From the Archive: Causes of the Third World War
In the darkness of the night, I decided to repost this, the first public essay I wrote, long before Fragments of Light came into being. It was published on February 17th 2022, five days before Russia invaded Ukraine. I repost it now because I believe it resonates with our perilous moment today.
I see now the essay did not deliver on the promise of its title. It was too limited in its scope, focusing purely on Russia and Ukraine not the other global tinderboxes that are now on the verge of ignition. But flawed though it may be, it still holds the kernel of a truth that may come to define all our lives: that irrational mythic forces are on the march, driving the world into fire.
As I write these words, an Iranian-backed militia group in Iraq has just announced it will seek to force all foreign militaries out of the country. Ballistic missiles fly towards Israel from Yemen, thousands of miles away. Israeli atrocities in Gaza mount; the Iranian Foreign Minister warns that if they are not stopped a new explosion is coming. A Western fleet gathers in the waters of the Middle East greater than any seen in decades. At the same time, a large Chinese fleet has started unannounced naval exercises around Taiwan. They are at the very least a rehearsal, if not the pretext, for invasion.
At such a moment, the opening words of my old essay bear repeating:
On the night of 27th June 1914, no-one would have gone to bed thinking, “Tomorrow the greatest war in history will begin.” Even the terrorists who plotted to assassinate the Archduke of Austro-Hungary in Sarajevo the following morning could hardly have conceived that their act would spark a cataclysmic four year slaughter that would destroy the world as they’d known it and scar humanity forever…
The truth is that I believe we are now like those slumbering people of June 1914. We have watched tensions between the Great Powers of our day — the US, Russia and China — gradually intensify. People might consider the possibility of a war between them but, at heart, no-one really thinks it will happen. As in 1914, we have bought into the illusion of deterrence.
Like them, we are wrong. I believe we may be weeks, days, even hours away from the triggering of a chain reaction that would lead to the outbreak of the Third World War. A conflict in which the use of nuclear weapons is not only likely, but a certainty. The greatest catastrophe in the history of mankind.
It is not insignificant that in 1914 it was a terrorist attack, out of the blue, that was sufficient to trigger the chain reaction for a global war.
As I write, the news said a storm is coming to Britain tonight. The worst to hit us in decades. The windows of our home already shudder in the wind; the first drops of rain claw at the glass.
I think of the families huddled in the darkness in hospitals in Gaza. The pilots whirling overhead. I think of fighters crouching, guns in hand, in sight of barbed wire fences in Iraq, in Syria, on the Lebanese border. I think of the sailors, American, British, Chinese, Iranian staring into the darkness of the deep. I think of the leaders up late into the night, wondering what to do next. I think of my daughters asleep upstairs in their beds.
And I wonder what all of us will face come the morning.
Causes of the Third World War
On the night of 27th June 1914, no-one would have gone to bed thinking, “Tomorrow the greatest war in history will begin.” Even the terrorists who plotted to assassinate the Archduke of Austro-Hungary in Sarajevo the following morning could hardly have conceived that their act would spark a cataclysmic four year slaughter that would destroy the world as they’d known it and scar humanity forever.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Every year, thousands of history students write essays on “The Causes of the First World War”, piecing together the various factors that would light the fuse. These include the years of growing tension between the Great Powers; crises that came close but never quite tipped over; the development of weapons whose destructive power had changed the nature of warfare more than anyone realised. To us now, it all seems obvious and inevitable where it would lead.
And yet we have been lulled into thinking that history like this cannot happen to us.
The truth is that I believe we are now like those slumbering people of June 1914. We have watched tensions between the Great Powers of our day — the US, Russia and China — gradually intensify. People might consider the possibility of a war between them but, at heart, no-one really thinks it will happen. As in 1914, we have bought into the illusion of deterrence.
Like them, we are wrong. I believe we may be weeks, days, even hours away from the triggering of a chain reaction that would lead to the outbreak of the Third World War. A conflict in which the use of nuclear weapons is not only likely, but a certainty. The greatest catastrophe in the history of mankind.
You may think this claim is ludicrous. Frankly, I hope it is! But as a historian and filmmaker with over fifteen years’ experience covering conflict and humanitarian disasters, I cannot shake the feeling that I am now living through a history essay of the future.
So this is my effort to write it out. I’m not pretending to be able to predict what is to come: rather to highlight how many potential triggers exist. It will only take one.
