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World War IIIFor other uses, see World War III (disambiguation).World War III (WWIII, WW3 or the Third World War) is a term used to describe a worldwide conflictfollowing World War II. The most common scenario, a hypothetical nuclear war between the superpowers, theSoviet Union and the United States, is widely used as a premise or plot device in books, films, televisionproductions, and video games. However, some writers have applied the term instead to the Cold War, arguing that itmet the definition of a world war even though there was no direct conflict between the superpowers.World War I (19141918) was regarded as the "war to end all wars" and it was believed there could never be anotherglobal conflict. World War II (19391945) proved that to be false, and with the advent of the Cold War (19451991)and the use of nuclear weapons, the likelihood of a third global conflict became more accepted. It was anticipatedand planned for by military and civil authorities in many countries. Scenarios ranged from conventional warfare, tolimited or total nuclear warfare leading to the destruction of civilization.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. Albert Einstein

Homeland security/civil defense plans

FEMA-estimated primary counterforce targets for Soviet ICBMs. The resulting fall-out isindicated with the darkest considered as "lethal" to relatively fall-out free yellow zones.

This very conservative estimate does not include several air force bases in the western USthat are home to strategic bombers.[1]Wikipedia:Verifiability

Continuity of government

Given the likelihood that any thirdworld war could escalate to (or evenbegin with) a nuclear exchange, fromthe early days of the cold war it hasbeen considered vital that countrieswhich are potential targets for nuclearattack have a continuity of government(COG) plan in place, to ensure anorderly and clear line of succession inthe event the head of state orgovernment is killed in an attack.

United States

The Continuity of Operations Plan ofthe United States works by havingalternate or airborne sites that 'mirror' the main peacetime sites, the alternate sites being always on call or on shortnotice to activate, if a situation arises where they are needed. For obvious reasons, information on COG sites isclassified, the below list is only what the press have managed to unearth over the years, and is by no meanscomplete:

Cheyenne Mountain, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) This is the permanent seat ofNORAD. It was able to sustain nuclear attack up until the 1960s, however more modern ICBMs could destroy it,but only with a direct hit.

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Mount Weather. Alternate for: Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) (Used temporarily forMembers of Congress in Sept. 2001, possible location of other executive branch COG facilities)

Raven Rock Mountain Complex. Alternate for: National Military Command Center Looking Glass Plane. Alternate for: United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) E-4B Nightwatch, also known as the Doomsday Plane Alternate for: National Command Authority, Office of

the Vice President of the United States, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Air Force One. Alternate for: National Command Authority, Office of the Vice President of the United States,

Speaker of the United States House of Representatives TACAMO Planes. Alternate for: United States Strategic Command. The TACAMO planes relay nuclear fire or

ceasefire orders from the Nightwatch and Looking Glass planes to the Submarines and Bombers through VLFfrequencies. They can also take over for the Looking Glass plane if it is destroyed. One TACAMO plane isalways over the Pacific Ocean and one over the Atlantic Ocean.

Russian Federation

Map of the Metro-2 system as supposed by the United States militaryintelligence in 1991.

As with the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation keepsits continuity of government information secret.However press speculation has focused on a few sites:Mount Yamantau has been the centre of muchspeculation. There has been major construction underthe mountain from the 1960s and Russian officialsrefuse to discuss it.

Metro-2 is the informal name for a purported secretunderground metro system which parallels the publicMoscow Metro. The system was supposedly built, or atleast started, during the time of Joseph Stalin and wascodenamed D-6 by the KGB. There has beenspeculation that this secret metro may lead to COGsites inside Russia, given that in the event of nuclearwar, an express subway system, being by nature deepunderground, would be a far safer form oftransportation for government and military officials than aircraft or surface vehicles, which would be vulnerable toblast waves and firestorms resulting from nuclear explosions. Additionally, the Soviet Union historically spent moreof its nuclear budget on defenses than the United States (who put the bulk of their resources into submarines). TheUS military believed it was better to bluff with offense rather than defense, while the Russians believed they couldsurvive a nuclear war, and built the elaborate underground facilities that would be crucial using such a strategy. Twodestinations of this system are suggested to be the old KGB headquarters, now the FSB headquarters, at LubyankaSquare, and the second being regarded as an enormous underground leadership bunker adjacent to Moscow StateUniversity. Another alleged subterranean destination, apart from the aforementioned underground town atRamenki/Moscow State University is Vnukovo-2 airport. Despite official Russian state ambiguity, it is speculatedthat many of the Moscow bunkers are linked by an underground railway line.Wikipedia:Citation needed

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United Kingdom

The primary British COG headquarters is at the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall. The Central Government WarHeadquarters was previously maintained in a quarry complex near Corsham, Wiltshire. The above-ground supportfacility was RAF Rudloe Manor.Service command centres are Northwood for the Royal Navy Trident SSBN force, and RAF High Wycombe for theRoyal Air Force.

