likely to draw in a hitherto reluctant Trump. The bunker-busters may then resume their efforts to complete the process of removing the underground enrichment plants and any last vestiges of any nuclear development capability. The end game may well be a painful one, particularly for the Iranian population, with whom one does have a degree of sympathy, although many of them still support the regime. If it continues to adopt a strategy of 'holding the world to ransom via a stranglehold on oil and gas exports via Hormuz, things could get really nasty...and not just for the regime itself, but for the 90 million other inhabitants of that unfortunate country....

The final chapter will also have lasting effects on the world economy. Fortunately any radiation leaks from the enriched Uranium already accumulated by Iran should be localised and containable. Trump's view may well be "Better to get the job done now than risk a wider, and probably nuclear, conflict later". The regime's only slim hope of survival as things stand would be to return immediately to the negotiating table and agree to Trump's terms - now. This is something even a desperate, and by then virtually leaderless, regime would likely find too humiliating to bear.

The key question, assuming the regime did collapse, would be - what next for Iran. The resulting power vacuum would have to be be filled, and quickly, to avoid the same mistakes being made as those seen in the post-Saddam Iraq. The recent example of the Syrian coup might be a good model, given there are parallels between the repressive behaviour of Assad's Alloite shia regime before its overthrow,  and that of the current Iranian theocracy. Whether a similar internal Iranian force could be found, which was competent and powerful enough to take over the government and prevent a descent into anarchy, is another matter.....

The Gaza cease fire, if indeed it continues to hold, will free up the IDF to focus on its remaining Tehran inspired adversaries, including the Iranian regime itself if it ever appears to be anywhere near producing a Bomb. Expect also some further bombing raids on Sanaa and environs if the Houthis start acting up against Red Sea shipping again. Hizbollah are still active though degraded, and may yet pep up their activities if asked to do so by Tehran.

Whatever the outcome, hopefully this summer's unhappy episode will be a lesson to any other 'rogue' state or organisation attempting to acquire nuclear capability for avowed destructive ends, or indeed attempting to carry out its dirty work by proxy.

Our concerns in Europe must for now be directed closer to home, however, with Russia taking an increasingly belligerent approach to NATO with its 'testing' of the pact's eastern borders. This is potentially more dangerous for world peace and could easily result in rapid escalation through misjudgement or accident. The recent drone and fighter aircraft incursions into NATO territory, and the russian-inspired cyber attacks on UK businesses have only served to heighten the tension. One hopes that Putin's paranoid obsession won't drive him beyond the nuclear brink; only time will tell, however...

Trump's world view now appears to be one of power 'silos'...his own western 'domain' being all territories in the Americas, with the rest 'up for negotiation' between him, Putin and the Chinese. His recent escapades in the Caribbean are a manifestation of this - Havana beware. His determination to achieve a rapprochement with Putin arises from a desire to 'divide the spoils' of Russian expansionism, and profit from them economically for the benefit of his MAGA-inspired USA. This bodes particularly ill for Ukraine, of course, which is in the immediate firing line, but also for the old Soviet-dominated eastern european republics, which Putin has firmly in his sights, despite NATO's article 5 and his own frequent protestations to the contrary. Whether or not Trump manages to secure himself a third term may determine how far this process goes.

Read on for some detailed analysis of the recent history of warfare...and what may be to come.

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Introduction

An extra-terrestrial observer looking at the behaviour of Homo Sapiens de novo might reasonably assess our species as: ‘..a primitive bipedal anthropoid primate having a marked addiction to conflict and self-destruction….’

This tendency towards what we might call 'competitive destructive aggression' is certainly not a new phenomenon – evolution has done a remarkable job of embedding the need to compete into our psyche – and our genes. Without it, we would not have become the most successful and numerous species on the planet. It is that very success, however, and the remarkable advances in technology that has enabled it, that now threatens our very existence....

War has been our principal way of solving territorial disputes between tribes and nations for millennia. Until relatively recently, although often brutal for its combatants, warfare caused little real harm from a global perspective. The First World War (WWI) was the first real ‘mass killing’ event for our species, but even this debacle, with all its horrors, was confined largely to a small area of Europe. Its consequences, including the millions killed in the trenches and in the subsequent H5N1 influenza epidemic, were admittedly much greater than anything seen previously in terms of numbers. Even in the 'battlefield' areas any structural destruction was limited, however. Since much of the fighting was confined largely to a small area within France and Belgium, it also failed to make much impact on world population statistics as a whole, or on the wider global environment itself.

Although the destructive effects of the early years of WW2 were more extensive, and included widespread devastation of UK and German cities by aerial bombardment, first during the Blitz and then subsequently the RAF's bombing campaign in Germany, it was only the development and use of the first atomic weapons at the end of the war that brought us the possibility of self-destruction on a grand scale. The subsequent headlong arms race between the two superpowers from the 1960s to the late 1980s cemented this capability in place. It also vastly increased both the size and sophistication of the nuclear arsenals of both sides as weapons of mass destruction.

This inevitably gave rise to the concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD). This realisation arose because the two principal opponents, the Western Alliance in the form of NATO and the Soviet Union, were well-matched in nuclear armaments, with sufficient explosive yield to devastate large areas of population and render much of the planet highly radioactive. It was therefore obvious that a full-scale nuclear exchange initiated by one of them would provoke an immediate full-scale strategic response and devastate both their, and the other’s, territory. It was also acknowledged that the accompanying large scale release of long-lived radioisotopes resulting from an all-out nuclear exchange would probably render the rest of the planet uninhabitable for our species, and many others, for thousands of years into the future. 

Although mercifully we managed to survive this first part of the nuclear age without major incident, the cold war period did generate several tense nuclear 'stand-offs', the Cuban missile crisis of 1963 arguably being the closest we came to a full-scale nuclear conflict.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, which marked the end of the 'cold' war however, we have effectively been living on ‘borrowed time’....

The chaos that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union in the 1990s was indeed a dangerous period, given the plethora of nuclear weapons still held across the old soviet republics, and the political turmoil and uncertainties that prevailed. We survived that period without incident, and the emergence of the Russian Federation in the early 2000s under Putin did appear to restore some semblance of stability to what was left of the old Soviet empire. There followed a brief period of globalisation and apparent mellowing of the East-West relationship. Putin was, however, planning his campaign all along, and with the help of his 'captive' oligarchs, built-up his arsenal and finances from the early 2010s onwards in preparation for the battle to come. His annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the start of Trump's first term as US president in 2016 effectively put paid to any chance of East-West integration, and by the onset of the Covid19 pandemic in 2020, things were going downhill fast. Putin's attempted follow-up annexation of the remainder of Ukraine in 2022 and the universal condemnation and sanctions that followed effectively re-engaged the East-West battle lines, if only by proxy.

Putin's now overt obsession with rebuilding the 'Russian empire' and the meteoric economic rise of China, with the consequent rapid development of its military capabilities, have increased the complexity of geopolitics by creating a 3-way power ‘split’. The situation has been complicated further by the emergence of a series of  ‘rogue’ state regimes, each prepared to play one superpower off against the others to achieve their own objectives.  

Fortunately, so far only one of these, N. Korea, has a significant nuclear capability, and their ballistic systems still lack proven long-range delivery capability.  Nuclear weapons have also proliferated beyond the superpowers to a number of other states, notably those age-old quarrelsome neighbours India and Pakistan. As we're now seeing, not all of these states can be regarded as having stable political systems....

Some other regimes  are actively seeking to acquire nuclear arsenals, the most worrying of those being Iran. As a result of the Ayatollah's threat to "remove Israel from the face of the earth", the Western alliance has declared its determination to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons 'at all costs', and a resurgent Trump has gone on the offensive against Iran's developing nuclear programme. His recent attempt at setting up a 'deal' with Tehran reflects this. 

