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140-489: The game is set in Neo Tokyo after World War III , and follows the devil summoner Yuuji Kashiwagi. The player controls Yuuji and his allies in a turn-based combat system, and can negotiate with enemy demons to recruit them to their side; these can in turn be fused into one, to create stronger demon allies. The game was well received by critics and players for its branching story which leads to multiple scenarios and endings, and for

280-624: A novella of the same name by Roger Zelazny ), depicts a United States Air Force Missile Wing stationed at a base in the Mojave Desert of Southern California . After a nuclear exchange in the beginning of the film renders the United States a radioactive wasteland plagued by massive dust storms and mutated insects, the survivors from the base set out towards a radio signal they receive from Albany, New York in search of other survivors. The narrow, dangerous passage across country they must take,

420-551: A " wild card " than a strategic deterrent. Although he later believed in disarmament treaties slowly blunting the danger of nuclear weaponry by reducing their number and alert status, he also believed a technological solution might allow incoming ICBMs to be shot down, thus making the US invulnerable to a first strike. However, the USSR saw the SDI concept as a major threat, since a unilateral deployment of

560-660: A "symbol for the worst of modernity." During the Cold War , concepts such as mutually assured destruction (MAD) led lawmakers and government officials in both the United States and the Soviet Union to avoid entering a nuclear war. Various scientists and authors, such as Carl Sagan , predicted massive, possibly life-ending destruction of the Earth as the result of such a conflict. Strategic analysts assert that nuclear weapons prevented

700-541: A 1949 multilateral exercise involving naval air strikes and submarine attacks. Exercise Mainbrace brought together 200 ships and over 50,000 personnel to practice the defense of Denmark and Norway from the Soviet attack in 1952. It was the first major NATO exercise. The exercise was jointly commanded by Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic Admiral Lynde D. McCormick , United States Navy , and Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Matthew B. Ridgeway , U.S. Army , during

840-518: A 1960s family caught in the grip of Cold War paranoia. Falsely convinced that World War III has started, they hide in their fallout shelter, only to emerge 35 years later in a world after the Cold War had ended. Jonathan Schell complained to the New York Times that "the post–Cold War generation knows less about nuclear danger than any generation." Wang Lixiong 's 1991 novel Yellow Peril depicts

980-404: A Third World War as part of their plots: both Britain's V for Vendetta and Strontium Dog 's "Portrait of a Mutant" use nuclear war as the backdrop for the establishment of totalitarian governments, with the former having Britain escape a direct hit and the latter showing the country in ruins. Judge Dredd , which already had a devastating World War III as part of its backstory that left most of

1120-423: A World War III in which a new race of humans is born from domestic animals like dogs, cats, and rodents. The Cold War ended without the destructive final global war that had often been envisioned in popular culture, and the public's fears of a World War III were allayed. On the other hand, the previously classified Stanislav Petrov incident of 1983 seemed to imply that the risk of accidental nuclear war because of

1260-579: A civil war in China that becomes a nuclear exchange and soon engulfs the world. The novel was banned by the Chinese Communist Party but remained popular. World War III World War III ( WWIII or WW3 ), also known as the Third World War , is a hypothetical future global conflict subsequent to World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945). It is widely assumed that such

1400-400: A composite of Cold War figures, including Wernher von Braun , Henry Kissinger , and Herman Kahn . The secret codename of Operation DROPKICK, mentioned by George C. Scott 's character, may be an oblique reference to Operation Dropshot . The 1964 film Fail-Safe was adapted from a best-selling novel of the same name by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler . Nuclear disaster is caused by

1540-474: A confrontation on the stationing of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba in response to the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion , is considered as having been the closest to a nuclear exchange, which could have precipitated a third World War. The crisis peaked on 27 October, with three separate major incidents occurring on the same day: Despite what many believe to be the closest the world has come to a nuclear conflict, throughout

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1680-625: A fictional nuclear attack on Britain. This film won the Oscar for Best Documentary but was withheld from broadcast by the BBC for two decades. In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode " Bread and Circuses ," First Officer Spock estimates the death toll of Earth's Third World War at 36 million. Not only was media film changing within a new world of nuclear possibilities, but other forms of popular culture were also becoming engrossed with

1820-411: A fun and satisfying strategy game with challenging but rewarding combat, and found it exciting to fuse demons to create a strong party, as did GA Graphic , while Dou Namiki  [ ja ] of Den Fami Nico Gamer appreciated the strategic combat for its depth. The story was also well received: Famitsu liked its multiple scenarios and how it adapts to the player's choices; Inside Games , finding

1960-591: A giant, mutated monster after being exposed to radiation during a nuclear weapons test. Not only was the idea of mutant villains and monsters due to atomic forces prevalent during this time, but so was the idea of more complicated nuclear superheroes, such as the Incredible Hulk , Spider-Man , and the Fantastic Four . Characters such as these were highly influenced by shifting attitudes surrounding radiation and radioactive exposure prompted by fears created by

2100-405: A group of cheering people. At the end of their fight, the Earth explodes. Sting's 1986 song "Russians" highlighted links between Nikita Khrushchev 's threats to bury the US and Reagan's promise to protect US citizens. Many punk , hardcore and crossover thrash bands of the era, such as The Varukers and Discharge , had lyrics concerning nuclear war, the end of mankind and the destruction of

2240-560: A massive artificial intelligence American defense computer becomes sentient, unites with its previously unknown Soviet counterpart, and assumes control of the world's nuclear ICBM arsenal for the "good of mankind" during the Cold War to prevent World War III. The 1973 oil crisis heightened fears of a peak oil collapse of domestic life. The crisis rationing led to incidents of violence after American truck drivers nationwide chose to strike for two days in December 1973 because they objected to

2380-802: A new stage in the Cultural Revolution ; that of China's thorough militarization. The 9th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party , held in the aftermath of the Zhenbao Island incident , confirmed Defense Minister Lin Biao as Mao Zedong 's heir apparent. Following the events of 1969, the Soviet Union further increased its forces along the Sino-Soviet border , and in the Mongolian People's Republic . The Yom Kippur War , also known as