France

The Centre d'Opration des Forces Ariennes Stratgiques (COFAS) is a hardened command centre for Frenchnuclear forces at Taverny Air Base in Taverny, Val d'Oise. The alternate national command center is located at MontVerdun near Lyon.The hardened headquarters of Force Ocanique Stratgique (FOST), France's nuclear SSBN fleet, is at Houilles,Yvelines.

Sweden

During the Cold War, the Klara skyddsrum ("Complete shelter" or "Klara bunker") was built underneath Stockholm.The bunker is designed to accommodate two thirds of the government and between 8,000 and 12,000 civilians in thecase of a military attack on Stockholm. It is designed as a very large, two-story oval, with multiple entrances. Duringpeace time, parts of it are used as a parking garage.

Cutaway sketch of the complete Klara Skyddsrum Shelter, Sweden.1 T-Centre Metro Station.

2 Drottninggatan ("Queen Street") entrance.3 Vasagatan entrance.

4 Car ramp.5 Powerhouse and machine room.

6 Shelters.7 Elevator.

Emergency communications

Many countries have a national emergency alert systemto notify the public of danger quickly if there is no timeto pass the information through standard news media.

HANDEL

Main article: HANDELHANDEL was the code-name for the UK's NationalAttack Warning System in the Cold War. It consistedof a small console consisting of two microphones,lights and gauges. The reason behind this was toprovide a back-up if anything failed.If an enemy air strike was detected, a key on the lefthand side of the console would be turned and two lightswould come on. Then the operator would press & holddown a red button and give the message: "Attack warning RED! Attack warning RED!"

The message would be sent to the police by the telephone carrier wave frequencies used for the speaking clock, whowould in turn activate the air attack sirens using the local telephone lines.

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Emergency Alert System

Main article: Emergency Alert SystemThe Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national warning system in the United States put into place on January 1,1997, when it superseded the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), which in turn superseded the CONELRADSystem. The official EAS is designed to enable the President of the United States to speak to the United States within10 minutes.

Emergency lawsMost countries have one or several national emergencies laws that are ready to come into place in the event that athird world war turns nuclear, or even in the case of a conventional war. Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (United Kingdom) National Security Presidential Directive 51 (United States) National Emergencies Act (United States 1976) Emergency Powers Act (Ireland 1939) German Emergency Acts (Germany 1968) Emergencies Act (Canada 1988) State of Emergency in India

Military plansAlthough at present the notion of a Third World War remains in the realm of fiction for most of the civilianpopulations of the world, military planners have been war gaming various scenarios, preparing for the worst, sincethe early days of the cold war. Some of those plans are now out of date and have been partially or fully declassified:

Seven Days to the River RhineMain article: Seven Days to the River Rhine

A Warsaw Pact Invasion would have come onmultiple fronts

Seven Days to the River Rhine was a top secret military simulationexercise developed in 1979 by the Warsaw Pact. It planned for a Sovietinvasion of Western Europe to stop at the River Rhine by the seventhday. Other plans by the USSR stopped only when reaching the Frenchborder on day nine. Individual Warsaw Pact states were only given theirown part of the strategic picture, in this case the Polish forces were onlyexpected to go as far as Germany. The Seven Days to the Rhine planenvisioned that Poland and Germany would be destroyed by nuclearexchanges. It was estimated that NATO would fire nuclear weaponsbehind the advancing Soviet lines to cut off their supply lines and thusblunt their advance. The plan literally envisioned Warsaw Pact troopsmarching over the nuclear wastelands of Germany, the USSR gettingthe maximum use out of them before they died of radiation sickness.While this plan assumed that NATO would use nuclear weapons to pushback any Warsaw Pact invasion, it did not include nuclear strikes onFrance or the United Kingdom. Newspapers speculated when this planwas declassified that France and the UK were not hit in an effort to getthem to withhold use of their own nuclear weapons.

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Operation Chrome DomeOperation Chrome Dome, initiated in 1960, was one of several United States Air Force Cold-War era airborneglobal alert duties or programs in which B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber aircraft armed with thermonuclearweapons were assigned targets in the Soviet Union on schedules guaranteeing that a substantial number of them wereflying and fueled for their missions at any given time. Bombers loitered near points outside the Soviet Union toprovide rapid first strike or retaliation capability in case of nuclear war.

Operation UnthinkableBritish Prime Minister Winston Churchill was concerned that, with the enormous size of Soviet forces deployed inEurope at the end of WWII and the unreliability of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, there was a serious threat toWestern Europe. In AprilMay 1945, British Armed Forces developed Operation Unthinkable, thought to be the firstscenario of the Third World War. Its primary goal was "to impose upon Russia the will of the United States and theBritish Empire." The plan was rejected by the British Chiefs of Staff Committee as militarily unfeasible.