That is even without considering the Great Power tensions over North Korea, Taiwan, the South China Sea and the Iran nuclear programme, all of which could light the touch paper soon enough. But for now, I will lay those all to one side to focus on the immediate danger: Russia’s threatened assault on Ukraine.
Predicting the chain reaction comes down to three essential questions, which provide the framework for the argument:
1. Will Russia invade?
2. If they do, will NATO be drawn in?
3. If we are, will the conflict ‘go nuclear’ (to use that horrific phrase)?
Will Russia invade?
This is the question that the finest diplomatic minds in every Western nation are trying to puzzle out. As I write this morning, still nobody knows. Putin said Russia was open to diplomacy and that its troops were withdrawing, while Western intelligence agencies say the opposite is happening. We all pray a peaceful way out of the crisis is possible.
Yet there are two reasons why I think an invasion is by far the likelier outcome.
First, as others have said, Putin has gathered too much military force not to use it. Russian troops have travelled thousands of miles, across the entire country, to assemble on Ukraine’s border. Ammunition for the country’s heaviest missile systems has been stockpiled. The costs of moving men and material on this scale is astronomic. You would only do it if the decision had been made months ago: total war against Ukraine.
And there is a deeper, more troubling piece of the puzzle, hiding in plain sight. In July last year, Putin wrote an essay that we can now see is his causus belli. It was sent to every soldier in the Russian army. It articulates his belief that Ukraine as a nation is a false entity, sustained only by the machinations of anti-Russian powers who wish to split the historic Russian homeland. In justifying this view, he calls back through 1,000 years of history, to Vladimir the Great, leader of the Rus people in the 10th century, whose capital was Kyiv.
When a leader of a nation starts calling back to its ancient history, it’s clear that they have moved from a rational to a mythic vision of the world, something we in the West have forgotten is possible. Someone in the grip of myth tends to be infused with a sense of divine purpose. We can see it in both Hitler and Churchill during the Second World War, Hitler in his vision of the ‘1,000 year Reich’ and Churchill in his famous “finest hour” speech, in which he referred to the British Empire lasting 1,000 years.
Similarly, it seems Putin has become convinced of his own historical significance: the avenger for the wrongs committed to Russia after the Soviet Union’s collapse. A man who is thinking in such epic terms is unlikely to be persuaded to abandon his crusade by a number of technical agreements on troop numbers and limitations on missiles. I believe this explains his series of demands to NATO, which have left everyone baffled as they are impossible to fulfil. They are the twenty-first century equivalent of a defiant battle-cry before the charge.
If they invade, will NATO be drawn in?
This really is a life or death question for millions of unsuspecting people right now. Yet, unlike the first question, hardly anyone is discussing it. Perhaps because we blindly accept out leaders’ assurances that our forces will not directly fight for Ukraine so we’ll be safe. The alternative is quite literally unthinkable.
Yet even before the present crisis, experts were highlighting the increased number of near misses between Russian and NATO forces near Ukraine, warning how easily an incident could get out of hand. Almost every day now, Western planes are being scrambled to intercept Russian bombers testing our defences or watch Russian warships circling our waters.
If the invasion of Ukraine begins, those encounters will be infused with an almost unbearable tension. War is a force that, once unleashed, will take on a life of its own; a force that takes the unthinkable and makes it real.
As things stand, I can see at least six troubling potential scenarios that could draw us in.
I. The Humanitarian Catastrophe
In the last twenty years, we have only had hints of the destructive power of modern weapons: the Syrian cities shattered by Russia’s airstrikes; the Malaysia Airways jet shot down by a Russian anti-aircraft missile over Ukraine in 2014.
The last large scale invasion of a country was Iraq in 2003. Think: that was four years before the first iPhone rolled off the production lines. Think of how much technology has advanced since then. Then reflect: the weapons makers will have been just as busy in that time too.
From Chechnya to Syria, Russia under Putin has shown it has zero qualms about inflicting civilian casualties. Even in the first hours of an assault, a hail of airstrikes, artillery and missile bombardment could kill thousands. Perhaps tens of thousands in the first week.
Would we be able to stand by, helplessly watching the slaughter, confining our reprisals to strong words and financial sanctions of dubious efficacy? Would Joe Biden in his weakness be able to resist the calls of American hawks to take stronger action or go down in history as a new Neville Chamberlain?