Iran’s recent close association with Russia and their active participation in the supply of arms to Putin’s Ukrainian war has complicated the issue further, and Iran could yet acquire a limited nuclear capability from Russia 'under the counter' as a reward for services rendered. If it does, this would provide an additional potential flash point in the middle east, particularly given the sworn objective of Iran's ruling shia islamic theocracy to destroy Israel. The Israelis are so far the only nuclear-armed middle-eastern state, and are determined to remain so at all costs. With a far-right government coalition determined to promote its own interests above all others under Netanyahu, and overt continuing support from the US, they are a force to be reckoned with in the region. Despite the carnage,Trump has already confirmed US support for Israel on Gaza and recently threatened further military strikes against Tehran if a deal on restricting their nuclear programme is not forthcoming.

Putin also has other 'rogue state' partnerships in mind, and has already formed a close and productive alliance with Kim Jong Un. The N. Korean leader is a regular visitor to Moscow and has supplied arms, and more recently troops, to Russia, which continue to flow in, along with a steady supply of military hardware from Iran, to support the Ukraine war. The main concern is the price Kim will eventually extract from an increasingly desperate Kremlin. A revival of the N. Korean economy through food and oil donations and, in particular, access to key military technology so far unavailable due to sanctions, is on the cards, and this could result in an even more aggressive stance on the part of the N. Koreans on the continued US-S. Korean military buildup. Kim seems recently to have recognised the value of drone warfare, and is busy emulating Russian drone technology gifted to him by Putin recently - Seoul beware. The close alliance does seem to have waned a little recently with Xi Jin Ping's visit to Pyonyang. We can't have China as the major partner of the 'Eastern Alliance' excluded from the party, now, can we ?

Recent developments indicate that part of the payback has been in Russian oil - a very recent report states that N. Korea has received more than 1 million barrels of oil in return for its supplies of ordnance, and more recently its 10,000 plus troops for direct involvement in  the Ukrainian conflict, (mainly as 'cannon-fodder' in the Ukrainan-occupied Kursk region as shown by recent reports of their massive attrition rates). This has effectively allowed the N. Korean leadership to evade western sanctions and continue its nuclear development programme unabated.

Proxy Wars vs Global Conflict

The steady dwindling of available resources and the continued rapid and largely unchecked growth of the world’s population over the past 20 years have increased the risk of resource-driven conflict, as can be seen from the numerous ‘proxy wars’ that have been fought over the last two decades. The current Middle East flare-up is but one example of a 'pressure-release' process that holds back large-scale global conflict, while allowing rival powers to maintain their positions and justify their existence with their home populations. The intense rivalry between Israel and the shia islamic world, most notably Iran, has simmered for decades and shows no sign of any sort of resolution yet. The exacerbation in the form of the October 7th attack by HAMAS, the resulting Gaza conflict and more recently the war against Hizbollah in Lebanon, may yet turn into a pan-middle east conflict, despite the recent temporary cease-fire in Gaza. Fomenting conflict in the region is something which Iran has striven for since the 1979 revolution, in an attempt to establish its dominance....and that of its shia sect over the sunnis; the recent major damage inflicted on its 3 local proxies at the hands of the IDF will henceforth make this more difficult to achieve. It is only its own lack of resources to fight a major war that has confined its efforts so far to proxy-aggression against Israel. The recent (and of course, still ongoing) Covid pandemic, although a temporary unifying force to some extent, hastened this process further by holding back world economic growth, and may continue to do so for some time yet, particularly in China.

Despite the 'safety valve' effect of proxy conflicts, we are now in a situation where world events are becoming increasingly unpredictable. The iran war has shown us just how dependent we all are on local 'pinch points' such as Hormuz. Many feel that we may be on the brink of self-destruction, given the enhanced belligerence of both China and Russia under their increasingly autocratic regimes and the economic instability we are currently experiencing worldwide. To say nothing of the destabilising effect of a second Trump presidency with Vance and Hegseth as his hawkish 'attack dogs'....as concerned onlookers, we can only hope that the remaining checks and balances in the US system prevent 'the Donald' and his cronies going completely off the rails. (One advantage of Trump's second term may be a resolution of the Ukraine crisis; Ukraine may eventually be forced to buckle and give up territory despite Zelensky's protestations. However, a resurgent Putin is unlikely to be prepared to settle for the existing effective annexations in the Donbas and Crimea as his 'take home' prize, despite recent embarrassing Ukrainian successes in degrading his oil and gas infrastructure, both in the occupied territories and at home).

On the face of it, then, the current turmoil we're seeing in world geopolitics suggest a Third World War in the sense that most imagine it is certainly still a possibility – probably more so than at any time since the end of WW2.

How likely is it that a full-scale nuclear conflict will break out in the next 5 years ?

The Third World War – What, When and How ?

The answer to these questions can, of course, only be speculative, especially at this precarious stage of our species' development. However, I actually believe that the prospect of a full-scale nuclear conflict is perhaps less likely than it might appear at first sight. Why ?

Although ‘rogue’ states such as N. Korea have already acquired nuclear capability, and others such as Iran may eventually do so, despite the best efforts of the world community, they do not have the power or resources to start, or indeed wage, a full scale conventional or nuclear war individually without the intervention, and support, of one or more of the superpowers. 

Despite their often belligerent posturing, these 'rogue' regimes realise they would quickly be stopped, and with disastrous consequences, if they tried using any form of nuclear weapon without permission from at least one superpower ally. This would be highly unlikely to be granted for obvious reasons, primarily based on the global acceptance of MAD; devastating consequences would follow the use of even a single nuclear weapon for any offender, with wholesale destruction of their infrastructure and populations, possibly even with limited nuclear destruction to 'get the job done'. More to the point, the extinction of their own ruling regimes would be inevitable following any such use. Moreover, their nuclear arsenals are, and are likely to remain, relatively small, and are also likely to be fission weapon-based for the foreseeable future; they wuld also have a delivery problem - ICBM technology isn't generally available to such regimes for obvious reasons. Any damage they did cause before retribution descended on them would therefore be restricted to a relatively small area and therefore unlikely to trigger a full scale world nuclear conflict per se.

Of the current 'rogue' nuclear-armed states, only N. Korea presents a real risk of  initiating a nuclear strike (probably initially on its neighbour, S. Korea) at present. The obsessive paranoia that characterises the thinking of the leadership there could lead to a small-scale first nuclear strike. I suspect chairman Xi's recent visit may have been designed to 'bring the vassal to heel' as much as anything else...

 

Any attempt at a nuclear strike on US territory, or that of any of its allies, would result in a hail of ICBMs and instant obliteration of the regime - as we all found out during his first presidency, Trump's 'rockets' are bigger than Kim's ...he has more of them...and they all work- with a nuclear payload attached! 

Joking apart, however, despite their frequent missile tests, which are essentially 'sabre-rattling' exercises, the N. Koreans  are unlikely to be in a position to wage any kind of  full-scale war actively anytime soon, given the appalling state of their economy and the deteriorating health of their civilian population, much of which is nearing starvation (this distress is of course as a direct result of their leader's paranoid obsession with squandering his nation's resources on increasingly ambitious and expensive armaments in an attempt to keep his 'dynasty' in power). The regime's recent claim to have a working nuclear-powered submarine capable of delivering nuclear warheads has yet to be verified.  If this is ever proven, it may well precipitate pre-emptive action from the Western allies, given the obvious danger to shipping in the vicinity. A 'local' nuclear strike on the Korean peninsula would in any case be likely to generate nuclear fallout on large areas of N. Korea itself - this will not have escaped the regime's notice. Kim will, however, need watching closely over the coming months - he is becoming increasingly belligerent towards his southern neighbour, and may feel it's worth risking an attack against them while Trump is 'otherwise engaged'.

It is thus probably only one or more of the 3 superpowers who could effectively 'hit the red button' and launch a nuclear exchange to initiate WW3 in the traditional way. We should therefore look out for potential trigger issues, which might induce one or more of them to do this.