Operation BehemothOperation Behemoth was a massive Soviet naval exercise in 1989 by the Russian Northern Fleet. The exerciseinvolved a feasibility test for a simultaneous launch of all 16 R-29RMU Sineva liquid-fueled missiles (which eachcarry four independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) from a Delta Class Submarine, an ability that wouldbe deadly in a surprise nuclear first strike off an enemy coastline, cutting the warning time from 2030 minutes aswith ICBMs to perhaps 5 minutes or less. The launch attempt failed in exercise Behemoth 1. Two years laterexercise Behemoth 2 was held where the attempt was repeated. All missiles successfully launched at the same time.The entire launch took less than 4 minutes. Video of Behemoth-2 launch [2]

Operation StrikebackOperation Strikeback was a major NATO naval exercise held in 1952 simulating a response to an all out Sovietattack on NATO. Operation Strikeback involved over 200 warships, 650 aircraft, and 75,000 personnel from theUnited States Navy, the United Kingdom's Royal Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy, the French Navy, the RoyalNetherlands Navy, and the Royal Norwegian Navy. As the largest peacetime naval operation up to that time, militaryanalyst Hanson W. Baldwin of the New York Times characterized Operation Strikeback as "constituting the strongeststriking fleet assembled since World War II."

Operation Deep WaterMain article: Operation Deep WaterOperation Deep Water was a 1957 NATO naval exercise held in the Mediterranean Sea that simulated protectingthe Dardanelles from a Soviet invasion. By controlling this bottleneck in a war situation, the Soviet Black Sea Fleetwould be prevented from entering the Mediterranean. This exercise featured a simulated nuclear air strike in theGallipoli area, reflecting NATO's nuclear umbrella policy to offset the Soviet Union's numerical superiority ofground forces in Europe. Operation Deep Water also involved the first units of the United States Marines Corps toparticipated in an helicopter-borne vertical envelopment/air assault operation during an overseas deployment.

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Carrier Strike Groups will be central players inany major Third World War, although their

effectiveness against ballistic missile threats ismuch debated in military circles. Previous plansfor WWIII such as Operation Deep Water and

Operation Strikeback have given carrier groups acentral role.Wikipedia:Citation needed

Operation Deep Water opened with a simulated atomic air strike in theGallipoli area on 25 September 1957 and culminated with the landingof 8,000 U.S. Marines at Saros Gulf near Gallipoli, Turkey, from a38-ship amphibious task force led by flagship USSPocono, on 29September 1957.

Operation Dropshot

Operation Dropshot was the 1950s United States contingency plan fora possible nuclear and conventional war with the Soviet Union in theWestern European and Asian theaters. At the time the US nucleararsenal was limited in size, based mostly in the United States, anddepended on bombers for delivery. Dropshot included mission profilesthat would have used 300 nuclear bombs and 29,000 high-explosivebombs on 200 targets in 100 cities and towns to wipe out 85% of theSoviet Union's industrial potential at a single stroke. Between 75 and100 of the 300 nuclear weapons were targeted to destroy Soviet combataircraft on the ground.

The scenario was devised prior to the development of intercontinentalballistic missiles. It was also devised before Robert McNamara andPresident Kennedy changed the US Nuclear War plan from the citykilling countervalue strike plan to 'counterforce' (targeted more at military forces). Nuclear Weapons at this timewere not accurate enough to hit a Naval base without destroying the city bent around it, so the aim in using them wasto destroy the countries industrial capacity in an effort to take the steam out of their war economy.

Plan Totality

Plan Totality was a nuclear plan established by U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower on the direction of PresidentHarry S. Truman after the end of Potsdam Conference.

The plan envisioned a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union with 20 to 30 atomic bombs. It earmarked 20 Soviet citiesfor obliteration in a first strike: Moscow, Gorki, Kuybyshev, Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Saratov, Kazan,Leningrad, Baku, Tashkent, Chelyabinsk, Nizhny Tagil, Magnitogorsk, Molotov, Tbilisi, Stalinsk, Grozny, Irkutsk,and Yaroslavl.[3]

Exercise Square LegMain article: Operation Square LegExercise Square Leg was a UK civil defense exercise to plan for a full strategic nuclear attack on both military andcivil targets. The plan called for evacuation of city dwellers into rural regions in Scotland, northern England andcentral Wales (East Anglia and the Welsh coast being definitive targets) upon warning that nuclear warfare waslikely. The exercise was critiqued for being overly fatalistic, estimating Soviet weaponry to be in high yields in everystrike, rather than the more likely mixed yields.

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Exercise SwarmerExercise Swarmer (1950) involved training for an invasion of the continental United States by enemy forces withdefending forces counterattacking the 'enemy incursion' via a massive airlift behind enemy lines. The counterattackinvolved establishing an airhead, involving over six hundred transport and fighter aircraft,[4] and airdrops of over3900 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division and the 11th Airborne Division.[5]

Exercise Internal LookThis exercise was designed to quickly deploy forces assigned to the US Central Command to the Iranian border tohalt a Soviet invasion of the Middle East. It has since been adapted to the post cold war world in a number of waysfrom halting Russian intervention in the middle east to logistical feasibility studies for US action in Iran and Iraq.

