The threat of a third world war has never been higher, and
if you live in any of the places on our list we've got bad news for you because
your odds of surviving are slim.
Our first global hotspot for World War III is the Indian Pakistan
border.
These two nations have a longstanding sibling rivalry that
has seen the two nations go toward multiple times over the last seventy years.
The root of the conflict comes from the liberation of India
and Pakistan by Britain and the subsequent fallout over who owns what territory.
For the most part, the territory in question was Kashmir,
with the newly formed Pakistan fearful that local rulers would pledge their
allegiance to India.
Thus Pakistan initiated an offensive into Kashmir via tribal
militias to attempt to take the territory before local rulers joined India.
Since then India and Pakistan have fought four official wars
with numerous other smaller scale conflicts.
With Pakistan being frequently defeated by the far superior
Indian military, which in recent years has turned to the use of terrorism to
strike inside of India.
Officially, Pakistan doesn't support any form of terrorism.
Unofficially, Pakistan has been thoroughly tied to various
terrorist groups and militias by India, Britain, and the United States to name
a few countries.
Famously, it even helped arm and train terrorist fighters
during the US occupation of Afghanistan, even providing them with shelter
across their border where US troops couldn't pursue.
When US forces launched joint raids inside Pakistan against
terrorist strongholds, more often than not their targets were missing, having
been mysteriously forewarned of a pending raid.
On the 13th of December, 2001, Pakistan-backed terrorist
groups carried out an attack on the Indian Parliament, bringing the two to the
brink of war.
In 2008, Pakistan-backed terrorists once more carried out a
bombing and mass shooting campaign inside of India, and Pakistan mobilized its
forces in anticipation of a declaration of war by India.
Since then, the two sides have engaged in a series of border
skirmishes, with hostilities heating up in 2019-2021, leading to Indian air
strikes inside Pakistan, Pakistan shooting down an Indian plane, and artillery
and rifle fire being exchanged by both sides.
Now, the two sides are closer to all-out war than they've
been in decades, and it could be the last war either side wages.
Both nations possess nuclear weapons, with India having 160
vs Pakistan's 165.
India has a no first use policy, and will only use its
weapons in retaliation to a nuclear attack against itself or its forces.
Pakistan however does maintain a first strike policy, though
with the stipulation that it will only use nuclear weapons if it is unable to
repel an invasion or if it is attacked first with nuclear weapons.
While a full-blown exchange would be devastating, even a
partial exchange will still lead to millions of deaths thanks to the population
density of both nations.
So where are the worst places to be in case of a war? India’s
strategy for defeating Pakistan involves carrying out rapid, deep strike penetrations
into Pakistani territory.
The objective for India's armed forces is to penetrate so
deep, so quickly, that if Pakistan decided to use nuclear weapons, it would be
forced to do so on its own soil.
So anywhere along the Indian Pakistan border would be a
deathtrap for civilians.
Pakistan would receive the brunt of the nuclear strikes as
panic-ridden Pakistani commanders turn to nuclear weapons to try and repel
India's superior forces.
However, the moment nuclear weapons were used against Indian
forces, there's an extremely good chance that India will escalate the conflict
by launching its own nuclear attacks against Pakistani military targets,
including major military bases and installations.
It's unlikely this first wave of attacks would target
population centers as a way of attempting to prevent further escalation, and
rather be a tit-for-tat nuclear exchange.
The problem comes if Pakistan decides that it wishes to
further escalate by retaliating against these attacks, leaving it with only one
option: use its limited arsenal against Indian cities.
This will seal Pakistan's fate, as India's own arsenal wipes
out Pakistan's major population centers.
Thankfully both nations possess a very limited stockpile of
nuclear arms, and would likely not use all of them against each other in order
to leave some leftover for future deterrent.
However, even with an exchange of several dozen nuclear
weapons, hundreds of millions would still die from the initial explosions and
the subsequent societal collapse across the sub-continent in the weeks to
follow.
Massive radioactive plumes of fallout would drift with the
winds east and north, even penetrating into China and skyrocketing cancer cases
across southern and central China.
However, the effects of this war would be global.
If both sides engaged in a nuclear exchange, the resulting
smoke and debris would lingering the stratosphere for an estimated five years,
according to a 2019 study.
Global temperatures would drop by as much as 5 degrees
Celsius and cause a global precipitation loss of up to 30%.
This would trigger a mini Ice Age and make it very difficult
for food to be grown around the world, but especially in India, China,
Southeast Asia, Indonesia, tropical South America, and Africa.