What might trigger a major conflict ?

As mentioned previously, Iran is probably the most likely ongoing threat to world peace, given the regime's stated objective to erase Israel, itself an established nuclear power, "from the face of the earth". It has allied itself with the 'Eastern bloc' and regards the USA as the 'Great Devil' with Israel as the 'Little Devil".

We know that by the time of Israel's recent airstrikes, Iran had almost reached the point at which it has enough enriched Uranium to manufacture a limited nuclear device. It is believed that much of this remains available, having been 'spirited away' before the bunker-busters struck last year. It could also acquire additional capability from elsewhere, probably supported in its efforts by Russia. If it does so, we should expect things to go downhill rapidly - a further pre-emptive strike on the Iranian nuclear development sites by Israel with US support would be almost certain if this were ever confirmed, whatever peace agreement had been reached in the interim. As discussed, Iran has been unequivocally identified as the primary backer of Hamas, Hizbollah and the Houthis, and proven complicit in recent terrorist and latterly direct tit-for-tat missile attacks against Israel. It is therefore a known direct and ongoing threat to the Israeli regime, and has global 'form' via its responsibility by proxy. 

Israel under Netanyahu shows no sign of any restraint against its self-sworn enemy, and seems intent on picking off its proxies one by one. Its current regime would have no issues at all in 'cutting off the head of the snake itself' to protect itself if it came to that. The prospect of Trump's unequivocal support going forward is only likely to encourage the Israeli regime's belligerence. Once Israel was certain that Iran had, or was close to having a nuclear capability of any sort, it would go to any lengths to eliminate the threat, including using its own nuclear arsenal in a pre-emptive strike. The Eastern bloc would then likely respond in kind, initially against Israel, but then more widely. This probably presents the greatest risk of a nuclear conflict starting within the next decade.

There is however one additional, and more global, 'fly in the ointment', which could alter the balance of power significantly. This first surfaced in the 1980s with Ronald Reagan's threat to create a 'Star Wars' anti-ICBM defence shield. At the time, the Soviet Union perceived this as a significant threat to the defence implied by MAD in that it removed their ability to strike back in the event of a nuclear attack by the US. It was quickly shelved as part of the treaties limiting nuclear weapons, and was followed by the demise of the Soviet Union, so it never got beyond the planning stage. 

Trump in his 'wisdom', however, has just announced he intends to set up a space-based 'Golden Shield' missile defence system 'capable of protecting the US (and any state that joins it as a US territory) from attacks by hypersonic ballistic missiles', according the the current hype. The huge cost of this system alone (current estimates of ca $0.5 Trillion) suggests it may never see the light of day. In addition, the virtual impossibility of detecting, catching up with, and then eliminating a sub-orbital ICBM travelling at Mach 2 or higher in the few minutes between its launch and hitting its intended target, probably makes it a non-starter. This is to be hoped for, given Putin's sensitivity to anything that might threaten his regime, or his command of 'mother Russia'. A pre-emptive nuclear strike by Russia or indeed China might well be on the cards prior to such a system 'going live' if it did look likely to be effective.

Is a Global Conflict likely to happen, and what form would it take ?

To answer this, we must first try to look into the minds of the respective leaders of the two principal 'superpower alliances' and assess at what advantage they might think could be achieved by doing so.

The prime motivation amongst Western leaders will be to maintain the geopolitical status quo as far as possible, while keeping in check any and all territorial or infrastructure-related threats from the Eastern powers, or the various terrorist groups, particularly in the European area. Europe 'sans Trump' is already beefing up its military and infrastructure defences, and has committed to major spending increases, but still has a long way to go to catch up.

MAD is universally accepted by NATO and the West as the ultimate deterrent, and a strategic nuclear first strike by NATO in the European arena would only ever be a last resort in response to an imminent nuclear attack on one or more of its members. NATO has however pledged via Article 5 of the treaty to defend any of its members who are attacked by a foreign power, so would be obliged to respond militarily to any conventional incursion anywhere within its members' territories. 

Despite Putin’s hope that the Ukraine conflict would divide Europe, the reverse has happened, with the European arm of NATO arguably much stronger now than at any time since its formation, and more willing to resist any 'demands' from the Eastern bloc. This is still effectively true, despite Trump's MAGA posturing, and Europe is finally waking up to the need for self preservation via increased defence spending. Despite Putin's own posturing, I see little evidence that NATO has any designs on appropriating any existing Eastern bloc territory, but it will steadfastly defend NATO members and reserves the right to consider any applications from new ones to join. A notable example is Ukraine, although membership won't, of course, be considered until the current war ends and some form of settlement with Russia is reached. Russian infiltration in some of the smaller eastern european republics is ongoing with the Moldovan elections already aving experiencied widespread interference by the Kremlin.

The principal, and somewhat unpredictable, factor now is of course the effect of a second Trump presidency on NATO. On the face of it, Trump appears to have turned his back on European security and befriended Putin. He has also 'upset the applecart' of the global economy by imposing swingeing trade tariffs on China and threatening them for other nations. However,  this, and the precise outcome of the USA's attempted return to pseudo-isolationism, are by no means certain. Trump's hallmark strategy, like Putin's, is to 'keep 'em all guessing', and his apparent volatility reinforces its effect. If nothing else, it has already had the beneficial effect of awakening Europe to the possibility that they could be left 'out in the cold' militarily by a resurgent isolationist Trump administration. Dangerous reductions in conventional capability have indeed been allowed to occur in many western states in recent years on the back of austerity programmes, and it is arguable whether NATO could repel a determined attacked by Russia in eastern Europe if it occurred within the next 2-3 years (we should probably thank Ukraine for standing up to putin so valiantly and giving us the breathing space we need to remedy our military deficit!).  As already mentioned, this realisation, and Trump's attitude, has encouraged more resilient defence spending of the 27, and appears also to have done so for the UK. This is long overdue due as a result of the various austerity drives since 2008, and is to be welcomed in an increasingly turbulent world. 

It's unlikely, though, that Trump would withdraw from NATO, or indeed abandon Europe  altogether, since this would give the 'green light' to Putin to take back control of the old Soviet republics - Trump's  objective is primarily to reduce Europe's dependence on the US for support and thereby reduce costs to his own exchequer, particularly those associated with support to Ukraine, which burgeoned alarmingly during the Biden era. He won't however, want to allow Western Europe to be overrun by the 'Russian hordes', as this would imply weakness on his part, reduce his global standing, and encourage rebelliousness on his 'own patch'. It will certainly be interesting, if a little scary, to watch the power dynamic develop between Trump, Putin and Xi once negotiations on 'carving up' Ukraine start in earnest.

The Russian and Chinese leaderships now are well aware of the change in the Western status quo, but are still uncertain as to how far Trump, and a more wary NATO membership, will actually go to defend its territory and influence. They will therefore continue to probe for information, and will also periodically ‘test the water’ militarily. Symptoms of this continuing covert intelligence war have been clearly visible in recent years with the US Chinese 'weather' balloon incident and periodic incursions of Russian vessels and war planes into NATO territorial waters and airspace. China's threatening posture in the South China Sea and particularly against Taiwan is also of note. The recent occurrences of suspected Russian 'shadow fleet' sabotage on submarine cable and pipeline infrastructure are all part of the same destabilising strategy.  This evident need for data and intelligence brings us to a third important question.

How might a future World War Develop ?

Given the likelihood that the superpowers have all accepted the reality of MAD, none would be likely to initiate a strategic nuclear conflict unless they felt their existence was actively threatened. 