Exercise ReforgerMain article: Exercise ReforgerExercise Reforger (from return of forces to Germany) was an annual exercise conducted, during the Cold War, byNATO. The exercise was intended to ensure that NATO had the ability to quickly deploy forces to West Germany inthe event of a conflict with the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact outnumbered NATO throughout the cold war inconventional forces, especially armor. Therefore, in the event of a Soviet invasion, in order not to resort to tacticalnuclear strikes, NATO forces holding the line against a Warsaw Pact armored spearhead would have to be quicklyresupplied and replaced. Most of this support would have come across the Atlantic from the US and Canada.

If activated, Operation Reforger would have largely consisted ofconvoys like this one from Operation Earnest Will in 1987,though much larger. While troops could easily fly across the

Atlantic, the heavy equipment and armor reinforcements wouldhave to come by sea.

Reforger was not merely a show of forcein the event ofa conflict, it would be the actual plan to strengthen theNATO presence in Europe. In that instance, it would havebeen referred to as Operation Reforger. Importantcomponents in Reforger included the Military AirliftCommand, the Military Sealift Command, and the CivilReserve Air Fleet.

Exercise Totskoye

Main article: Totskoye nuclear exerciseThe Totskoye nuclear exercise was a military exerciseundertaken by the Soviet army to explore defensive andoffensive warfare during nuclear war. The exercise, underthe code name "Snowball", involved an aerial detonationof RDS-4 nuclear bomb as powerful as the two bombsused in the American nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. The stated goal of the operation wasmilitary training for breaking through heavily fortified defensive lines of a military opponent using nuclearweapons.[6] An army of 45,000 soldiers marched through the area around the epicenter soon after the nuclear blast.[7]

The exercise was conducted on September 14, 1954, under the command of Marshal Georgy Zhukov to the north ofTotskoye village in Orenburg Oblast, Russia, in the South Ural Military District.

The test was designed as proof of new Soviet military doctrine that nuclear war can actually be won, and the tacticalusage of atomic bombs can support conventional warfare (contrary to Joseph Stalin's beliefs that it can only be usedbehind enemy lines - against cities or factories - but it's useless on the battlefield). It was also meant to disprove theopinions of current Soviet premier, Georgy Malenkov, that nuclear war cannot be won by any of its participants.

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Exercises Grand Slam, Longstep & MainbraceMain Articles: Exercise Longstep, Exercise Grand Slam, Exercise Mainbrace In January 1950, the North AtlanticCouncil approved NATO's military strategy of deterring Soviet aggression. NATO military planning took on arenewed urgency following the outbreak of the Korean War in mid-1950, prompting NATO to establish a "forceunder a centralised command, adequate to deter aggression and to ensure the defence of Western Europe". AlliedCommand Europe was established under General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. Army, on 2 April 1951.The Western Union Defence Organization had previously carried out Exercise Verity, a 1949 multilateral exerciseinvolving naval air strikes and submarine attacks.Exercise Mainbrace brought together 200 ships and over 50,000 personnel to practice the defence of Denmark andNorway from Russian attack in 1952. It was the first major NATO exercise. The exercise was jointly commanded bySupreme Allied Commander Atlantic Admiral Lynde D. McCormick, USN, and Supreme Allied CommanderEurope General Matthew B. Ridgeway, U.S. Army, during the Fall of 1952.The United States, UK, Canada, France, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Netherlands and Belgium all participated.Exercises Grand Slam and Longstep were naval exercises held in the Mediterranean Sea during 1952 to practicedislodging an enemy occupying force and amphibious assault. It involved over 170 warships and 700 aircraft underthe overall command of Admiral Carney. The overall exercise commander, Admiral Carney summarized theaccomplishments of Exercise Grand Slam by stating: "We have demonstrated that the senior commanders of all fourpowers can successfully take charge of a mixed task force and handle it effectively as a workingunit."Wikipedia:Citation neededThe USSR called the exercises "war-like acts" by NATO, with particular reference to the participation of Norwayand Denmark, while the USSR was preparing for its own military manoeuvres in the Soviet Zone.[8][9]

NATO Nuclear Sharing ProgrammeMain article: Nuclear sharingNATO operational plans for a third world war have involved NATO allies who do not have their own nuclearweapons, using US nuclear weapons as part of a general NATO war plan, under the direction of NATO's SupremeAllied Commander.Of the three nuclear powers in NATO (France, the United Kingdom and the United States), only the United Stateshas provided weapons for nuclear sharing. As of November 2009[10], Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands andTurkey are still hosting U.S. nuclear weapons as part of NATO's nuclear sharing policy.[11] Canada hosted weaponsuntil 1984, and Greece until 2001. The United Kingdom also received U.S. tactical nuclear weapons such as nuclearartillery and Lance missiles until 1992, despite the UK being a nuclear weapons state in its own right; these weremainly deployed in Germany.In peace time, the nuclear weapons stored in non-nuclear countries are guarded by U.S. airmen though previouslysome artillery and missile systems were guarded by US Army soldiers; the codes required for detonating them areunder American control. In case of war, the weapons are to be mounted on the participating countries' warplanes.The weapons are under custody and control of USAF Munitions Support Squadrons co-located on NATO mainoperating bases who work together with the host nation forces.As of 2005[10], 180 tactical B61 nuclear bombs of the 480 U.S. nuclear weapons believed to be deployed in Europefall under the nuclear sharing arrangement. The weapons are stored within a vault in hardened aircraft shelters, usingthe USAF WS3 Weapon Storage and Security System. The delivery warplanes used are F-16s and PanaviaTornados.