2520-512: A novel in 1914 entitled The World Set Free in which he details a fictional war fought by nuclear forces where major parts of the European continent are ultimately destroyed as a result of highly powerful weapons of mass destruction. Both books were inspired by work done by Frederick Soddy in 1903, who was researching radiation and the possibility of a radioactive weapons, foretelling ideas that would later become prominent concepts utilized in

2660-538: A period of conflict escalation that culminated in a DEFCON 1 nuclear strike, some members of the Soviet Politburo and armed forces treated the events as a ruse of war concealing a genuine first strike. In response, the military prepared for a coordinated counter-attack by readying nuclear forces and placing air units stationed in the Warsaw Pact states of East Germany and Poland under high alert. However,

2800-468: A perpetual military stalemate and use the never-ending warfare to subjugate their respective populations. Anxiety created by Japanese-produced media also facilitated the fear of nuclear threat that American's were experiencing. Movies such as Godzilla (1954) and I Live in Fear (1955) , which later became popular Japanese films within the United States, were heavily inspired by the fear and destruction created by

2940-533: A portrait of New York after World War III. The 1959 novel Alas, Babylon depicted the effects of nuclear war on a small town in Florida; a television adaptation was broadcast in 1960. Nineteen Eighty-Four , George Orwell 's dystopian 1949 novel about life after a third World War, rose to cultural prominence in the 1950s. In it, the world has endured a massive atomic war and is politically divided into three totalitarian superstates, which are intentionally locked into

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3080-495: A possible technical malfunction was greater than had previously been anticipated. The theme of nuclear Armageddon launched by military artificial intelligence computer systems without human decision was explored in the 1991 film Terminator 2: Judgment Day . In the early 1990s and particularly during the Gulf War , tabloid papers and other press discussed whether World War III would be linked to prophecies of Nostradamus concerning

3220-408: A potentially-catastrophic flaw in the newly automated system. Spies Like Us depicts US agents in the Soviet Union accidentally launching a missile at the US, which leads one of them to say, "I think we just started World War III." In the early 1980s, there were a number of films made for television that had World War III as a theme. ABC 's The Day After (1983), PBS ' Testament (1983), and

3360-566: A present-day nuclear war between the superpowers. That is incorrect as the actual story is that the Time Travellers were resistance fighters against the Daleks, who occupied Post War Earth. Their history stated that the person organising the Peace Talks had caused the war by exploding a bomb, which killed the participants in the Peace Talks and caused all sides to declare war on each other. However,

3500-538: A renewed urgency following the outbreak of the Korean War in the early 1950s, prompting NATO to establish a "force under a centralized command, adequate to deter aggression and to ensure the defense of Western Europe". Allied Command 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 ,

3640-488: A spin-off of the original 1994 Majin Tensei game, it retains many of its elements, including the setting of a demon-infested Tokyo and the use of character designs by Kazuma Kaneko , although simplifies some of its gameplay mechanics. G-Mode re-released Blind Thinker for Nintendo Switch and Windows on November 16, 2023, as part of their G-Mode Archives+ line, which aims to reproduce feature phone games as they were at

3780-536: A technological breakdown, which mistakenly launches American bombers to attack the Soviet Union. To prove that it was a mistake and to placate the Soviets, thereby saving the world from nuclear war, the US president orders the destruction of New York City after an American bomber succeeds in destroying Moscow. The film was made in a semi-documentary style and ends just as the explosion over New York City begins. The War Game ( 1965 ), produced by Peter Watkins , deals with

3920-510: A third great war. A World War III crisis was also featured in the 1992 Canadian movie Buried on Sunday in which a separatist island in Nova Scotia threatens to use nuclear missiles from a Russian submarine to strike the US and Canada. Movies about nuclear weapons that saved humanity were popular, such as Armageddon and Deep Impact (1998). Blast from the Past ( 1999 ) is a comedy about

4060-479: A viable Hollywood genre during the Cold War . In the 1950s, science fiction had two main themes: the invasion of the Earth by superior, aggressive, and frequently technologically advanced aliens and the dread of atomic weapons, which was typically portrayed as a revolt of nature with irradiated monsters attacking and ravaging entire cities. In The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), a flying saucer lands on

4200-479: A war would involve all of the great powers , like its predecessors, as well as the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction , surpassing all prior conflicts in geographic scope, devastation and loss of life. Since the Manhattan Project 's development of nuclear weapons in 1945 and their use by the United States in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II,

4340-483: A wartime NATO general deployment. In addition to assessing the capabilities of the United States, Reforger also monitored the personnel, facilities, and equipment of the European countries playing a significant role in the reinforcement effort. The exercise was intended to ensure that NATO could quickly deploy forces to West Germany in the event of a conflict with the Warsaw Pact . The Warsaw Pact outnumbered NATO throughout

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4480-472: A world power because it experiences less nuclear fallout than other nations. The science fiction universe of Star Trek touches on the theme of World War III: first the "Eugenics Wars" of 1992–1996, in which nearly 80 genetic superhuman dictators are overthrown at a cost of 37 million dead. However the "Eugenics Wars" were only a prelude to World War III in 2026–2053, during which 600 million are killed. Nelvana's first film Rock & Rule follows Earth after

4620-531: A world war. On 24 February 2022, Russia's president Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine , marking a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War , which began in 2014. The Russian invasion started the largest war in Europe since World War II. Various experts, analysts, and others have described the invasion as heightening the risk of a third world war, while others have suggested

4760-638: Is engulfing the Far East and the entire world." Downs afterwards repeated this belief on ABC Evening News while reporting on the USS Pueblo incident in 1968. Secretary of State Dean Acheson later acknowledged that the Truman administration was concerned about the escalation of the conflict and that General Douglas MacArthur warned him that a U.S.-led intervention risked a Soviet response. The Berlin Crisis of 1961

4900-576: Is named "Damnation Alley." In the early 1980s, there was a feeling of alarm in Europe and North America that a nuclear World War III was imminent. In 1982, 250,000 people protested against nuclear weapons in Bonn , the capital of West Germany . On June 12, 1982, more than 750,000 protesters marched from the UN headquarters building to Central Park in New York City to call for a nuclear freeze . The public accepted