Even if we did stand by, one could imagine a situation where tens of thousands of refugees flee towards the EU and NATO. The pressure of that influx might be reason alone for us to take stronger action. You only have to think of the crisis between Poland and Belarus last year, which almost led to direct clashes, which was over a few thousand Iraqi refugees.
II. We Are Already Involved
It’s all very well for our leaders to say our troops would not become directly involved. And it is true that the small numbers of US and UK advisers working with the Ukrainian armed forces have reportedly been withdrawn.
But NATO is also the backbone of Ukraine’s intelligence gathering and reconnaissance. NATO spy planes and drones roam through Ukraine’s skies, mapping the disposition of Russian forces and feeding the information directly back to Ukrainian military commanders. For its part, as part of the gathering of its strike force, Russia has moved equipment into position to jam and interfere with these capabilities. There are reports of three incidents over this last weekend of Russian aviation buzzing these spy planes.
What happens when the shooting starts? Will we withdraw our spying capabilities just when the Ukrainians need them most? Or will our planes continue to fly in Ukrainian airspace, ducking out of the way of Russian jets? What if the Russians went further and decided to shoot down a NATO drone, or two or ten? Would we keep sending them in to be shot down — or pull them out altogether? If we did the latter, it would look as if Putin had beaten us. An unacceptable impression for Biden to give.
As that is another frightening aspect of this perfect storm: the weakness of both Biden and Boris Johnson. The Prime Minister barely clings to power by his fingertips while the President is already being written off as a failure by his supporters, let alone the other side. This is a man who hoped to build a new league of democracies against authoritarian powers like Russia. Can you imagine the pressure on him to respond to a Russian blitzkrieg?
The importance of drones to modern warfare is immense. Last year, for example, drones allowed the Azerbaijani government to rout Armenian tank divisions for the first time in their long and bloody feud — a lesson not lost on the Russians who support Armenia.
Yet no-one really knows what the consequences will be if Russia starts shooting NATO drones out of the sky.
III. Our Weapons
Even if our personnel and our drones are removed from the battlefield, our weapons remain. The UK and US have sent large numbers of antitank missiles. Poland has supplied portable anti-aircraft missiles, while the Czech Republic and Baltic states are sending huge quantities of ammunition and offering to treat injured Ukrainian soldiers.
What happens if the Ukrainians use these weapons effectively? If they start shooting Russian jets out of the sky and devastating Russian tanks? People perhaps assume the situation would play out like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, when America provided Stinger missiles to the anti-Russian resistance without triggering a confrontation between the superpowers. But Afghanistan mattered a lot less to Russia than Ukraine. And in the 1980s, the leaders of both superpowers were united in their horror of nuclear war. That is not the case today, as I discuss later.
Even if our weapons were not directly and identifiably killing Russian servicemen, if Putin’s invasion did not go to plan he would waste no time in blaming us. He already is blaming us for the crisis.
Anything less than a swift, easy victory could be personally dangerous for him. There are signs already that members of the Russian elite are very nervous about his plans and they are the ultimate source of power for his regime. If the offensive bogs down, he will need to find scapegoats and fast.
He will retaliate against us. And whatever form that retaliation takes — in the form of cyber-attacks for example — we will slip into a dangerous cycle of escalation, in which there will be huge pressure on us to respond.
IV: The Baltics
The Baltic countries (and to a ever-so-slightly lesser extent Poland and the Czech Republic) are the most vociferous in demanding robust NATO support for Ukraine. It’s easy to understand why. The Baltic States have already been subject to cyber-attacks, abductions of their soldiers and air incursions by Russia’s forces. NATO ensures this would never threaten their sovereignty itself.
But if Ukraine falls, they fear they may share the same fate. Defeat for Ukraine is defeat for NATO, no matter how much we pretend otherwise. The Alliance itself might fall apart, depriving the Baltic states of their shield. In such a febrile, nervous position, they might take rash action to provoke a wider confrontation with the Russians, while the Alliance and its obligations to defend them are still intact.
V: Erdogan & Turkey
The President of Turkey is a complete wild card. Despite flirting with Putin over the years, a deep enmity exists in the bones of Russian and Turkish people. They fought a war over Crimea (with our involvement) in the middle of the 19th century. In the early stages of the Syrian revolution, a Turkish jet shot down a Russian fighter — the only time a NATO country has directly attacked the Russians. For their part, Russian forces had killed a number of Turkish troops in Syria at the start of 2020, before the pandemic put that conflict on ice.