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Exercise Able ArcherMain article: Able Archer 83Exercise Able Archer was an annual exercise by the United States Military in Europe that practiced command andcontrol procedures, with emphasis on transition from just convention operations to chemical, nuclear, andconventional operations during a time of war.Able Archer 83 was a five-day North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) command post exercise starting onNovember 7, 1983, that spanned Western Europe, centered on the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe(SHAPE) Headquarters in Casteau, north of the city of Mons. Able Archer exercises simulated a period of conflictescalation, culminating in a coordinated nuclear attack.The realistic nature of the 1983 exercise, coupled with deteriorating relations between the United States and theSoviet Union and the anticipated arrival of strategic Pershing II nuclear missiles in Europe, led some members of theSoviet Politburo and military to believe that Able Archer 83 was a ruse of war, obscuring preparations for a genuinenuclear first strike.[12][13][14] In response, the Soviets readied their nuclear forces and placed air units in EastGermany and Poland on alert.[15][16] This is known as the 1983 war scare.

President Ronald Reagan and Sovietdouble agent Oleg Gordievsky, who

later told the west how close theAble Archer 83 exercise had broughtthe Soviets to ordering a First Strike.

The 1983 war scare is considered by many historians to be the closest the worldhas come to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The threat ofnuclear war ended with the conclusion of the exercise on November 11.[17][18]

Desert Rock exercises

Main article: Desert Rock exercisesDesert Rock was the code name of a series of exercises conducted by the USmilitary in conjunction with atmospheric nuclear tests. They were carried out atthe Nevada Proving Grounds between 1951 and 1957.

Their purpose was to train troops and gain knowledge of military manoeuvresand operations on the nuclear battlefield. They included observer programs,tactical manoeuvres, and damage effects tests.

Letters of Last Resort

The letters of last resort are four identically-worded handwritten letters written by the Prime Minister of the UnitedKingdom to the commanding officers of the four British ballistic missile submarines. They contain orders on whataction to take in the event that an enemy nuclear strike has destroyed the British government and has killed orincapacitated both the Prime Minister and the "second person" (normally a high-ranking member of the Cabinet)whom the Prime Minister has designated to make a decision on how to act in the event of the Prime Minister's death.In the event that the orders were to be carried out, the action taken could be the last official act of Her Majesty'sGovernment.

The letters are stored inside two safes in the control room of each submarine. The UK submarines do not have thesame code-locked PAL systems that the US nuclear forces use. Reports indicate that each set of letters differsdepending on the Prime Minister, but the Navy advises the incoming prime minister that he has three broad choices:1. Instruct the submarine Captain to conduct a massive retaliatory strike on the aggressor. 2. Instruct the submarineCaptain to place the submarine under allied command. This would involve sailing to the United States or Australia,or some other UK ally, and placing the submarine at that countries disposal. 3. Instruct the submarine Captain to usehis own judgement. The Prime Minister may choose any other option, or permutation of options, in his own absolutediscretion.

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The letters contents are never revealed in the media and are destroyed unopened at the end of each Prime Ministersterm.

France's Warning ShotThe French military were well aware from intelligence sources during the cold war that some Soviet invasion planscalled for stopping at the Rhine, others stopping at the French border, and still others at the Pyrenees. Since theFrench military judged that a full-scale invasion of Western Europe by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact Allieswas unlikely to be stopped by conventional armaments, these short-range nuclear missiles were meant as a "finalwarning" (ultime avertissement in French) which would tell the aggressor that any further advances would trigger anuclear armageddon upon its major cities and other important targets. The idea was to fire a small yield nuclearmissile at a low population area close to the advancing Soviet lines, to demonstrate that France was indeed willing touse its nuclear weapons. If this warning was not heeded, France reserved the right to use tactical nuclear weapons onthe advancing Soviet troops (using Pluton or Hads missiles, or Dassault Mirage IV jets using Air-Sol MoyennePorte missiles) or to launch a full strategic nuclear attack on the USSR using their Redoutable-class submarine, thusdestroying the USSR's ability to sustain war by destroying its war economy, manufacturing base and military bases.While this policy saw a lower profile with the end of the cold war, President Chirac reasserted it in 2006. The FrenchIRBM force has now been scrapped but they retain an air and sea nuclear deterrent.

France's Sea-Based Nuclear Deterrent. Dassault Rafale jets. France'snuclear capable air arm.

ASMP-A missile, which can be fired from theDassault Rafale and Dassault Mirage 2000N

as France's nuclear warning shot.

