World War III

World War III is the name given to a hypothetical world war between superpowers. A common idea is that it would be fought with weapons of mass destruction, which might result in the extermination or technological impoverishment of humanity.

Historical scenarios

Albert Einstein is reputed to have said, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

However, not all scenarios for World War III have begun with the use of nuclear weapons. Operation DROPSHOT, a declassified U.S. plan, written in 1947, assumed a long period of conventional war between NATO and the Soviet Union before any nuclear weapons would be employed by both sides. The standard NATO war planning scenario assumed a Soviet attack on West Germany, in which tactical nuclear weapons would be used only if NATO forces were losing. In most war games, NATO conventional forces faced extreme difficulty defending West Germany without nuclear weapons.

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War, an apocalyptic war between the United States and USSR was considered likely. The Cuban missile crisis is generally thought to be the historical point at which the risk of World War III was closest.

OPLAN (Operations Plan) 1000 was the standard U.S. military plan for the first hours or days of a national emergency such as World War III. Unclassified annexes included grounding all civil aircraft in the United States and controlling all navigation beacons. In the 1950s and 1960s, this included CONELRAD (Control of Electronic Radiation), in which all radio stations broadcasting in the U.S. would operate on low power on two frequencies.

Fictional treatments

The genre of post-apocalyptic science fiction often uses post-World War III scenarios. However, these stories were found only in Western science fiction publications; Soviet writers were discouraged from writing them.

Several notable movies have been made based on World War III, including the following:

The War Game, produced by Peter Watkins. Written in 1965, dealing with the fictional nuclear attack on Britain. This film won the Oscar for Best Documentary, but was withheld from broadcast by the BBC.
The Day After, a mini-series directed by Nicholas Meyer, shown on the ABC television network in 1983, portraying a nuclear strike on Kansas City, Missouri.
Threads, a movie shown on the BBC in 1984, dealing with the short-term and long-term consequences of a nuclear attack on the city of Sheffield, England.
Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a black comedy by Stanley Kubrick in which an American general Jack T. Ripper, concerned about fluoridation of drinking water, orders an attack on the Soviet Union. Peter Sellers plays several roles in this film, including the title character, a parody of Henry Kissinger.
Fail-Safe, based on the novel by Burdick and Wheeler, in which an American bomber group mistakenly receives orders to bomb Moscow.
War Games, a hacker almost causes a nuclear war by accident.

Notable novels dealing with World War III include:

Fail-Safe, as above
Alas, Babylon, by Pat Frank, dealt with the effects of a nuclear strike on the fictional town of Fort Repose, Florida.
The Third World War by Sir John Hackett, set in a 1980s war based on the NATO scenario. This same scenario was also used in Harold Coyle's novel, Team Yankee.