Even Putin, with his current obsessional 'bunker' mentality, was grudgingly forced to admit in 2022 that he would only resort to nuclear weapons if he felt his (i.e. mother Russia’s) existence was directly threatened. The more recent revision of Russia's 'nuclear policy' charter allowing the restricted use of tactical nuclear weapons was largely a sabre-rattling exercise in response to Biden's grant of permission for Ukraine to use US longer-range missiles against Russian targets.  Although Putin's pronouncements are not exactly noted for their veracity, the likelihood of his 'going tactical nuclear' in Ukraine is probably low - for now at least. For one thing, his forces are steadily grinding down the Ukrainian side and for another, he will not want to risk adverse reaction from his own population by causing radioactive airborne contamination to spread into western Russia from the battlefield via prevailing westerly winds.

There are, however worrying indications that Putin may be fast losing his grip on reality, living as he does in an information-deprived 'bubble' surrounded by those who dare not give him a true picture of events. He is also unable to venture much beyond his own territorial boundaries due to his international arrest warrant for war crimes, and the ever present risk of assassination. The unsettling effect of Prighozin's abortive coup attempt and its aftermath will likely have added to his paranoia. The embarrassment generated by Ukraine's stalwart resistance since the 2022 invasion, and latterly their incursion into western Russia with apparently little resistance, and progress in destroying oil and gas infrastructure via drone attacks, certainly won't have helped. Zalensky's early 'sortie', which destroyed a significant part of Putin's strategic bomber fleet, will have particularly enraged him, but without convincing him that it's time to wind up his 'Special Operation' (or should it be Special Floperation). 

We can only hope that the instincts of self-preservation within his military top-brass are sufficient to prevent him actually pressing the red button. Paradoxically, the 'pseudo-rapprochement' with the US resulting from Trump's 2nd term may have helped the cause of peace (temporarily at least) by claming nerves in the Kremlin, but Trump's volatility knows no bounds, and we may be back to 'square one' at any time if 'The Donald' loses patience and realises he has simply been 'played along' by Putin.

Despite all this political instability, and the uncertainty it brings, the principal underlying danger is still that of a trigger event caused by human (or indeed machine!) error.  The widespread application of AI can only serve to increase uncertainty by removing some operational decision-making from human hands. 

If a simple mis-coded cyber security update can virtually shut down many of the West's principal computer operating systems, how safe from a nuclear holocaust are we really ? And then there's the hackers.....

There are ample precedents to support the assertion that we aren't really safe at all.... 

A rather disturbing report emerged after the USSR's demise in the early 1990s of Soviet early warning systems taking their war machine to the equivalent of the US’s ‘DefCon1’ in 1985 before identifying the ‘threat’ as a machine error, probably caused by a malfunctioning satellite. There have even been credible reports in the past of lower level alerts being triggered by large flocks of high-flying geese ! There is potentially an even greater threat of this type of malfunction in early warning systems nowadays, given the opportunities for malicious hackers to overcome internet firewalls and penetrate networked command and control systems – on both sides of the East-West ‘divide’.

The Rise and Rise of Electronic Warfare (EW)

There is another important consideration here which is likely to influence the direction in which modern warfare develops. Conventional warfare rarely achieves much territorial gain when the opposing forces are equally matched. There are numerous examples of this, from the static nature of the WWI trenches to Putin’s singular lack of progress against the Ukrainians in the 'fighting seasons' of 2022 and 2023, and the painfully slow attritional advances he has made since 2024. This is despite Russia’s overwhelming technical military superiority and available manpower/ordnance. It is therefore no surprise that military leaders and their civilian counterparts are turning to electronic means of waging war.

Even as far back as WW2, the earliest developments in code-breaking and data acquisition in the early 1940s at Bletchley Park showed how essential intelligence could be in deciding the outcome of conventional modern warfare. The invention, and now virtually universal availability, of the internet, and more recently the much acclaimed advent of the ‘internet of things’ has itself provided the ultimate tool for attacking an enemy’s way of life remotely, from its networked command & control systems to its civilian infrastructure.

It is no coincidence that one of Putin’s earliest military 'sorties', made before actually invading Ukraine in February 2022, was an attempt to take down as much of Ukraine’s infrastructure as possible by electronic sabotage. Fortunately this early intervention, although initially quite promising, proved less successful than he anticipated, and the Ukrainian leadership were able to adapt to the new EW attacks relatively quickly. They also gained valuable insight into their own vulnerabilities, Putin's strategy to exploit them, and how to thwart his efforts. 

The important point to appreciate here is the direction of travel – both Russia and China have literally ‘armies’ of state-employed hackers dedicated to seeking out weak points in Western control networks. Russia’s determined ongoing efforts to destroy as much of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure as possible from the air, despite the universal acceptance that this amounts to a war crime, shows how much importance they attach to this ‘off-battlefield’ approach to weakening enemy resolve. 

China, meanwhile, in addition to its rapid military buildup, has also adopted another approach by entering the 'space race', ostensibly for peaceful means. However, their use of an anti-satellite device in low-earth orbit to destroy one of their own defunct weather satellites recently showed us that this technology was in fact designed to enhance their ability to knock out orbiting electronic infrastructure during a future conflict. 

Their uncharacteristic openness in publicising this test suggest it was intended more as a demonstration to potential adversaries than a bona-fide space junk clearing exercise. Indeed, such events can in no way be described as orbital  'clean-up' processes, but rather acts of space vandalism. Destroying a large object in low-earth orbit merely increases the hazard many-fold by creating many thousands of additional pieces of debris, all of which travel at ca 18,000 mph. Any one of these fragments could destroy another satellite in an intersecting orbit....or indeed take out a whole space station. 

The Ukraine conflict has led to a marked up-tick in the development and application of EW. Development of the Palantir software and the vastly-increased monitoring capacity through battlefield and remote satellite sensors have enabled true 'algorithmic warfare' to be rolled out under operational conditions for the first time. The unexpected success of the Ukrainian fightback against an ill-prepared and trained Russian conscript army has been greatly assisted by this new technology, which enables battlefield commanders to effectively 'penetrate the fog of war'. 

By providing continuous updates on the precise battlefield locations of the enemy and predictions of his short term movements, the technology allows a directed 'kill chain' to be established. Elon Musk's Starlink communications satellite constellation, which is effectively 'un-jammable', is widely regarded by military experts as having been key in enabling the Ukrainians to frustrate Russian advances, and withstand nearly 3 years of ruthless onslaught by its powerful neighbour. Its temporary withdrawal by Trump to force Zelensky to the negotiating table as a 'submissive' showed its importance. Of particular note is the increasing role of 'private tech' in the provision of software, hardware and ordnance, and even as active participants in some operational contexts. This trend is likely to continue, given the vast cost to governments and their taxpayers that would otherwise inherit if they attempted to take everything back 'in house' .

As indicated above, the use of critical 'real time' intelligence in this way is certainly not unprecedented in modern warfare - The key role of the Bletchley Park codebreakers in shortening WW2 is well known. One of my own relatives' contribution at Bletchley Park during his Foreign Office secondment from 1941-44 in breaking the Italian Navy's Hagelin P38 cipher, and providing vital decodes of Italian naval high command's messages thereafter, enabled the Royal Navy and Air Force to predict the movements of the Italian battle fleet accurately and inflict heavy damage. What was left of the Italian fleet then promptly withdrew to their naval bases and remained there until the Italians surrendered to the Allies in 1943. This intelligence breakthrough drastically reduced Rommel's ability to resupply his North African troops by sea. As a result the 3rd Reich was forced to commit more forces and much-needed ordnance to the North African campaign that might otherwise have reinforced their European and Russian fronts, possibly changing the duration, and even perhaps the course, of the war as a result. The cracking of Hagelin, and of course the better known Enigma ciphers, is considered to have been highly significant, so much that prime minister Winston Churchill visited Hut 4 on a visit to Bletchley Park to thank the team personally for their key endeavours.