Strategic Defense InitiativeThe Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983,.[19] Inthe later part of his Presidency numerous factors (which included watching the 1983 movie The Day After andhearing through a Soviet defector that Able Archer 83 almost triggered a Russian first strike) had turned RonaldReagan against the concept of winnable nuclear war, and he begun to see nuclear weapons as more of a wild cardthan a strategic deterrent. Although he later believed in disarmament treaties slowly blunting the danger of nuclearweaponry by reducing their number and alert status, he also believed a technological solution might allow incomingICBM's to be shot down, thus making the US invulnerable to a first strike. However the USSR saw the SDI conceptas a major threat, since the SDI, unilaterally deployed, would allow the US to launch a massive first strike on theSoviet Union without any fear of retaliation.The concept was to use ground-based and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategicnuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic offense doctrine ofMutual Assured Destruction (MAD). The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was set up in 1984within the United States Department of Defense to oversee the Strategic Defense Initiative.

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Historical close callsWith the development of the arms race in the 1950s, an apocalyptic war between the United States and the SovietUnion was considered possible. Among the historical events considered potential triggers for a nuclear conflict are: 25 June 1950 27 July 1953: The Korean War, a war between two factions trying to control the Korean

Peninsula: a communist one supported by China and the USSR, and a capitalist one, supported by the UN and theUnited States. Many people believed that it would escalate into full-scale war between the three superpowers.CBS war correspondent Bill Downs wrote in 1951 that, "To my mind, the answer is: Yes, Korea is the beginningof World War III. The brilliant landings at Inchon and the cooperative efforts of the American armed forces withthe United Nations Allies have won us a victory in Korea. But this is only the first battle in a major internationalstruggle which now is engulfing the Far East and the entire world." He repeated this belief on ABC EveningNews while reporting on the USS Pueblo incident in 1968.

A US Navy HSS-1 Seabat helicopter hovers overSoviet submarine B-59, forced to the surface by

US Naval forces in the Caribbean near Cuba.B-59 had a nuclear torpedo on board, three officer

keys were required to use it. Only one dissentprevented the submarine from attacking the US

fleet nearby, a spark that would certainly have ledto a third world war.Wikipedia:Citation needed

(October 2829, 1962)

1528 October 1962: The Cuban missile crisis, a confrontation onthe stationing of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, is often consideredas having been the closest to a nuclear exchange, which could haveprecipitated a Third World War. The crisis peaked on 27 October,when a U-2 was shot down over Cuba and another almostintercepted over Siberia, after Curtis LeMay (U.S. Air Force Chiefof Staff) had neglected to enforce Presidential orders to suspend alloverflights, and a Soviet submarine nearly launched anuclear-tipped torpedo in response to depth charges (with the launchbeing prevented by an officer named Vasili Arkhipov).

October 625, 1973:The Yom Kippur War, also known as theRamadan War, or October War, began with Arab victories. After amassive U.S. airlift of supplies Israel successfully counterattacked.Tensions grew between the U.S. (which supported Israel) and theSoviet Union (which sided with the Arab states). American andSoviet naval forces came close to firing upon each other. Adm.Murphy of the U.S. reckoned the chances of the Soviet squadronattempting a first strike against his fleet at 40 percent. The Pentagon moved Defcon status from 4 to 3.[20] Thesuperpowers had been pushed to the brink of war.[21][22]

26 September 1983: A false alarm occurred on the Soviet nuclear early warning system, showing the launch ofAmerican Minuteman ICBMs from bases in the United States. A retaliatory attack was prevented by StanislavPetrov, an officer of the Soviet Air Defence Forces, who realised the system had simply malfunctioned (whichwas borne out by later investigations).

World War III as past or present tenseNorman Podhoretz has suggested that the Cold War can be identified as World War III[23] because it was fought,although by proxy, on a global scale, involving the United States, NATO, the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pactcountries.Wikipedia:Citation needed Eliot Cohen, the director of strategic studies at the Paul H. Nitze School ofAdvanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, declared in The Wall Street Journal he considersWorld War III to be history. "The Cold War was World War III, which reminds us that not all global conflicts entailthe movement of multi-million-man armies, or conventional front lines on a map."[24]

Others have claimed that the world has changed, that war has changed, and thus World War III will not be a conventional or even nuclear war, as had been imagined in the Cold War. Some claim that the War on Terrorism is World War III, with September 11 being the 'Pearl Harbor' that dragged the United States into a terrorism fight the

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UK and Israel were already fighting, in a similar way to World War II. On the 24 May 2011 edition of CNBC'sKudlow and Company, host Lawrence Kudlow, discussing a book by former deputy Under-Secretary of Defense JedBabbin, accepted the view of the Cold War as World War III, adding "World War IV is the terror war, and war withChina would be World War V."[25]