No-one can guess how Erdogan will respond in the event of a Russian invasion. But anything he does implicates us all in the name of NATO.
VI: Accidents
Thucydides, the great historian of the Peloponnesian War in the 5th century BC wrote, “Think, too, of the great part that is played by the unpredictable in war: think of it now, before you are actually committed to war. The longer a war lasts, the more things tend to depend on accidents. Neither you nor we can see into them: we have to abide their outcome in the dark.”
This is perhaps the greatest risk of them all — the accidents, the mistakes, the hinterland of the unexpected and unknown, a collision of circumstances that no-one can yet foresee that would provide the spark.
The tinderbox is ready. A huge number of Russian and NATO vessels will be in close proximity in the Black Sea and Mediterranean throughout February. If a violent conflict is raging in Ukraine, those boats will be on a hair trigger for any threat from the other side. In times like those, it is hard for those in charge to keep their nerve — if Russian fighters staged mock bombing runs as they did to a British destroyer last year for example.
The US invasion of Vietnam was justified by the so-called Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 in which a US destroyer was allegedly attacked by a North Vietnamese submarine. Years later, the then US Defence chief Robert McNamara admitted that the attack probably never took place. It was just a misreading of the sonar in a time of intense tension. And yet that incident led to the US onslaught which cost hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian lives.
This is by no means a comprehensive list of all the potential risks. But I hope its message is clear: there are a number of ways in which direct fighting between NATO and Russia could begin. The atmosphere around an invasion would be perilous and remain so for weeks.
Which brings us to question three.
Would a clash between NATO and Russia go nuclear?
As I said earlier, the horror of a nuclear war seems so obvious, we might ask how could any rational human being, no matter how mythic his thinking, ever launch one?
And even if they could, they would surely know that the devastation brought down upon one’s own country by the enemy’s retaliation would mean the utter destruction of the people you profess to defend. This is the basis of deterrence.
Yet just as deterrence failed in 1914, I believe it will do so again, even with nuclear weapons.
In Errol Morris’ seminal documentary, “The Fog of War”, Robert McNamara, the US Defence Secretary at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, describes a conversation he had with Fidel Castro decades after the crisis. In it, Castro revealed he had encouraged the Soviet Union to attack America with nuclear weapons, knowing that his own country of Cuba would have been totally destroyed in the retaliatory strike. Any concern for his own people was forgotten, eclipsed by the determination to destroy his enemy.
Morris entitles this section of the documentary, “Rationality will not save us”. It points to the fact that as human beings we are prone to take actions driven by impulse and emotion all the time in our day-to-day lives. We do not always take the rational path. As it it with individuals, so it is with nations.
Then consider that the decision over whether to use nuclear weapons rests with one human being. Vladimir Putin.
Putin has spoken of how, in the 2014 crisis over Crimea, he was ready to put his nuclear forces on alert. At the end of his press conference with Macron this week, he said Russia would have to use nuclear weapons in any war with NATO, in order to stand a chance. And in his nuclear modernisation programme, the development of horrific new hypersonic and undersea delivery vehicles, he is clearly a man who has decided that he would be willing to use these weapons.
Even worse, there is a terrifying military rationale to pushing the button first. You would have a far greater chance of destroying an opponent’s weapons before they could be fired or taking out key members of the enemy leadership before they can order their own retaliatory strike.
This is the horrific logic of war. As long as these weapons exist, people will be tempted to use them, especially if they are losing. In a crisis where every second is significant, this temptation will override all concerns about morality or human life. Putin has said as much: ‘The streets of Leningrad taught me one thing: if a fight’s inevitable, strike first.”
A few years ago, a filmmaker created a fake news broadcast, depicting how a shooting war with NATO could quickly go nuclear. Though obviously fictional, it does I believe give an accurate sense of how quickly the cycle of escalation could intensify:
I do pray that this picture I have painted proves to be false. That we skate the precipice and come back to our senses. But I hope I have gone some way to making you see how close we are, at the very moment you are reading this.
“What can we do?” you may ask. The way I see it we have two options.
We could kiss our children goodnight, stick Netflix on the TV, scroll through our phones, pour our last glass of wine before going to bed, sleeping what Orwell called the “Deep, deep sleep of England from which I fear we will only be wakened by the sound of falling bombs.”
Or we could get up, get out on the streets and build the biggest anti-war movement the world has ever seen.