Looking back at the early history of EW, the 'intelligence war' waged so effectively by Bletchley Park and its associated civilian and military intelligence service personnel throughout the WW2 relied heavily on absolute secrecy, and the 'Enigma story' was not revealed until selected records were declassified in the mid-1970s. And the Bletchley story didn't end in 1945 - Hagelin's cipher technology also figured large in Crypto AG's post-war efforts in supplying encoding support to many 'rogue' regimes, and the 'back door' developed from Bletchley's decryption success enabled the UK and US intelligence services to keep tabs on their activities throughout the Cold War era and beyond. Indeed Gordon Welchman's revelatory book "The Hut 6 Story" got him into serious trouble with the US and UK authorities for being a little too revealing. Some of the operational details surrounding Hagelin remain classified to this day, demonstrating how seriously governments still regard encryption as a key weapon of war.

How Great is the Risk to our Western Way of Life posed by AI-driven Electronic Warfare ?

Although rapidly-evolving battlefield EW of the sort which is being effectively 'field tested' in the Ukraine conflict can be effective on a local level, there is another more far-reaching aspect to EW which is potentially much more dangerous to our way of life. We are now virtually completely dependent on the internet for almost every aspect of our lives. This dependence is not limited to the first world – a large and ever-increasing proportion of the third world population now possess, and rely on, mobile phones. The infrastructure of their countries, such as it is, is becoming equally dependent on internet-connected technology. This renders us all acutely vulnerable to electronic attack. 

Not only is state-sponsored hacking an established ‘industry’ now, but an ever increasing army of misguided private individuals are trying their hands at penetrating all manner of supposedly firewall-protected systems. Barely a week goes by nowadays without some form of malicious attack on a major firm's website or IT system. The fact that a UK-based autistic teenager could, and did, penetrate the Pentagon’s inner 'secure' networks recently, and is still fighting extradition to the US to face trial, demonstrates just how vulnerable we are to this type of intervention. The use of NSO's Pegasus software by a large number of states to spy on their populations and those of other nations via their mobile phones is another and even more insidious development in the intelligence war. Although Pegasus has been used largely to track and suppress dissidents, any of the data it accumulates could be significant in wider conflicts. The advent of AI, and in particular its military aspects, has a occasioned much alarm amongst experts in the field, who believe its unfettered use could lead to disaster if not kept in check. Anthropic's recent refusal to release its new Claude chatbot for fear of the boost it could give to state-sponsored hackers is a manifestation of this concern.

Is there a solution to this unexpectedly adverse by-product of universal connectivity ?

Yes, but it certainly wouldn't be an easy one to implement.... 

Our only hope of surviving internet-induced systems 'meltdown’ after a major state-sponsored external attack (or indeed an unintentional self-induced one!) is to develop completely separate 'stand-alone' systems which are strictly fire-walled, and can be isolated from the open internet whenever required, by removing any form of physical or radio connection to it. 

This is of course virtually impossible with our existing communications infrastructure, which is now essential to maintaining our current way of life. Almost everything we do now involves interaction with the worldwide web in some respect, often via short-range wireless (and therefore easily interceptable) connections. GPS technology also figures large in enabling our daily lives, and is wholly dependent on vulnerable satellite and internet links. 

And there is no ‘backup system’ to revert to if it all goes wrong - apart from anything else, the complexity and extent of our reliance on instantaneous data transfer, and the size of our population would overwhelm old-style paper-based and stand-alone computer systems. 

We can all demonstrate this vulnerability for ourselves by considering what the effect on our own individual lives would be if the internet suddenly went down completely (including all the mobile phone networks, satellite links and GPS systems). How quickly would things go awry, and how on earth would we all cope if it all stayed out of action for a long period, or even permanently ? Recent experiments depriving schoolchildren and adults of their phones for even a day or two haven proven our established dependence - both practical and psychological - on these devices. Thus a complete loss of internet communication would be disastrous and leave us extremely vulnerable to attack.

“…But isn’t this just pure alarmism…it'll never be allowed to happen”,  I hear you say….

There may be a grain of truth there, in that it might never happen. Or even that we wouldn't allow it to do so. But not everything is necessarily in our control....

Thus, for safety's sake we should anticipate a full scale EW attack of some sort in future, and ensure our systems are as robust as possible against it. 

And we should remember that there are also natural events that could cause similar disruption. One of them has occurred in the relatively recent past, and could well  have a similar effect when it recurs - and it will eventually. 

Our local neighbourhood star, the sun, is a remarkably stable and well-behaved 'beast' as far as stars go; without its remarkable consistency of output, and the accident of an effective planetary magnetic field to shield us from its more harmful radiation, our species would simply never have existed. Like all of us, however, our 'friendly neighbourhood star' does have occasional bouts of indigestion, which can, and do, give rise to what are called 'coronal mass ejections'. 

These are perfectly normal periodic solar events for any mid-spectrum star, and result in an abnormally high volume of solar material being thrown out in to space, some of which heads in our direction and hits our atmosphere some 24 hours later. When the remnants of one of these ejections hits the ionosphere, it produces large amounts of ionised material, which has the potential to induce very high voltages in metallic conductors. This can in turn damage the sensitive electronics within our satellites and even burn out our terrestrial power grids on the ground. Although the ‘solar wind’ is ever-present, it is normally deflected effectively by our magnetic field, just giving us no more than an occasional spectacular display of the Aurora Borealis in the Northern Hemisphere. A severe solar storm would overcome the protective effects of our magnetic field and generate damaging 'ion-showers' with widespread effects on our infrastructure and communications. 

The problem for us is that the timing of these major solar eruptions is not easily predictable. Although they are relatively rare (fortunately for us, given our current reliance on all things electronic !), historical records show that this type of event appears to happen roughly once a century - and we haven’t had a major occurrence since the so-called Carrington Event in the mid-1800s. We're already experiencing some consequences of the current 'solar maximum' with frequent auroras and some satellites malfunctioning - I'll leave the statisticians among you to work out the probability of such an event occurring within the next decade...

What can we do to reduce our vulnerability ?

All this highlights the need for a more robust electronic infrastructure, and a more enlightened and less 'head in the sand' attitude to internet connectivity and its vulnerabilities. There’s not much we can do about the sun’s behaviour, given the static nature of our terrestrial power grids and satellite systems, but we can reduce our exposure to some of the more self-induced earthbound threats. 

The problem is that this will cost.....notwithstanding these additional costs and the readjustment to our way of life, we would be much better off addressing the problem now, while our systems are still intact, and we should do so as part of our defence revamp. This would be far more effective, and a whole lot cheaper, than trying to 'pick up the pieces' after the inevitable ‘crisis’ hits. Millions of lives will have been lost, and we have to rebuild everything from scratch after a war which we might well have lost outright in the first few days of cyber-hostilities. Winning WW3, when it comes, and thereby retaining our much cherished personal freedoms, will be dependent on having more robust control systems which are effectively protected from the unwelcome attentions of our adversaries.

It was interesting to note recently that our own intelligence services in UK showed themselves to be more than a little concerned about our vulnerabilities in this respect. A spate of articles released as long ago as 2022 highlighted the need for vigilance, particularly against pervasive Chinese influence, and there is now an unusual degree of openness (for a state security service, that is!) in the measures being taken to tackle the threats. This marked change in emphasis actually does make sense for the security services, since it not only exposes what a potential enemy is already up to, but also serves to advertise the need for all of us to take whatever precautions we can in our daily lives.

If there is a moral to this story, perhaps in the form of a New Year message for 2027, it would probably be:

“…The internet is a remarkable and life-changing invention, but we need to redouble our efforts to protect ourselves against online threats from those who might wish to do us harm…”

Not wanting to belittle the importance of our current efforts to reduce global warming, of course, it is arguable as to whether we in Europe have our priorities right here - the complete loss of our Western freedoms through inaction on cyberwarfare would be a very high price to pay for obsessive efforts slowing the pace of our climate's warming trend...particularly since we don't yet know how far we can actually stop the warming process, or indeed whether reducing our own UK emissions 'to the bone' would make any sugnificant impression on the warming trend.