FictionWorld War III is a common theme in fiction and art.Many media concerning a World War III portray the war as being fought with nuclear weapons, with some evenportraying multiple major exchanges that result in anything from entire continents being wiped out (as in The LastShip), to full human extinction (as in On The Beach). However some, such as The Third World War: The UntoldStory and Red Storm Rising portray a conventional war where the pressure by regional military commanders on theside losing at that time to use tactical nuclear weapons grows as the story goes on. With most WWIII fiction beingwritten during the Cold War, when a US-Russian conflict was seen as the most likely scenario, this is the focus ofmost books and movies on the subject.With the end of the Cold War, despite the public perception that such a war is now unlikely, the genre continues togrow. Some video games, such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 havespeculated on the emergence of a second cold war after a new ultra-nationalist Russia emerges. While some bookslike Invasion by Eric L Harry speculate about a future China-United States war after China becomes a globalsuperpower, others like Arc Light portray an unstable post-cold war Russian Federation being the subject of amilitary coup, during which a series of accidents and misunderstandings trigger a nuclear strike by the Russians, withthe US retaliating, and both nations locked in a war neither of them want. The changed world post-Cold War, and thechanged perception of the likelihood of various threats, has caused some cold war stories to be re-imagined for thepost-cold war age. The Last Ship by William Brinkley has been adapted to a TV series of the same name, with theplot changed to a global pandemic rather than a nuclear exchange.

Books Arc Light, a novel portraying a US-Russia mixed conventional-Nuclear War, post-cold war, that came about as a

series of misunderstandings and mis-reads of each other's intentions in the midst of a Chinese-Russian nuclearexchange.

Invasion, a 2000 novel by Eric L. Harry portraying a future Chinese invasion of the US after China becomes aglobal superpower and the economy, crippled with debt from previous wars and bad economic policies, has madethe US a backwater.

The Third World War: The Untold Story by General Hackett, portrays a conventional Soviet invasion of WesternEurope, including the behavior of the formally neutral Ireland and Sweden, and internal Soviet debates andthinking, and explores the pressure by regional military commanders to use nuclear weapons.

Team Yankee, a 1987 novel by Harold Coyle set in Hackett's scenario, focusing on a single company sized USArmy Unit under a young dynamic Captain leading inexperienced enlisted and Lt's who don't believe a thirdworld war will ever start until one day they suddenly see Soviet Fighter Jets skimming overhead and hear thesudden artillery in the distance.

Red Army, by Ralph Peters, showing a Soviet invasion of Western Europe from an entirely Soviet perspective.The only WWIII book where there is no western victory (discounting Hacketts alternate ending).

Red Storm Rising, a similar World War III scenario covering a conventional Soviet invasion of Western Europe,by Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising has the politburo vote for war because an oil crises means their economy willbe starving come winter, and they need to take the caucus or mid east oil, and must first neutralize NATO toaccomplish this.

World War III 13

The Third World War by Humphrey Hawksley depicts a slow building crises that culminates in a nightmarishWorld War III involving nuclear and biological weapons.

Resurrection Day. An alternate history novel set a few decades after the Cuban Missile Crisis turned hot. Ajournalist tries to discover the real story of what happened in the face of propaganda and lies.

Trinity's Child by William Prochnau, portrays a sudden nuclear attack by the USSR upon the United States,followed by an eruption of global warfare. This book was highly acclaimed and is considered a 'must read' byreaders of the genre. It was made into a TV Movie By Dawns Early Light. Hardliners in the politburo, facingUSSR collapse as in real life, seize control and vote to launch a full first strike against the USA. The novelfollows the military brass, the President and the crew of a B-52 Stratofortress sent in to the USSR to drop nucleargravity bombs and cruise missiles.

The Last Ship by William Brinkley. Portrays a sudden massive nuclear exchange between the superpowers, withfurther escalating exchanges over a four hour period leaving most of the northern hemisphere choked inradioactive fallout. The ship loses contact with the U.S. Navy, and then investigates various sites around Europeand Africa starting with Naval Station Rota in Spain, making contact with other stray ships, military and civilian.All the consequences of the exchange for the crew, and humanity as a whole, are explored.

Movies Countdown to Looking Glass, a TV movie made in the form of a news broadcast following a deterioration in

NATO-Warsaw Pact relations that ends in nuclear warfare. The Day After, a 1983 made-for-TV movie about a NATO-Russian nuclear exchange that comes out of a crises in

the middle east. The movie shows a slow, almost dull 'day before' to remind one what normality is, then suddenlyeverything changes as the nuclear missiles burst in the sky.

Damnation Alley, a 1970's movie about a sudden Soviet nuclear attack. The focus of the movie is on the aftermathof the attack

Fail Safe, a 2000 film about a computer malfunction at the NMCC in the 1960s giving false Emergency ActionMessages to B-52 bombers to penetrate Soviet airspace and commence strategic nuclear strikes. The President,Joint Chiefs, US Strategic Air Command and national security council all try to stop the bombers by variousmeans. They find it hard to get through to the bombers who have been trained to ignore recall signals that are notproperly encoded, and at the same time, the Russians are not sure if this is deception warfare or a realmalfunction.

Miracle Mile, a 1988 movie about an ordinary group of people, who learn, via a phone call from someone in anICBM silo (who was trying to reach their father at the diner) that a nuclear exchange is about to take place, thuswithin the hour Soviet missiles will reign down on them. Some believe it and try to flee, others scramble aroundthe city to find loved ones in a desperate attempt to join those already headed for the airport.

The Sum of All Fears, a 2002 movie with Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman. Terrorists plant a nuclear weapon ina US city in an attempt to frame the Russians for the attack and prompt the two powers to wipe each other out.

