What Will Happen After World War III? | Unveiled

What Will Happen After World War III?

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has gotten everyone worried. What does the future hold? And could we be on the brink of another World War? The magnitude of such a thought is difficult for many to grasp, never mind the hypothetical fallout that such a grand-scale disaster might have upon us all.

This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question: What will happen after World War Three?

In order to consider a potential future, we must first learn from the past, and see how the world changed after the two World Wars that precede our hypothetical Third. The aftermath of the First World War was immense, with long-standing empires falling, and with new border lines and land maps being drawn all across the globe. Over twenty million people died during World War One, while many more died as an indirect consequence of it. The severity of 1918’s infamous Flu pandemic was seemingly exacerbated, for example, by news outlets that sought to downplay the severity of the disease - perhaps due to the devastating toll that the war had already inflicted. The world was a deeply traumatized and depressed place at this time, although in all of the chaos there were some more positive post-war outcomes… such as key steps toward universal suffrage for women in the United States, the UK, and others. But, overall, there’s no question; the so-called Great War was anything but, and sadly the wheels were soon set in motion for World War Two to begin just a generation later, at the end of the 1930s.

It’s here, examining the aftermath of World War Two, where the image of a post-World War Three landscape really begins to take place. This is due primarily to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US, in August of 1945; an event that would fundamentally change how wars would be fought from that momet on. The military in action of World War One, for better or worse, was a more personal one. Aggression that required troops on the ground, in the sea and flying through the air. Tactical planning and visceral, hand-to-hand fighting meant that troops were often forced to stare their enemy in the eyes, prior to making the decision to take a life. But that changed in World War Two, and especially in 1945.

The development of the nuclear weapons used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki directly led to an arms race between nations like the United States and the former Soviet Union. This then created the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction… the idea being that a large enough nuclear stockpile should deter the future use of those weapons, since doing so would result in total destruction for both parties. But, in the meantime, our species had perhaps never been more vulnerable to total destruction and collapse. And so, in order to imagine World War Three, we have to picture a scenario where that doctrine is ignored. A scenario where we now live, at least partially, in a world devastated by nuclear fallout.

This situation is unlike anything that came before, thanks largely to the incredibly accelerated level of technology there would have been at hand to inflict it. It would see the results of a whole new theater of war, and of when the ultimate distance is placed between the aggressors in that theater. Cities flattened and hundreds of thousands of lives lost due to buttons pushed thousands of miles away from a target. But, World War Three won’t only have been fought with more manpower, airpower and hugely enhanced firepower. We’re also talking drone, computer, and disinformation power, as well. The world that’s left behind after all of that would likely be ravaged by massive numbers of casualties, innumerable numbers of injured, long-lasting food and energy shortages, and roving blackouts.

Specifically, there’d likely be no aspect of our world untouched by the devastating effects of radiation. This goes beyond the obvious, too, such as the deaths, burns, and radiation sickness that would affect the immediate victims of a nuclear attack, and into the world of agriculture and infrastructure. Over time, radiation could break down the very elements in our most crucial materials, like in the metals of our cities, and it can easily and systematically destroy organic produce, killing crops and livestock, as well as poisoning vital water supplies. Understandably, the immediate area of (and around) a nuclear strike is the hardest hit… but the spread is a whole other problem. Radiation zones are famously difficult to contain - with the exclusion zone around Chernobyl being perhaps the most famous example of all - so there’s really no telling how all-encompassing the problems from nuclear weapons could be. In a situation where multiple bombs have been quickly dropped across all corners of the map (as is possible or even likely during World War Three) the task of containing it becomes even more inconceivable. And then comes the even broader and even more species-threatening prospect of a nuclear winter setting in. Here, the entire Earth system becomes so clouded and choked by fallout that drastic global cooling takes place, resulting in massive temperature shifts and overwhelming famine. And the time scale for such an event to pass is long. Years, decades, perhaps even centuries.

There might be some truth to those more Hollywood-style post-apocalypse scenarios, where the few survivors that are left post World War Three carve out a barbaric and lawless landscape into the future. The physicist Albert Einstein is famously attributed with a quote that equates the aftermath of a Third World War to our being blasted back to the Stone Age. Although it is unclear whether or not Einstein ever actually said it, the sentiment behind World War Four being “fought with sticks and stones” feels valid… for there would certainly be no winners, just losers in this scenario. The global connection we now take for granted with the internet, as just one example, could crumble. On the one hand, we’ll have seen mass cyber espionage and denial-of-service attacks as part of the war… and those would cripple communication links. While, on the other, in a world that’s reeling from the losses of the conflict, even the simple maintenance of such links could fade away. It could, then, be one contributor to that “lawlessness” that the movies so often like to zoom in on.

But, that said, there are some theories that the riots and lootings and killings and pack survival tactics actually might not take hold. A post World War Three earth would already be a difficult enough place to survive in, so there are some who believe that the remaining humans might be able to work together effectively - rather than adopting an “every person for themselves” mentality. What do you think would happen? How do you imagine the survivors from our species reacting to the death and destruction they’ll have just recently seen, and the incredible danger that they’d be living with day-to-day?

Of course, whatever the response, economies and trade (as we know them today) would be extremely difficult to maintain. We need only to look at the Covid 19 pandemic to see how disastrous a global shutdown could be on that front… but what if there’s precious little left to trade, at all? With whole cities and industries, whole workforces, plus crops, materials, technologies, food, water, and general livelihoods potentially destroyed the world over, would there be much of a social structure even left to cling to? One often suggested outcome is that those that do remain would promptly leave Earth and escape out into space somewhere… but how realistic is that, really? Not very, considering that so far only twelve of our kind have ever even made it to the surface of the moon - and that was fifty years ago.

Back on the war ravaged ground, and with that mutually assured destructive genie out the bottle forever more, it’s clear that our collective mental state would suffer. A sort of race to the apocalyptic end times might well be at hand, with doomsday cults emerging and gaining followers. Or else, the effort to rebuild what we once had would be unprecedented in human history. And, hopefully, to remake it without all the flaws that brought about this post apocalyptic world, in the first place.

But, of course, the best course of action would be to simply never let it happen to begin with. Ultimately, the choice is ours whether or not to give into this pessimistic vision of the future, or to do our best to ensure it never becomes a reality for us, our children, or for any generations to come. Because that’s what would happen after World War Three.