Mass global starvation would follow and the earth's
population could be slashed nearly in half with most of the worst effects being
felt in less developed nations who'd be very poorly suited for weathering the
effects.
But even if the conflict remains conventional, living
anywhere in eastern Pakistan where most of the fighting would take place, would
be deadly.
Pakistan has no hope of threatening Indian cities with
conventional firepower, but Indian the other hand could easily overwhelm
Pakistani forces and drive the fighting into Pakistani cities.
As neither military has a heavy investment in smart weapons,
the fighting would mostly involve 'dumb', unguided munitions which would result
in extreme collateral damage.
While India would easily weather the fighting, Pakistan
would be internally devastated by picking yet another fight against its much
bigger neighbor.
For our next worst place to be in case of World War III,
we're remaining on the Indian sub-continent, but this time looking north.
China and India have as fraught relations as India and
Pakistan, and once more it all comes down to disputed borders.
Neither side acknowledges the other’s claims along the
Himalayas, nor has this resulted in a border stalemate that often turns
violent- though in much unexpected ways.
Originally border conflicts resulted in full-blown military
action by both sides, with one very brief war being fought between the two in
1962.
Since then, in an attempt to temper growing hostilities,
both sides eventually came toe sort of agreement- rifles and explosives would
not be used in any skirmish between the two side's border forces.
This has led to an interesting reversal back to the medieval
era, as Indian and Chinese troops arm themselves with all manner of improvised
clubs, maces, and even blunted spears.
The two sides have taken to frequently exchanging insults
and throwing rocks at one another.
However, recently violent incidents, including exchange of
gunfire, have grown more frequent, and a Sino-Indian war may be on the horizon.
The good news is such a conflict is unlikely to go nuclear,
but the bad news is that even if it remains a conventional one, both sides will
experience much suffering.
Initially, there would be little impact to civilians as most
of the fighting is done along the northern border.
In fact, the scale of the fighting would be relatively small
given the fact that the terrain is not suitable for heavy equipment, and
providing close air support at such high elevation is very problematic for both
sides.
However, India would almost certainly attempt to infiltrate
Chinese-occupied Tibet and initiate local uprising against Chinese troops.
The Tibetan people have been occupied by the Chinese since
1949, and despite a robust effort to destroy the Tibetan national identity,
many in the region resent the occupation.
Tibet would see brutal crackdowns by Chinese troops,
especially as they control all median the region and there is no way for the
world to hold them accountable like in Hong Kong, which has a large presence of
foreign media.
The real pain though would start when India uses its navy to
shut down Chinese trade in the South Pacific, crippling China economically.
Despite having a superior navy, China's navy is still not
well suited for carrying out operations far from its own shores, and there
would be little the country could do to prevent an Indian blockade of its trade
through the Indian ocean.
Ships could re-route to avoid the Indian navy further south,
but this will add time and dramatically increase shipping costs for vital
necessities such as petrochemicals from the Middle East.
China may be the worst place to be in case of a Sino-Indian
war, as while the conflicts unlikely to have high numbers of civilian
casualties, it will economically ravage China when it's most vulnerable due to
the pending retirement crisis the country faces.
With more old workers retiring than new workers replacing
them, the Chinese economy could take a massive nosedive, undoing decades of
hard work to become a global powerhouse.
There is however one place China could start World War III
and make the locals suffers greatly.
Taiwan- it is an independent island nation just off the
coast of China and has been severing since the Chinese nationalists fled from
the Communists at the end of World War II.
Today, the nation is an island fortress that's invested
heavily in its defense because of one simple fact: China wants it back, and it
wants it back very, very soon.
President Xi Jinping has made it clear that continued
Taiwanese independence is out of the question, and yet local polls show that
only a very small minority favor reunification with China.
This leaves President Xi with only one choice: reunification
by force and the Chinese navy has been preparing for just that role for over a
decade now, adding dozens of amphibious warfare vessels to its growing fleet.
Tiny Taiwan may look completely outmatched, but has massive
geographic advantages that would make an invasion extremely costly.
However, it also has the support of the most powerful nation
on earth: the United States of America, with President Biden reaffirming that
the US is committed to the defense of the island democracy.
This means that President Xi's ambition to reunify Taiwan by
force puts it on a collision course with America.
The worst place to be in case of a South Pacific World War
III would be Taiwan itself, as the island nation would inevitably be overrun
with Chinese troops.
However, the effort to neutralize the island would take
months, if not years, and the Chinese military would be forced into brutal
house-to-house fighting inside modern, high rise cities-a logistical nightmare
for any military.