The Advent of the Unmanned Drone and the UGV as weapons of war 

Unmanned i.e. 'drone' aircraft are not new, and have been used on the battlefield for many years. Perhaps the earliest example, if not the most notable, was the V1 bomb, which was employed as a terror weapon against London by the Nazis in WWII. Its most fearsome aspect was its randomness - it was completely unguided, and fell whenever the fuel ran out, thus no one was immune. Its immediately recognisable buzz, followed by sudden silence, struck fear into the hearts of many a Londoner in the early 1940s. Its successor, the V2 rocket, was even more devastating, but was a relatively late entrant to the conflict. It was also quite unreliable, and so failed to make much impression on an already flattened London.

Modern drones first came into their own during the battle against islamic jihad in the early 2000s after 9/11, when they were used by the US as remote precision weapons to target known terrorist 'kingpins'. It was not until the Ukraine conflict, though, that they really became widely used as battlefield weapons, being used mercilessly (and in contravention of international law) by the Russians against Ukraine's civilian population, and more recently by Ukraine to cause disproportionate damage to Russian military and infrastructure targets. 

Similar tactics have also been used by the IDF in Gaza, although here drones are used more as reconnaissance tools to assist in targeting manned airstrikes. Their real potential as strategic weapons was first demonstrated in June 2025 by the daring Ukrainian drone attack against several widely separated Russian airbases, where they managed to inflict heavy damage against the Russian strategic bomber fleet. The fact that it was possible to import and secretly launch these weapons close to their targets showed that despite its undoubted military superiority in terms of numbers, the Russian military is not invincible....needless to say Putin was 'not amused'. Even less so, recently, with Zalnsky's military inflicting heavy damage on a St. Petersburg oil refinery just as his showpiece 2026 exhibition was about to start.

The inherent portability of drones allows them to be easily concealed and transported behind enemy lines where they can then be launched by infiltrated enemy agents much nearer their targets - a technique used to good effect in the ongoing Iranian conflict.

We should thus expect drones to figure large in future conflicts. We should also beware of their potential for enabling mass terror attacks here in Europe...in my view it is merely a matter of time before an optically guided (i.e.unjammable) drone is used against a civilian target by a terrorist cell somewhere in Europe or the US. Events involving large gatherings of spectators (e.g sports stadia) would be particularly attractive targets for this type of group. We are already seeing local drone launches designed to disrupt airports and other civilian infrastructure, no doubt also Russian inspired, but always seemingly deniable.

Fully autonomous drones are not yet with us, but won't be far away now. Both sides in the Ukraine war are experimenting with AI-powered guidance systems, such that the drone has the 'intelligence' to acquire its target and destroy it autonomously, without any need for control by external signals in the latter stages of its mission. This will render it much less subject to jamming, without the need for a physical 'fly-by-wire' connection of the type currently used for current 'jam-proof' aircraft. This, of course, opens up ethical concerns since 'abnegation' of control by a human in this situation could be regarded as a war crime.

Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) are a much more recent addition to the battlefield, and are coming into their own with a vengeance. Early adoption in the field of bomb disposal pre-dates the current surge in development by quite a long way, but was the first application of robotics to particularly hazardous situations. The pace of development of these machines in recent years  has been little short of staggering, such that the first report of a brigade of Ukrainian UGVs achieving the surrender of Russian troops on the front line surfaced earlier this week. We are not quite at the stage of the Terminator movies quite yet, but it may not be long in coming. Ukraine has driven development in this area due to the horrendous human losses involved in the conflict, particularly on the Russian side, where recruiting is already consistently failing to keep up with the monthly death toll caused by the sophistication and killing power of modern battlefield weaponry.

Interestingly, the Ukranian leader, Zalensky, ever the opportunist, has also made quite a name for himself already as a drone warfare expert and is now selling his and his colleagues' expert consultancy services around the world, most notably to the Saudis and other miscellaneous emirates as a direct result of the Iran war. He is also ruthlessly destroying the Russian black sea oil export facilities step by step, much to Trump's annoyance. Putin may yet find himself forced to make a deal if Ukraine holds out until the end of the year with European support and his own economy continues to struggle.

Is there a Perceived Need for a Third World War ?

In the minds of Western Alliance leaders, almost certainly not – the domestic problems already demanding their immediate attention are legion, and are unlikely to be fully soluble any time soon. A prolonged mobilisation of NATO armies would tax our collective militaries severely, and be economically ruinous to its member countries as a whole. A look at the vast ongoing annual costs of NATO's arms supply to Ukraine should convince anyone of that, and its effects in reducing conventional weapon stockpiles have already taken their toll on our combat-readiness. 

There is, however, an underlying need to prevent the spread of Russian and Chinese dominance, particularly in Europe, and prevent loss of control of the supplies of some scarce resources; the loss of access to key SE Asian manufacturing capacity and raw materials, for example, would be far more costly to the West than a limited conventional European war. Trump's 2nd presidency has already woken the EU and UK from their collective slumbers on the need for an effective home defence independent of the US 'umbrella' of old. The only questions now are: How much will it cost ? and How long will it take ?

What about the Eastern Alliance ?

Here things are less clear cut. Russia is probably the easiest of the two major players to predict in the short term at least, given that Putin has set his store by reconstituting as much of the original Soviet empire as possible (without, of course, the 'inconvenience' of the old Soviet communist Politburo element itself to challenge his personal dominance!). Putin also knows full well that the success of his regime also depends on taking control of the Ukraine’s mineral wealth, particularly its rare earth deposits, most of which lie in the disputed Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine. This is a less well-publicised, but nevertheless important factor in the rationale for his Ukraine 'special operation', and will figure large in any negotitiations he enters into with Trump. 

Putin is therefore committed to continuing the Ukraine conflict to its end, or until his own regime is ousted by an exasperated Russian populace, or perhaps more likely by his own military - 'Ukraine or bust', in fact. Trump's re-election may lead to some form of 'deal', as he would call it, particularly if it gives him access to the Donbas region's resources. Given Ukraines ability to destroy local occupied infrastructure, however, Putin is unliekly to be able to gain much from his new-found territorial acquisitions. The Ukraine war is more likely to result in a stand-off, with more sanctions if Putin continues to refuse to 'play ball', as he will undoubtedly do for as long as Trump lets him.

The future for Russia itself ‘post-Putin’ appears pretty grim at present; we can probably predict that it would be in no position to wage a full scale World War, given its much weakened economic position and its self-induced legacy as a pariah state, even it does manage to avoid a descent into a fractious and uneasy alliance of 'tribal' factions when Putin finally departs. Trump's attempts to bring Putin 'back into the fold' will quickly lose momentum after his presidency ends (assuming he doesn't manage to amend the US constitution and elect himself president for life!).

The Chinese Question

China is an entirely different ‘kettle of fish’ and thus may pose more of an active threat to our way of life. Despite its own valiant efforts in the 1990s and 2000s to stem population growth under the ‘one child’ policy, its already vast and still increasing population, with their much increased expectation of prosperity, virtually demands that the leadership adopt an aggressively expansionist policy – both economically and territorially.

The Chinese leadership recognised this from the start of the post-Mao era of economic development, and clearly set their sights on first winning the economic war, recognising that an outright military ‘victory’ would never be on the cards in the modern economically inter-dependent world. 

To a large extent the Chinese have succeeded in their quest for regional economic domination, now that Putin’s Russia has virtually eclipsed itself as a major rival economy. 

India, although still a player, remains mired in uncontrollable population growth and rural poverty, and to add to its woes, has now also surpassed even China as the most populous nation on the planet. Given its demographic problems and the traditional religious Hindu vs Muslim divide becoming accentuated by the  hard-line Modi government, it is therefore unlikely to surpass China's economic or military superiority any time soon. It may inherit a short-lived boost as a result of Trump's trade war as an alternative to China, but this will not last. There is now also the possibility of a major eruption of its simmering conflict with its neighbour Pakistan over Kashmir.