5040-504: Is set in 20XX after World War III , twenty years after the Japanese energy company AGE has constructed the city Neo Tokyo. It follows Yuuji Kashiwagi, whose missing father has left behind a demon summoning program. Blind Thinker was originally developed and published by Bbmf for feature phones in Japan starting on July 11, 2007, with releases on various phones continuing throughout the year. As

5180-418: The 1973 oil crisis on Australian motorists: Yet there were further signs of the desperate measures individuals would take to ensure mobility. A couple of oil strikes that hit many pumps revealed the ferocity with which Australians would defend their right to fill a tank. Long queues formed at the stations with petrol – and anyone who tried to sneak ahead in the queue met raw violence ... George and I wrote

5320-470: The BBC 's Threads (1984) show a nuclear World War III, against the Soviet Union, which sends its troops marching across Western Europe. Those films inspired many to join the anti-nuclear movement . Threads is notable for its graphically disturbing and realistic depictions of post-nuclear survival and depicts a nuclear strike on Sheffield , the effects of a nuclear winter in the United Kingdom and

5460-662: The British Armed Forces developed Operation Unthinkable , thought to be the first scenario of the Third World War. Its primary goal was "to impose upon Russia the will of the United States and the British Empire ". The plan was rejected by the British Chiefs of Staff Committee as militarily unfeasible. Operation Dropshot was the 1950s United States contingency plan for a possible nuclear and conventional war with

5600-551: The Cold War during a time where much of the general public did not understand its effects. The American public's concerns about nuclear weapons and related technology continued to be present in the 1970s. The most talked-about events in the 1970s were the Vietnam War , the Watergate scandal , the Iran hostage crisis , the energy crisis , and stagflation . In the 1970 film Colossus ,

5740-510: The Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombings , giving Americans critical insight over the consequences of using such weapons, as well as ideas about what might happen in the event of a nuclear exchange with the increasing production of Hydrogen Bombs by both the United States and the Soviet Union. In the 1960s, media about the threat of nuclear world war gained wide popularity. According to Susan Sontag , films struck people's "imagination of disaster... in

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5880-669: The National Mall in Washington, DC, and is surrounded by troops and tanks. The alien Klaatu delivers an ultimatum that the Earth must learn to live in peace, or it will be destroyed. The War of the Worlds (1953) has a montage sequence of the countries of Earth joining to fight the Martian invaders. The montage conspicuously omits the Soviet Union and so implies that the aliens are a metaphor for communists. The most elaborate science fiction films in

6020-618: The Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949, he spoke about Cold War themes in art, expressing concern that younger writers were too preoccupied with the question of "When will I be blown up?" As early as 1907, H.G.Wells in The War in the Air described a catastrophic global conflict leading to the collapse of civilization, survivors reduced to a semi-medieval life among the ruins. H.G. Wells later released

6160-552: The Red Army invades Yugoslavia , and the United States responds by conducting a three-month bombing campaign of Soviet military and industrial targets. The Soviet Union retaliates by bombing New York City , Washington, D.C. , Philadelphia and Detroit . Against that background of dread, there was an outpouring of cinema with frightening themes, particularly in the science fiction genre. Science fiction had previously not been popular with either critics or movie audiences, but it became

6300-664: The River Rhine by the seventh day. Other USSR plans stopped only upon reaching the French border on day nine. Individual Warsaw Pact states were only assigned their subpart of the strategic picture; in this case, the Polish forces were only expected to go as far as Germany. The Seven Days to the Rhine plan envisioned that Poland and Germany would be largely destroyed by nuclear exchanges and that large numbers of troops would die of radiation sickness . It

6440-631: The Soviet Politburo and military to believe that Able Archer 83 was a ruse of war , obscuring preparations for a genuine nuclear first strike. In response, the Soviets readied their nuclear forces and placed air units in East Germany and Poland on alert. This "1983 war scare" is considered by many historians to be the closest the world has come to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The threat of nuclear war ended with

6580-620: The Soviet Union in the Western European and Asian theaters. Although the scenario made use of nuclear weapons, they were not expected to play a decisive role. At the time, the US nuclear arsenal was limited in size, based mostly in the United States, and depended on bombers for delivery. Dropshot included mission profiles that would have used 300 nuclear bombs and 29,000 high-explosive bombs on 200 targets in 100 cities and towns to wipe out 85% of

6720-810: The Soviet Zone . Exercise Strikeback was a major NATO naval exercise held in 1957, simulating a response to an all-out Soviet attack on NATO. The exercise involved over 200 warships, 650 aircraft, and 75,000 personnel from the United States Navy , the United Kingdom's Royal Navy , the Royal Canadian Navy , the French Navy , the Royal Netherlands Navy , and the Royal Norwegian Navy . As

6860-470: The Soviet nuclear early warning system , showing the launch of American LGM-30 Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles from bases in the United States. A retaliatory attack was prevented by Stanislav Petrov , a Soviet Air Defence Forces officer, who realised the system had simply malfunctioned (which was borne out by later investigations). During Able Archer 83 , a ten-day NATO exercise simulating

7000-596: The Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) Headquarters in Casteau , north of the city of Mons . Able Archer's exercises simulated a period of conflict escalation , culminating in a coordinated nuclear attack . The realistic nature of the 1983 exercise, coupled with deteriorating relations between the United States and the Soviet Union and the anticipated arrival of strategic Pershing II nuclear missiles in Europe, led some members of

7140-513: The "Earth Invaded by Daleks" timeline to close. In the 1977 Robert Aldrich film Twilight's Last Gleaming , a nuclear missile silo is seized by renegade US Air Force officers, who threaten to start World War III if the American government does not reveal secret documents that show that the military needlessly prolonged the Vietnam War. Also in 1977, Damnation Alley (very loosely based on

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7280-402: The "atomic age", and the bleak pictures of the bombed-out Japanese cities that were released shortly after the end of World War II became symbols of the new weapons' power. Around the mid-1940s, American society ushered in the age of atomic music, where different genres of music prompted differing ideas about the age of nuclear weapons. Some music, such as Hawkshaw Hawkins song "When they Found

7420-401: The 'city killing' countervalue strike plan to a " counterforce " plan (targeted more at military forces). Nuclear weapons at this time were not accurate enough to hit a naval base without destroying the city adjacent to it, so the aim of using them was to destroy the enemy's industrial capacity to cripple their war economy. The Republic of Ireland started planning for a possible nuclear war in