Threads, a 1984 UK film about a major Soviet nuclear attack on the United Kingdom in similar makeup to TheDay After.

The War Game, a 1965 film about how well civil defense and homeland security would cope in the event ofnuclear war. What's practical and what's not.

On The Beach, a 2000 film about the aftermath of a series of major nuclear exchanges between theUS-Russia-China choking the northern hemisphere in fallout which is slowly spreading to humanity's last refugein Australia.

red dawn, a 1984 film about a group of teenagers who band together to defend their town, and their country, frominvading Soviet forces.

World War III 14

Video games Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 & Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 portray a war between United States and

Russia, which evolves into the Third World War between NATO allied nations and Ultra-nationalist Russia (arevolutionary political party idolizing the late days of the Soviet Union).

World In Conflict & World In Conflict: Soviet Assault portray a sudden surprise Soviet invasion of the USmainland.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 & Command & Conquer Red Alert 3 portray a Soviet invasion of bothWestern Europe and the mainland United States.

Homefront. A future United States suffering from economic collapse and military atrophy is invaded by aresurgent and newly unified Korea.

References[1] Continental US Fallout Pattern for Prevailing Winds (FEMA-196/September 1990) (http:/ / ocw. nd. edu/ physics/ nuclear-warfare/ notes/

lecture-17)[2] http:/ / www. youtube. com/ watch?v=8sh7-9vNWBk[3][3] Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod, "To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon's Secret War Plans", Boston, South End Press, 1987, pp. 30-31.[4] Newsweek, Volume 35, Issues 14-26 (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=hufjAAAAMAAJ& q="Exercise+ Swarmer"& dq="Exercise+

Swarmer"& hl=en& ei=HNLxTJCQCYKdlgf31JihDA& sa=X& oi=book_result& ct=result& resnum=7& ved=0CD4Q6AEwBg).[5][5] Hagerman 1997, p. 379.[6] Totskyoe exercise. Measures of safety (Russian) (http:/ / actualhistory. ru/ tozk_nuclear) by Sergei Markov[7] Viktor Suvorov, Shadow of Victory (http:/ / militera. lib. ru/ research/ suvorov7/ index. html) (), Donetsk, 2003, ISBN 966-696-022-2, pages

353-375. The challenges official record of Georgy Zhukov as a flawless military leader. The chapter about Totskoye nuclear exercise is mostlybased on open publications in Russian press, such as Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star), an official newspaper of Russian Ministry of Defense, andLiteraturnaya Gazeta

[8] Time, September 29, 1952[9] "NATO Ships Enter Baltic Sea" - Sydney Morning Herald, p. 2[10] http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ w/ index. php?title=World_War_III& action=edit[11] Der Spiegel: Foreign Minister Wants US Nukes out of Germany (2009-04-10) (http:/ / www. spiegel. de/ international/ germany/

0,1518,618550,00. html)[12] Andrew and Gordievsky, Comrade Kryuchkov's Instructions, 857.[13] Beth Fischer, Reagan Reversal, 123, 131.[14] Pry, War Scare, 379.[15] Oberdorfer, A New Era, 66.[16] SNIE 111084 "Implications of Recent Soviet Military-Political Activities" Central Intelligence Agency, May 18, 1984.[17] Andrew and Gordievsky, Comrade Kryuchkovs Instructions, 878.[18] Pry, War Scare, 434.[19] Federation of American Scientists. Missile Defense Milestones (http:/ / www. fas. org/ spp/ starwars/ program/ milestone. htm). Accessed

March 10, 2006.[20] http:/ / www. globalpost. com/ dispatches/ globalpost-blogs/ commentary/ the-little-known-us-soviet-confrontation-during-yom-kippur-wa[21] http:/ / fullcomment. nationalpost. com/ 2013/ 10/ 07/ erol-araf-incalculable-consequences/[22] http:/ / www. psupress. org/ books/ titles/ 0-271-01489-X. html[23] Norman Podhoretz:World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, and Why We Have to Win (http:/ / www. commentarymagazine. com/

article/ world-war-iv-how-it-started-what-it-means-and-why-we-have-to-win/ )[24] World War III? | Macleans.ca Canada Features (http:/ / www. macleans. ca/ article. jsp?content=20060731_131110_131110).

Macleans.ca. Retrieved on 26 December 2011.[25] Right-wing media divided: Is U.S. now in World War III, IV, or V? | Media Matters for America (http:/ / mediamatters. org/ research/ 2006/

07/ 14/ right-wing-media-divided-is-us-now-in-world-war/ 136176). Mediamatters.org (14 July 2006). Retrieved on 26 December 2011.

World War III 15

Further reading Langford, David (1981). War in 2080 : the future of military technology. London: Sphere Books.

ISBN978-0-7221-5393-2. Pamidi, G.G. (2012). Possibility of a nuclear war in Asia : an Indian perspective. New Delhi: United Service

Institution of India : Vij Books India. ISBN93-81411-51-4.

Article Sources and Contributors 16

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