On the global front, despite its current slowdown, it is likely that China will soon overtake the US as the world’s largest economy. China also realises that its dominance in the supply of rare earths and other essential components of modern electronics needs to be maintained as a bargaining chip – its ‘courting’ of African republics such as DRC who have substantial mineral deposits is directed towards this aim. 

It also has its sights set on reclaiming Taiwan; this is partly ideological, but also stems from the fact that it currently has a dominant role in producing much of the world's microprocessor chip supplies. Although Beijing continues to justify its claim on Taiwan purely on territorial and ideological grounds, we should not ignore the fact that the real strategic importance of Taiwan's microprocessor industry will be a major driver in any decision on an invasion. A monopoly on semiconductor manufacture would be even more valuable to China than the economic boost Hong Kong provided for it in after the hand-over by UK in the 1990s. 

It is no coincidence that the US in particular is actively looking at ramping up its own chip production, and sourcing these vital elements of our electronic revolution from outside SE Asia. Trump and Silicon Valley Tech bosses anticipate more restricted availability of high-spec chips from SE Asia generally and Taiwan in particular. The importance of Taiwanese chip production may in fact represent a 'silver lining' of sorts for the island, in that the Chinese will want to leave the manufacturing infrastructure intact in any military campaign, so won't be able to 'flatten the island into submission' as Putin is clearly aiming to do in Ukraine. See below for more discussion on the likely fate of Taiwan.

China has also recognised in the mid 2010s that economic downturns in the West presented it with an golden opportunity to snap-up assets in these countries and offer financial support to infrastructure projects. Many western governments have now rather belatedly woken up to the danger and are now attempting to block acquisitions deemed to present significant strategic risk. They are already finding, sadly though, that much of the 'damage' is already done, with many western companies being 'riddled' with Chinese ownership, and/or debt commitments to the CCP.

However, the predicted 'rise and rise' in Chinese economic dominance is by no means a done deal, and there are serious problems ahead for China. Although the Chinese economy has undergone a remarkable transformation over the past 20 years, it has become a victim of its own success in raising expectations of continual expansion, both internally and worldwide. The Chinese experience with Covid in 2022 severely challenged this assumption, and the uncontrolled abandonment of all Covid restrictions without establishing adequate population immunity, compounded the problems by inducing a large increase in sickness and mortality. Although getting real data on the Covid epidemic out of China is like trying to get ‘blood out of a stone’, and official PRC figures are obviously gross underestimates, best estimates based on our Western experience with SARS-CoV-2 suggests that deaths in the millions are likely to have occurred from the first post-lockdown wave alone. 

China is indeed fortunate that SARS-CoV-2 had such a low kill rate (ca 0.5%) - its predecessor, SARS-CoV which started in China in 2003, had an estimated fatality rate of 10-20%. They may not be so lucky with the next pandemic.

Paradoxically, the Covid pandemic and its aftermath might actually prove to have helped the Chinese economy in the medium term by removing a significant proportion of the elderly who were economically inactive and heavily dependent on state support. Both the SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 (Covid19) epidemics actually originated in China, and statistically there is a good chance that the next pandemic will also start there, so the Chinese economy is unlikely to have a clear run of expansion from now on and may remain 'stop-start' for the foreseeable future. Its growth rate is already looking decidedly lack-lustre as compared with pre-Covid era and may never reach such remarkable heights again. Its economy is also  mired in debt, largely as a result of the housing market 'bubble' which has now spectacularly burst, leaving a vast excess of unoccupied housing and a population that can't afford it.

All this suggests that Xi Jinping will be reluctant to become actively involved in all-out military conflict with the West, at least until the after-effects of the Covid crisis in China has been overcome, and its demographic 'time bomb' and debt problems have both been dealt with.

That said, chairman Xi has personally committed himself to re-uniting Taiwan with the mainland. As discussed, this objective is not just based on personal pride or a desire for territorial integrity – Taiwan has the most advanced semiconductor industry in the world and much of our Western technology depends on free access to their marketplace. Taking back control of Taiwan would therefore represent a formidable economic weapon, in the short term at least, and may present a sufficient incentive for Xi to risk open conflict with the US over an invasion of the island. Despite the ongoing military posturing, however, it is more likely that a settlement will be sought with the West over Taiwan’s sovereignty, if for no other reason than to preserve vital chip manufacturing capacity and expertise. Given Hong Kong’s recent experience, however, the Taiwanese themselves may be difficult to convince. 

My guess is that Xi will first try to infiltrate Taiwanese political circles and achieve a 'takeover at the top' rather than attempting a destructive, and politically risky, invasion. With a Beijing-sympathetic  'puppet' regime in place, a bloodless takeover would be much easier to achieve and defend, and any dissent could then be dealt with locally, as per for Hong Kong. The CIA's recent warning that an attack on Taiwan may be imminent indicates US concern that this could become a potential flashpoint in the near future.

There are thus plenty of incentives for the Eastern Alliance to wage war, although the form this might take is uncertain, and is likely to be delayed until the medium term. China has been actively ‘currying favour’ economically with non-aligned nations in Africa and the Third World generally for the past 20 years, and will continue to extend its reach wherever possible in pursuit of its economic and diplomatic objectives. It will also expect a return on its ‘investments’ in the form of raw materials and support in any world conflict, military or otherwise. China's emphasis will be on winning the economic war by whatever means necessary.

We in the West should therefore not rule out a global conflict in the next 5 years, given that the stakes are increasing year by year. What's more in question is the nature of that conflict.

How might the Third World War be Fought ?

Contrary to popular belief, WW3 is unlikely to start (and therefore probably quickly end) with an all-out nuclear exchange. As we have seen, the risks of MAD following a full scale nuclear exchange are simply too great - for everyone. 

In a sense, it is perhaps fortunate that we have already experienced the disruptive effects of limited nuclear release events, both from the WWII Japanese atomic aftermath and the more recent nuclear accidents at 3-Mile Island, Fukoshima and Chernobyl. These have shown beyond doubt how easily we could render life as we know it impossible on our planet, both locally and globally through long-range and persistent radioactive fallout.

Provided we can continue to avoid accidental triggering of a nuclear holocaust, it is much more likely that a ‘global’ conflict would start with a limited conventional war involving one of the superpowers, pulling in one or both of the opposing superpowers due to the effects of that conflict on the rest of the world. 

Sounding familiar, perhaps ?

We may in fact have already witnessed the early stages of  a 'proxy' WW3 in 2023, given the effects of the Ukraine war on world food supplies and general economic prosperity, and the increased polarisation between NATO and the ‘Eastern Alliance’ formed recently between Russia and China. The instability the 2nd Trump presidency has already created in the 'world order' is likely to result in will only serve to encourage realignment.

The start of hostilities may, in the history books of the future, be seen as the second ‘official’ invasion of Ukrainian territory by Russian troops in February 2022. It could even be taken as an event further back in time. This would probably be be the initial covert participation of Russian troops in the Donbas region of Ukraine in support of 'the rebels' in 2014, although the exact date is more difficult to verify precisely. The subsequent annexation of Crimea later that year would be another obvious starting point. However we delineate it in future, a formal declaration of war may not be necessary to take us into the next stage of WW3, and a declaration might even be seen by the players in the conflict as restricting their options.

Assuming for a moment that we're not actually there yet, a full-scale global war would be more likely to develop in future from a regional one, such as Ukraine, or via one of the  periodic flare-ups of the ever-simmering Middle East standoff. The majority of the subsequent ‘battle’ would probably not involve conventional physical troop movements with 'set piece' battlefield interactions.