7560-503: The 1950s were This Island Earth (1955) and Forbidden Planet (1956). In the climax of both films, the characters witness the explosion of alien planets, which implies Earth's possible fate. The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959) is also in the science fiction genre. In it, a man, a woman, and a bigot (the devil) roam New York City after a nuclear war. Only those three characters appear in

7700-543: The 1980s, the techno-thriller became a literary phenomenon in the United States. Such novels about high-tech non-nuclear warfare reasserted the value of conventional weapons by showing how they would be vital in the world's next large scale conflict. Tom Clancy 's novels proposed the idea of a technical challenge to the Soviet Union in which World War III could be won using only conventional weapons, without resorting to nuclear weapons. Clancy's detailed explanation of how and why World War III could begin involves oil shortages in

7840-472: The Atlantic, the heavy equipment and armor reinforcements would have to come by sea and be delivered to POMCUS (Pre-positioned Overseas Material Configured to Unit Sets) sites. These exercises tested the United States and allied abilities to carry out transcontinental reinforcement. Timely reinforcement was a critical part of the NATO reinforcement exercises. The United States needed to be able to send active-duty army divisions to Europe within ten days as part of

7980-416: The Atomic Power," promoted development of nuclear weapons as defensive measures against other countries, appealing to people's sense of patriotism during a time of international conflict. Other types of music, however, were not as keen on the idea of promoting the idolization of the Atomic Age . Folk music , rock music , and even some jazz songs, such as "Atomic Cocktail" by Slim Gaillard , cautioned

8120-406: The Atomic Scientists now credits the political developments resulting from the Cuban Missile Crisis with having enhanced global stability. The Bulletin posits that future crises and occasions that might otherwise escalate, were rendered more stable due to two major factors: The Sino-Soviet border conflict was a seven-month undeclared military border war between the Soviet Union and China at

8260-422: The British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament . Briggs is best known as a writer and illustrator of children's literature, but the novel was written for an older audience and is his bleakest work though the story includes humour. The novel's message greatly affected young adult readers. Briggs rewrote the novel for radio, stage, and an animated film that was released in 1986. American superhero comics addressed

8400-412: The Cold War in conventional forces, and especially in tanks and armoured vehicles. Therefore, in the event of a Soviet invasion, in order not to resort to tactical nuclear strikes , NATO forces defending against a Warsaw Pact armored spearhead would have to be quickly resupplied and replaced. Reforger was not merely a show of force. In the event of a conflict, it would be the actual plan to strengthen

8540-541: The Cold War, the possibility was anticipated and planned for by military and civil personnel around the world, with scenarios ranging from conventional warfare to limited or total nuclear warfare . The strategic doctrine of mutually assured destruction , which posited that a full-scale nuclear confrontation would completely annihilate all parties to the conflict, was developed. US and Soviet leaders worked to avoid such an outcome, though several close calls caused by faulty technology or human error still occurred, underscoring

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8680-438: The Cold War. American cartoonist James Thurber published the short story The Last Flower in November 1939, two months after World War II officially began. The story predicts a series of world wars, and begins with the line "World War XII, as everybody knows, brought about the collapse of civilization." The book depicts a post-apocalyptic Stone Age human society. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ushered in

8820-403: The Doctor discovered that the Bomb Attack had actually been caused by one of the Resistance fighters attempting to blow up the house in an attempt to kill the person who set up the Conference and the Daleks who suddenly attacked the house. The Doctor got the participants away from the house just as one of the Resistance fighters blew up the house and the Daleks who invaded the house with it, causing

8960-401: The Earth in much of their early material. Films and television programs made in the 1980s had different visions of what World War III would be like. Red Dawn (1984) portrayed a near future in which a communist revolution occurs in Mexico , the United States and Britain become strategically isolated from continental Europe, and the Soviet Union is threatened with famine after the failure of

9100-424: The Joker mentions the frequency of World War III nearly erupting over "a flock of geese on a computer screen," and that WWII was started by "an argument over how many telegraph poles Germany owed its war debt creditors." In the same year, the acclaimed Watchmen (set in an alternate timeline) is driven by the threat of nuclear war: the nuclear-powered superhuman Dr. Manhattan has become America's main deterrent to

9240-436: The NATO presence in Europe. In that instance, it would have been referred to as Operation Reforger. The political goals of Reforger were to promote extended deterrence and foster NATO cohesion. Important components in Reforger included the Military Airlift Command , the Military Sealift Command , and the Civil Reserve Air Fleet . Seven Days to the River Rhine was a top-secret military simulation exercise developed in 1979 by

9380-416: The Ramadan War, or October War, began with a surprise invasion of Israeli-occupied territories by a coalition of Arab states, aided by the Soviet Union. Israel successfully counterattacked with the aid of the US. Tensions grew between the two superpowers: American and Soviet naval forces came close to firing upon each other in the Mediterranean Sea . Admiral Daniel J. Murphy of the US Sixth Fleet reckoned

9520-445: The Russians; the plane was in the region as part of the Russian military intervention in the Syrian civil war , in which Turkey supported opposing forces. The incident was the first destruction of a Russian or Soviet Air Forces warplane by a NATO member state since the attack on the Sui-ho Dam during the Korean War in 1953. The incident led to numerous media and individuals commenting that it could have sparked and escalated into

9660-472: The Soviet Union and his disappearance, which the Soviets exploit, brings the world to the brink of nuclear war. Antagonist characters Adrian Veidt and the Comedian are haunted by the thought of nuclear war, and Veidt's plot revolves around ending the threat of nuclear war by faking the existence of an extraterrestrial threat. World War III is mentioned several times in the animated sitcom The Simpsons , particularly in future-set episodes. Other comics used

9800-423: The Soviet Union caused by Islamic terrorism within it. The Hunt for Red October (1984) hypothesized that the Soviets' technology would soon be better than the Americans' and depicts a naval buildup in the Atlantic Ocean after the CIA decides to rescue a highly advanced Typhoon-class submarine defecting from the Soviet Union. Red Storm Rising was a detailed account of a fictional coming world war in which

9940-406: The Soviet Union's industrial potential in a single stroke. Between 75 and 100 of the 300 nuclear weapons were targeted to destroy Soviet combat aircraft on the ground. The scenario was devised before the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles . It was also devised before US President John F. Kennedy and his Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara changed the US Nuclear War plan from

10080-440: The Soviets decide to seize Middle Eastern oil reserves to prevent crippling energy shortages after an Islamist terrorist attack on a major Siberian oil refinery, and they decide to seize Western Europe to prevent American retaliation. The novel subsequently depicts a Soviet invasion of West Germany devolve into a bloody war of attrition because of NATO air superiority over Europe, with a Soviet occupation of Iceland turning

10220-460: The Spetsnatz. According to the film's epilogue, the United States repulses Soviet forces and wins the war. In the 1983 James Bond film Octopussy , James Bond tries to prevent World War III from being started by a renegade Soviet general. WarGames (1983) had a teenage gamer accidentally hacking the US nuclear defense network and thinking that he had hacked a computer game company, which reveals

10360-570: The U.S., the U.S.S.R., and China. CBS News war correspondent Bill Downs wrote in 1951, "To my mind, the answer is: Yes, Korea is the beginning of World War   III. The brilliant landings at Inchon and the cooperative efforts of the American armed forces with the United Nations Allies have won us a victory in Korea. But this is only the first battle in a major international struggle which now

10500-675: The UK being a nuclear weapons state in its own right; these were mainly deployed in Germany . In peacetime , the nuclear weapons stored in non-nuclear countries are guarded by US airmen though previously some artillery and missile systems were guarded by US Army soldiers; the codes required for detonating them are under 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 main operating bases that work together with

10640-409: The US develops radioactive dust as the ultimate weapon of war and uses it to destroy Berlin in 1945 and end the war against Germany. The Soviet Union then develops the same weapon independently, and war between it and the US follows. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 made stories of a future global nuclear war hypothetical rather than fictional. When William Faulkner received

10780-612: The USSR launched an ultimatum demanding the withdrawal of all armed forces from Berlin, including the Western armed forces in West Berlin . The crisis culminated in the city's de facto partition with the East German erection of the Berlin Wall . This stand-off ended peacefully on 28 October following a U.S.–Soviet understanding to withdraw tanks and reduce tensions. The Cuban Missile Crisis ,

10920-583: The United Kingdom, and the United States), only the United States has provided weapons for nuclear sharing. As of November 2009 , Belgium , Germany , Italy , the Netherlands and Turkey are still hosting US nuclear weapons as part of NATO's nuclear sharing policy. Canada hosted weapons until 1984, and Greece until 2001. The United Kingdom also received US tactical nuclear weapons such as nuclear artillery and Lance missiles until 1992, despite

11060-594: The United States and NATO, including US president Joe Biden and NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg , have stressed the need to prevent the conflict escalating into a third world war, while also affirming that NATO members will defend each other. The US warned Russia's government that the country would suffer "catastrophic" consequences if it used nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Former CIA Director , David Petraeus , said NATO would likely respond by destroying all Russian forces in Ukraine. Several incidents have risked

11200-446: The United States and the Soviet Union from fighting World War III with conventional weapons . Nevertheless, the possibility of such a war became the basis for speculative fiction , and its simulation in books, films and video games became a way to explore the issues of a war that has thus far not occurred in reality. The only places that a global nuclear war has ever been fought are in expert scenarios, theoretical models, war games, and

11340-516: The Warsaw Pact. It started with the assumption that NATO would launch a nuclear attack on the Vistula river valley in a first-strike scenario, which would result in as many as two million Polish civilian casualties. In response, a Soviet counter-strike would be carried out against West Germany , Belgium , the Netherlands and Denmark , with Warsaw Pact forces invading West Germany and aiming to stop at

11480-476: The West was about to launch an all-out war against them. These fears were manifested in the popular culture of the time, with images of nuclear war in books, film, music, and television. In the mid-1980s, artists and musicians drew parallels with their time and the 1950s as two key moments in the Cold War. There was a steady stream of popular music with apocalyptic themes. The 1983 hit " 99 Luftballons " by Nena tells

11620-579: The Wind Blows , a graphic novel by Raymond Briggs , was published in 1982. The novel is a bitter satire on the Publicized Civil Defense advice given by the British government ( Protect and Survive ) about how to survive a nuclear war. It has a working-class couple not believing that nuclear war is possible die of radiation sickness after a nuclear explosion and reflects Briggs's participation in

11760-428: The [ Mad Max ] script based on the thesis that people would do almost anything to keep vehicles moving and the assumption that nations would not consider the huge costs of providing infrastructure for alternative energy until it was too late. On television, the British science fiction series Doctor Who , based a 1972 storyline, Day of the Daleks , on the premise of time travelers from the future attempting to trigger

11900-399: The accomplishments of Exercise Grand Slam by stating: "We have demonstrated that the senior commanders of all four powers can successfully take charge of a mixed task force and handle it effectively as a working unit." The Soviet Union called the exercises "war-like acts" by NATO, with particular reference to the participation of Norway and Denmark and prepared for its military maneuvers in

12040-565: The amount of supplies that the government had rationed for their industry. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, nonstriking truckers were shot at by striking truckers, and in Arkansas, trucks of nonstrikers were attacked with bombs. The peak oil fears led to the iconic Mad Max movie series in 1979. The desert imagery of Road Warrior showing a resource-drained world became an archetypical default of post-apocalypse worlds. The screenplay writer James McCausland drew heavily from his observations of effects of

12180-492: The art, film, and literature of the nuclear age . The concept of MAD was also the focus of numerous film and television works. Prescient stories about nuclear war were written before the invention of the atomic bomb. The most notable of them was The World Set Free , written by H. G. Wells in 1914. During World War II , several nuclear war stories were published in science fiction magazines such as Astounding . In Robert A. Heinlein 's story " Solution Unsatisfactory ,"

12320-538: The autumn of 1952. The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada , France , Denmark, Norway, Portugal , Netherlands , and Belgium participated. Exercises Grand Slam and Longstep were naval exercises held in the Mediterranean Sea during 1952 to practice dislodging an enemy occupying force and amphibious assault. It involved over 170 warships and 700 aircraft under the overall command of Admiral Robert B. Carney . The overall exercise commander, Carney summarized