As already discussed, a much more effective way of bringing a modern state to its knees is to destroy its infrastructure, particularly its computer systems – and thereby to deny it access to its command and control systems. Although much devastation can be achieved by directed missile strikes, and more recently well-planned drone attacks, these are by their nature localised, and usually involve retaliative damage to the aggressor. As we have seen recently in the Ukrainian conflict, their effect on the civilian population also forfeits the ‘moral high ground’ with the world community, and condemns the perpetrator state to prolonged pariah status, and a painful and costly rehabilitation thereafter. It will be many years before Russia is accepted back into the international fold, and Israel will also find it difficult to recover from the Gaza conflict. 

Such actions, particularly against civilians, also risks rallying support for the cause both within the affected territories and outside them.  The ‘battle for hearts and minds’ should not be discounted as an important part of any non-nuclear conflict, especially a global one.

As electronic warfare becomes more sophisticated and effective, it’s likely that much of the  ‘battlefield’ will transfer to the ether. This is because even a limited nuclear exchange would be devastating on a regional scale, and it would be almost impossible to avoid it going global. Despite the recent advances in  algorithmic prediction and monitoring, conventional battlefield warfare where the two sides are evenly matched quickly becomes bogged down – it is also horrendously expensive, given the cost of modern weaponry and its associated technology. Both the Russian and Israeli experiences of the past three years have already proved that. The logistic difficulties associated with moving large numbers of troops even short distances also provide a powerful disincentive. Such physical battlefield participation as there is will probably be largely via drones and UGVs - we're already seeing the start of this in the Ukraine conflict.

To illustrate the extent of the cost, we have only to consider the financial effects of the Ukraine conflict so far. In the first 18 months of the war, the West  poured many billions into weapons for Ukraine, and continue to do so in response to Zelensky's incessant entreaties. While the start of a Trump 2nd presidency has already produced a degree of 'resupply drag' at present, Europe has woken up to the imminent danger a Russian victory in Ukraine would represent to their territory, and even Trump would probably be forced to bow to NATO pressure if this were on the cards. Putin's economy is still at risk of meltdown and only Russia’s copious oil and gas reserves, and the revenues they generate from the remaining buyers who are still willing to defy sanctions, have saved him from bankruptcy in the face of his extensive troop and weapon losses – and the attritional effects of sanctions on Russia's economy. A recent report indicates that the Russian economy is likely to be severely challenged if the war continues through 2025, due primarily to the rapid fall in the value of the rouble and the ensuing debt crisis that would precipitate. It's unlikely in this that China would be able to bail out its erstwhile ally if this happens. Putin is therefore going 'hell for leather' while he can to maximise the area of Ukraine his army occupies before a peace settlement becomes imperative as  his economy tanks.

Thus, arguably, the only viable option for an autocratic leader seeking world dominance is to seize electronic control and hold the enemy to ransom. This method has the added advantage that infrastructure is not destroyed on either side, and resources are not squandered in fruitless military strikes. And such a strategy will remain perfectly feasible as long as we continue to depend on universal open connectivity via the internet and the phone networks to enable our way of life.  The recent numerous examples of organised hacker groups brazenly disrupting UK businesses with ransomware attacks merely highlights our lack of resilience in the west generally, and will hopefully spur on the authorities to tackle the problem head on. The message is a clear one - tighten up your systems or face business meltdown.

An indication of active EW development which has surfaced recently is a report that Putin is developing space-based nuclear capability. This is distinct from Reagan's 1980s 'star wars' technology in that it is aimed at taking out satellites rather than deploying multiple warheads aimed at terrestrial targets. As discussed, command and control systems, whether civilian or military all rely heavily on satellite comms, particularly GPS. Putin's thinking may be that a  selective pre-emptive strike on key western satellite technology could force major territorial concessions from NATO as an alternative to full scale nuclear war, and allow him to achieve his stated goal of re-establishing the 'Russian empire'.  The West should be concerned here - at the very least, nuclear explosions in near earth orbit would present a major hazard to operational hardware - for everyone - and it would be difficult to recover from this type of 'space vandalism' since the resulting highly radioactive orbital debris would remain in place  for thousands of years and be virtually impossible to clear away.

There are plenty of unresolved issues that could 'drive' a global conflict, not the least of which is depletion of resources and continued unfettered population growth. We should not therefore assume it will never happen.

We may perhaps take a crumb of comfort from the fact that both nuclear and conventional 'set piece' military conflicts are now widely acknowledged to be essentially unwinnable. The alliance which manages to win the electronic war, without devastating its own and its opponent’s territory, however, is likely to take the prize – perhaps without even firing a shot….we must ensure we in the West don't end up on the losing side through our own inaction. 

Final thoughts: 

1) Will we ever manage to abolish war ?

As stated in the opening paragraph, Homo Sapiens as a species has an incurable 'addiction to war', and we should probably regard this as the default state, pending long-term evolutionary change. 

History readily bears this out - military conflict is virtually continuous somewhere in the world, and has been since records began. Proxy wars have become the 'staple' method of waging war since the dawn of the nuclear age, given the implications of a full scale global nuclear conflict  for our species' survival. 

2|) How does Artificial Intelligence (AI) figure in warfare to come ?

The advent and rapid development of AI is likely to widen the scope of warfare again by removing or even replacing the battlefield element with strategic military and economic objectives. Some (rather naively) believe that AI will solve many of our problems as a society and make us all less vulnerable to the vagaries of human error. If anything, however, it will increase our vulnerability. AI is a remarkable tool in the right hands, but the complex algorithms needed to power it are understood by only a few thousand souls at most, and the rest of us are dependent on their ability (and willingness) to configure and  control AI systems properly. By its very nature, A is self-educating, and can develop its internal resources independently of human control, which means that it is potentially uncontrollable. 

The recent widespread computer systems meltdown as a result of a single errant cyber-security patch should already have convinced us of our vulnerability in this respect. This augurs ill for military applications - progressive removal of the human element from the equation may make it more, rather than less, likely that a nuclear release will be triggered in error (or even by design if the algorithm decides it's the best option!).

If AI falls into the wrong hands, things could, and probably will, go badly. See blog on AI for more details of the advantages...and the perils, of AI. We have only to look at the brazenness of recent ransomware attacks to realise the enemy is all around us in cyberspace, often operating very efficiently from his or her teenage bedroom while their parents are blissfully unaware of their 'precious' offspring's disruptive activities against the society that has nurtured his (/her) existence.

One thing is certain - only a wholesale evolutionary change in the human psyche would remove the impetus for tribalism  and war within us; we know that major evolutionary change takes hundreds if not thousands of generations to achieve - and requires active selection pressure to drive it. As a species, on present performance we simply don't have that long, so our survival is likely to be in the hands of the fates, and is by no means assured. A look at our position in the universe should convince us that our precious and very limited habitable biosphere is all we'll ever have to support us. 

Let's hope we can use our (human) 'intelligence' to avoid ruining it.....

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Update 2.12.24: Recent news reports indicate that the sort of clandestine disruptive operations against western interests predicted in previous analyses may be already underway. 

Putin has always been at pains to show the west how long his reach is when it comes to 'getting even' with any Russian who defies his will; the Salisbury poisoning episode is perhaps the most notable example of this within our own borders. 

In recent years operations designed to damage to infrastructure have also started to emerge. The Nordstream pipeline incident in 2022 was one of the first, and was almost certainly sabotage by Russian agents ordered by Putin to show his displeasure at western sanctions on Gazprom sales. The Russian 'shadow' fleet, whose main role is illicit supplies of russian oil to any state willing to evade sanctions, has already been implicated in destruction of undersea communication cables in the Baltic. 

More recently, following the first use of US and UK cruise missiles by Ukraine against targets within Russia, there have been a spate of incidents (both cyber-operations and physical) ascribed to both Russian and Chinese agents. These were also  designed to compromise western infrastructure and thereby disrupt our way of life. We should expect these to continue, and we need to develop ways to make our infrastructure less vulnerable. 

WW3 has almost certainly already begun - only time will tell whether we all manage to survive it......

More updates to follow in due course.

First published 23.2.23

Updated 22.3.25