12460-431: The chances of the Soviet squadron attempting a first strike against his fleet at 40 percent. The Pentagon moved Defcon status from 4   to   3. The superpowers had been pushed to the brink of war, but tensions eased with the ceasefire brought in under UNSC 339 . The United States made emergency retaliation preparations after NORAD systems indicated that a full-scale Soviet attack had been launched. No attempt

12600-484: The complete collapse of human civilization caused by the war. The Day After was shown on ABC on November 20, 1983, while Soviet-US relations were at their worst, just weeks after the NATO -led Able Archer 83 exercises and less than three months after Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down by Soviet jet interceptors . The film depicts Lawrence, Kansas , after a nuclear war with the Soviets. ABC warned its audience about

12740-479: The conclusion of the exercise on 11 November. The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was proposed by US President Ronald Reagan on 23 March 1983. In the latter part of his presidency , numerous factors (which included watching the 1983 movie The Day After and hearing through a Soviet defector that Able Archer 83 almost triggered a Russian first strike) had turned Reagan against the concept of winnable nuclear war, and he began to see nuclear weapons as more of

12880-695: The contrary. Because of the invasion, at least fifty countries have provided some kind of military aid to Ukraine , including all member states of NATO . The Russian government has threatened retaliation against countries supplying military aid to Ukraine, and said it meant NATO was waging a "proxy war" against Russia. Senior Russian politicians—including president Putin, foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and United Russia party leader Dmitry Medvedev —have made statements widely seen as nuclear blackmail . They have implied that Russia may use nuclear weapons if certain "red lines" are crossed, such as helping Ukraine to strike back at mainland Russia. Officials from

13020-502: The depth and challenge of its combat. Majin Tensei: Blind Thinker is a strategy role-playing video game in which the player takes the role of a devil summoner. It is split into story and battle parts: in the former, the player makes choices that affect the direction of the story, such as choosing which of their companions to support, leading into separate routes with different endings. The battle parts are turn-based, and has

13160-681: The entire standoff, the Doomsday Clock , which is run by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to estimate how close the end of the world, or doomsday, is, with midnight being the apocalypse, stayed at a relatively stable seven minutes to midnight. This has been explained as being due to the brevity of the crisis since the clock monitored more long-term factors such as the leadership of countries, conflicts, wars, and political upheavals, as well as societies' reactions to said factors. The Bulletin of

13300-553: The fantasy of living through one's own death and more the death of cities, the destruction of humanity itself." A leading member of the 1960s antiwar movement, the singer-songwriter Bob Dylan evoked the topic of World War III thrice in his LP The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan , in " Masters of War ", " Talkin' World War III Blues ", and " A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall ". Philip K. Dick 's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), adapted to film in 1982 as Blade Runner , features as its setting an Earth having been damaged greatly by

13440-516: The film. Also released in 1959 was On the Beach , directed by Stanley Kramer and starring Ava Gardner , Gregory Peck and Fred Astaire . Based on the eponymous novel by Nevil Shute , the film deals with the citizens of Australia as they await radioactive fallout from a catastrophic nuclear war in the Northern Hemisphere . The French author Stefan Wul 's 1957 novel Niourk provided

13580-566: The graphic nature of the film. The Day After became a political event in itself and was shown in over 40 countries. The shocking and disturbing content discouraged advertisers, but the film had the largest audience for a made-for-TV movie, a record that still stands as of 2008, and influenced the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty negotiations in 1986. The 1982 NBC miniseries World War III , directed by David Greene , received little critical attention. In

13720-558: The height of the Sino-Soviet split in 1969. The most serious of these border clashes, which brought the world's two largest communist states to the brink of war, occurred in March 1969 in the vicinity of Zhenbao (Damansky) Island on the Ussuri (Wusuli) River , near Manchuria . The conflict resulted in a ceasefire, with a return to the status quo. Critics point out that the Chinese attack on Zhenbao

13860-464: The host nation forces. As of 2005, 180 tactical B61 nuclear bombs of the 480 US nuclear weapons believed to be deployed in Europe fall under the nuclear sharing arrangement. The weapons are stored within a vault in hardened aircraft shelters , using the USAF WS3 Weapon Storage and Security System . The delivery warplanes used are F-16 Fighting Falcons and Panavia Tornados . With

14000-707: The idea of atomic power and destruction. During the 1960s, ideas about mutant creatures created through accidents in atomic weapons testing became a prevalent focus of popular comic books, such as Marvel Comics . Marvels Tales of Suspense #8, written in 1960 , introduced a story in which an enemy known as "The Reds" inadvertently created a large, mutated creature resembling an octopus due to an incident involving testing nuclear weapons. Similar themes erupted within Marvel Comics of mutated creatures terrorizing society, created by illegal or top-secret nuclear weapons tests. In another comic, Strange Tales #73 , an ant becomes

14140-474: The initiation of the Cold War arms race in the 1950s, an apocalyptic war between the United States and the Soviet Union became a real possibility. During the Cold War era (1947–1991), several military events have been described as having come close to potentially triggering World War   III. Even after the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, some incidents afterward have been described as close calls as well. The Korean War

14280-552: The issue of World War III with the implications of super-powered beings as metaphors for nuclear weapons or using it as character motivation. Marvel Comics gathered many of their Russian super-hero and villain characters into a new group, called "The Soviet Super-Soldiers" which answered directly to the Soviet Government. Uncanny X-Men #150 featured the villain Magneto justifying a takeover bid by stating that if he did not take over

14420-461: The largest peacetime naval operation up to that time, Exercise Strikeback was characterized by military analyst Hanson W. Baldwin of The New York Times as "constituting the strongest striking fleet assembled since World War   II". Exercise Reforger (from the RE turn of FOR ces to GER many) was an annual exercise conducted during the Cold War by NATO . While US troops could be easily flown across

14560-583: The late 1940s. Co-operation between the United Kingdom and Ireland would be formed in the event of WWIII, where they would share weather data, control aids to navigation, and coordinate the Wartime Broadcasting Service that would occur after a nuclear attack. Operation Sandstone in Ireland was a top-secret British-Irish military operation. The armed forces from both states began a coastal survey of Britain and Ireland cooperating from 1948 to 1955. This

14700-509: The missile to an uninhabited desert, the missile still causes mass chaos in the United States due to the electromagnetic pulse and nuclear winter , but without the mass murdering side-effects of radiation. Batman restores order in Gotham City , causing it to become the most stable city in America and embarrassing the US government. In Batman: The Killing Joke , during his "One Bad Day" speech,

14840-474: The moon , and is likelier to succeed the closer the current phase is to a new moon . Once recruited, demons can be summoned by the player to fight alongside them in battle, in exchange for money and magnetite acquired through defeating enemies. The player can fuse several allied demons into a single more powerful demon to build up a stronger party; different combinations of demons yield different results, which have their own strengths and weaknesses. Blind Thinker

14980-460: The most appropriate strategies. War games were utilized for World War I and World War II. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was concerned that, with the enormous size of Soviet Red Army forces deployed in Central and Eastern Europe at the end of World War II and the unreliability of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin , there was a serious threat to Western Europe . In April–May 1945,

15120-448: The need for restraint by both sides. Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, various military conflicts, most notably the Russian invasion of Ukraine ongoing since 2022, as well as rising geopolitical tensions between the United States and China , have been perceived as potential flashpoints or triggers for a third world war. Time magazine was an early adopter, if not originator, of

15260-409: The player command several units to fulfill the victory conditions for each chapter; the player loses if the protagonist or a friendly human character falls in battle. Aside from moving units, attacking adjacent enemy units, and casting supportive or offensive magic, the player can start negotiations with enemy demon units to attempt to recruit them to their side. Negotiation is affected by the phase of

15400-456: The potential dangers of nuclear defense publicly. Dr. Strangelove is a black comedy by Stanley Kubrick about the nuclear arms race between the US and the Soviets and the doctrine of mutually assured-destruction. After a bizarre mental breakdown, the C.O. of a SAC base orders the B-52 wing operating from his base to attack the Soviets. The title character, Dr. Strangelove, is a parody of

15540-495: The program, a Soviet Spetznaz (Special Forces) raid into Alaska to destroy the Alaska oil pipeline escalates to a full-scale war. The miniseries ends abruptly with the president releasing US nuclear forces against the Soviets. The film ends moments before the world is annihilated with nuclear weapons. Some other stories about the destruction of the world showed the possibility of the world's rebirth following global destruction. In

15680-529: The quick succession of the Soviet Union's nuclear bomb test, the Chinese Communist takeover in 1949, and the beginning of the Korean War in 1950. Pundits named the era "the age of anxiety," after W. H. Auden . In 1951, an entire issue of Collier's magazine was devoted to a fictional account of World War III; the issue was entitled " Preview of the War We Do Not Want ", in which war begins when

15820-470: The radar signature of the launch of a Trident SLBM missile. In response, Russian President Boris Yeltsin was summoned and the Cheget nuclear briefcase was activated for the first and only time. However, the high command was soon able to determine that the rocket was not entering Russian airspace, and promptly aborted plans for combat readiness and retaliation. It was retrospectively determined that, while

15960-471: The radio, but he followed Jackson's orders to encircle the airfield instead and later said in an interview that even without Jackson's intervention he would have refused to follow Clark's order. On 24 November 2015, at the border between Turkey and Syria, the Turkish Air Force shot down a Russian Sukhoi attack aircraft. The Turks claimed that the aircraft violated Turkish airspace , a claim denied by

16100-565: The radioactive fallout of a nuclear war called "World War Terminus." The 1961 Toho film The Last War showcases the effects of a global nuclear war from the perspective of Japan. In 1964, three films about the threat of accidental nuclear war were released: Dr. Strangelove , Fail-Safe , and Seven Days in May . Their negative portrayal of nuclear defence prompted the US Air Force to sponsor films such as A Gathering of Eagles to address

16240-424: The risk of a nuclear apocalypse causing widespread destruction and the potential collapse of civilization or extinction of humanity has become a common theme in speculation and fiction about World War III. With the advent of the Cold War (1947–1991) and spread of nuclear weapons to the Soviet Union , which was followed by their acquisition by several other countries , the risk of a third world war rose. During

16380-587: The rocket scientists had informed thirty states including Russia about the test launch, the information had not reached Russian radar technicians. On 12 June 1999, the day following the end of the Kosovo War , some 250 Russian peacekeepers occupied the Pristina International Airport ahead of the arrival of NATO troops and were to secure the arrival of reinforcements by air. American NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Wesley Clark ordered

16520-443: The seeds of World War III." Time continued to entitle with or mention in stories the term "World War   III" for the rest of the decade and onwards: 1944, 1945, 1946 ("bacterial warfare"), 1947, and 1948. Time persists in using this term, for example, in a 2015 book review entitled "This Is What World War III Will Look Like". Military strategists have used war games to prepare for various war scenarios and to determine

16660-535: The state of Soviet preparation for retaliation ceased upon completion of the Able Archer exercises. The Norwegian rocket incident was the first World War   III close call to occur after the Cold War had ended. This incident occurred when Russia's Olenegorsk early warning station accidentally mistook the radar signature from a Black Brant XII research rocket (being jointly launched by Norwegian and US scientists from Andøya Rocket Range ), as appearing to be

16800-560: The story of a young woman who accidentally triggers a nuclear holocaust by releasing balloons. The music video for "Sleeping with the Enemy" had images of the Red Army parading in Red Square , American high school marching bands, and a mushroom cloud . The 1984 hit " Two Tribes " by Frankie Goes to Hollywood had actors resembling Konstantin Chernenko and Ronald Reagan fighting each other amidst

16940-405: The story simultaneously fresh and nostalgic, appreciated how the many scenarios gives the game a high replay value ; and Den Fami Nico Gamer liked it for its "unique" setting and rich story. World War III in popular culture World War III , sometimes abbreviated to WWIII, is a common theme in popular culture . Since the 1940s, countless books, films, and television programmes have used

17080-454: The system would allow the US to launch a massive first strike on the Soviet Union without any fear of retaliation. The SDI concept was to use ground-based and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles . The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic offense doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD). The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO)

17220-576: The technological certainty of nuclear war but did not have faith in nuclear defence. Tensions came to a head with the NATO exercise Able Archer 83 , which, combined with other events like President Reagan's " Evil Empire " speech and the deployment of the Pershing II missile in Western Europe, as well as the erroneous Soviet shoot-down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 , had the Soviets frantically convinced that

17360-565: The term "World War   III". The first usage appears in its 3 November 1941 issue (preceding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941) under its "National Affairs" section and entitled "World War   III?" about Nazi refugee Hermann Rauschning , who had just arrived in the United States. In its 22 March 1943, issue under its "Foreign News" section, Time reused the same title "World War   III?" about statements by then- US Vice President Henry A. Wallace : "We shall decide sometime in 1943 or 1944   ... whether to plant

17500-438: The theme of nuclear weapons and a third global war. The presence of the Soviet Union as an international rival armed with nuclear weapons created persistent fears in the United States and vice versa of a nuclear World War III, and popular culture at the time reflected those fears. The theme was also a way of exploring a range of issues beyond nuclear war in the arts. U.S. historian Spencer R. Weart called nuclear weapons

17640-632: The tide by allowing the Soviets air and naval supremacy in the Atlantic Ocean . It ends with the reopening of the Atlantic after the liberation of Iceland and the Soviet Army overthrowing the Politburo before it can resort to the use of nuclear weapons . Soon after the Cold War ended, techno-thriller novels changed from stories about fighting the Soviet Union to narratives about fighting terrorists. When

17780-649: The time of their original release. The game was followed by the sequel Majin Tensei: Blind Thinker II on March 24, 2008. Blind Thinker was a success, and was well received by critics and players; GA Graphic  [ ja ] described it as eagerly awaited for its continuation of the Majin Tensei setting, and Den Fami Nico Gamer  [ ja ] described it as popular with players, who appreciated it for its strategic battles and dark setting. Critics enjoyed its gameplay: Famitsu called it

17920-513: The use of force against the Russians. Mike Jackson , a British Army general who contacted the Russians during the incident, refused to enforce Clark's orders, famously telling him "I'm not going to start the Third World War for you". Captain James Blunt, the lead officer at the front of the NATO column in the direct armed stand-off against the Russians, received the "Destroy!" orders from Clark over

18060-410: The use of such powerful weapons and warned the American people about what harms can come from such a destructive nuclear power. On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, codenamed " Joe 1 ". Its design imitated the American plutonium bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. American fears of an impending apocalyptic World War III with the communist bloc were strengthened by

18200-473: The use of their nuclear weapons. Exercise Able Archer was an annual exercise by the U.S. European Command that practiced command and control procedures, with emphasis on the transition from solely conventional operations to chemical, nuclear, and conventional operations during a time of war. "Able Archer 83" was a five-day North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) command post exercise starting on 7 November 1983, that spanned Western Europe , centered on

18340-533: The wheat harvest in Ukraine . World War III subsequently begins unexpectedly, with a surprise Soviet and Cuban invasion of the United States, with large portions of the country falling under Soviet occupation. The central United States and China are obliterated with nuclear weapons and Europe remains neutral. A small band of teenagers fight the occupation forces in Colorado using guerrilla tactics, and are ultimately killed by

18480-447: The world a desert, has an all-out Soviet-American war in " The Apocalypse War ". This climaxes with Dredd obliterating the enemy with a nuclear strike, which slaughters "half a billion human beings" and is presented as both necessary to win such a war and morally appalling. Japan's Akira and Ghost in the Shell both start with World War III as part of their backstory, with Japan becoming

18620-400: The world then and there, that mutantkind would be destroyed along with mankind in the event of a nuclear war. DC Comics' Batman: The Dark Knight Returns ends with World War III erupting over the issue of a military arms race over a small Latin American country, with the Soviet Union launching a specially designed intercontinental ballistic missile at the island. Although Superman deflects

18760-481: Was a political-military confrontation between the armed forces of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. at Checkpoint Charlie with both several American and Soviet/East German tanks and troops at the stand-off at each other only 100 yards on either side of the checkpoint. The reason behind the confrontation was the occupational status of the German capital city, Berlin , and of post–World War II Germany . The Berlin Crisis started when

18900-519: Was a request from the United States to identify suitable landing grounds for the US in the event of a successful Soviet invasion. By 1953, the co-operation agreed upon sharing information on wartime weather and the evacuation of civilian refugees from Britain to Ireland. Ireland's Operation Sandstone ended in 1966. In January 1950, the North Atlantic Council approved NATO 's military strategy of containment . NATO military planning took on

19040-576: Was a war between two coalitions fighting for control over the Korean Peninsula : a communist coalition including North Korea , the People's Republic of China, and the Soviet Union , and a capitalist coalition including South Korea , the United States and the United Nations Command . Many then believed that the conflict was likely to soon escalate into a full-scale war between the three countries,

19180-432: Was estimated that NATO would fire nuclear weapons behind the advancing Soviet lines to cut off their supply lines and thus blunt their advance. While this plan assumed that NATO would use nuclear weapons to push back any Warsaw Pact invasion, it did not include nuclear strikes on France or the United Kingdom. Newspapers speculated when this plan was declassified, that France and the UK were not to be hit to get them to withhold

19320-584: Was made to use the Moscow–Washington hotline to clarify the situation with the USSR and it was not until early-warning radar systems confirmed no such launch had taken place that NORAD realized that a computer system test had caused the display errors. A senator inside the NORAD facility at the time described an atmosphere of absolute panic. A GAO investigation led to the construction of an off-site test facility to prevent similar mistakes. A false alarm occurred on

19460-554: Was set up in 1984 within the United States Department of Defense to oversee the Strategic Defense Initiative. NATO operational plans for a Third World War have involved NATO allies who do not have their nuclear weapons, using nuclear weapons supplied by the United States as part of a general NATO war plan, under the direction of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander . Of the three nuclear powers in NATO (France,

19600-417: Was to deter any potential future Soviet invasions; that by killing some Soviets, China demonstrated that it could not be 'bullied'; and that Mao wanted to teach them 'a bitter lesson'. China's relations with the USSR remained sour after the conflict, despite the border talks, which began in 1969 and continued inconclusively for a decade. Domestically, the threat of war caused by the border clashes inaugurated

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