China, which is not known for its restraint, is likely to
respond the same way Russia has in Ukraine: with indiscriminate bombing
campaigns meant to destroy urban defenders and demoralize the population.
Massive swathes of the island nation would be completely
destroyed by the fighting, resulting in the killing of thousands and the
displacement of hundreds of thousands who'd have no way of escaping the island.
There is the possibility that China would allow humanitarian
transport back to the mainland for Taiwanese refugees, but given China's
treatment of the Uighur people we could expect to see these refugees rounded up
and interred in prison camps for political indoctrination and retraining.
But if you live in Guam or near US bases in Japan and South
Korea, life would probably suck for you too.
That's thanks to the hundreds of missiles that China will
expend in an effort to destroy air and naval capabilities in the region.
With the world's largest rocket and missile forces, China
has hundreds of ballistic missiles all aimed at major US naval and air bases
across the Pacific- and most of these missiles have a very large error radius,
putting civilian targets near military assets at severe risk.
Once more though, living inside China is bound to suck for
you in case of a war in the Pacific, because the US Navy can and absolutely would
blockade Chinese trade, choking off 60% of its imports and most of its exports.
Financially starved, the Chinese economy would tank over the
coming months, with an expected GDP loss of up to 35% for the Chinese economy
over the long term versus 15% for the US.
This conflict likely wouldn't turn nuclear, but for our next
two conflicts the use of nuclear weapons is all but certain.
Next on our tour of the worst places to live in case of
World War III are the Baltic States: Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania.
All three are former Soviet republics, and all three are in
the cross hairs of Vladimir Putin, who wishes to restore the former glory of
the Soviet Union.
Putin's judgment is questionable given his handling of the
Russian invasion of Ukraine, but he's unlikely to declare all-out war against
NATO by invading the Baltic States.
Instead, analysts have warned for years that Putin could try
to undermine the alliance by making micro aggressive moves into the former
Soviet Republics, such as for example seizing one or two towns or villages
along the Russian border.
This would in essence dare NATO to declare all-out war over
what is in essence, an insignificant military incursion against an alliance
member.
However, NATO has made it clear that it is ready and willing
to fight for every single inch of NATO territory.
A war over the Baltics would turn very bad very quickly for
locals.
Russian forces vastly outnumber NATO forces in the region,
with the bastion of NATO power being located in Poland or further west.
Despite the creation of a rapid reaction force, and a very
rapid reaction force, no NATO member realistically expects for the Baltics to
be defensible against a full-scale Russian invasion.
This leaves Baltic citizens at the mercy of Russian
occupiers, and as we have seen time and again in Ukraine, this means vast
amounts of abuse and outright war crimes- especially as frustrated Russian
troops under perform against NATO forces.
Local populations would be subjected to great amounts of
unguided air strikes and artillery bombardments, with many of those actions
taken against civilian targets on purpose.
Rather than fighting a conventional conflict, the Russian
military would instead opt to terrorize the Baltic States into surrender and
rescinding their NATO membership before NATO forces can be massed in number for
a counter-attack and liberation.
It would take the United States weeks to move the majority
of its forces into Europe, and similar amount of time for European NATO forces
to gather together for significant action against Russian advances.
First, they would have to eliminate Kaliningrad to open a
corridor to the Baltics, and the Russian enclave is very well fortified.
Likewise trying to push through Ukraine would see NATO
forces mired down by fighting against Belarusian forces and their Russian
allies.
While a great deal of Belarusian forces would likely either
desert or outright switch sides when faced with the proposition of fighting
professional western military forces, it would still turn the march to liberate
the Baltics into a months-long affair.
This would leave Russian occupiers with a very long time
with which to terrorize the Baltic populations in an effort to force them into
submission to Russia.
Images coming from Ukraine- especially Buchan- of unarmed
Ukrainian civilians with their hands tied behind their back and shot in the
head hint at the fate of Baltic populations that refuse to accept Russian occupation-
as does the footage and photos of the aftermath of Russian bombardment of
civilian evacuation routes and food aid lines.
In short, Russia will commit war crimes on a daily basis
until the people of the Baltics agree to Russia's terms, and NATO forces may
not be able to move quickly enough to stop the civilian slaughter.
A fundamentally weak military power, Russian 'wins' by
terror campaigns.
But if NATO resolve held, the western members may refuse to
accept capitulation of the Baltics to Russia - no doubt led by puppet
presidents installed by the Kremlin itself.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has proven that the Russian
military is decaying from within, with hordes of poorly trained soldiers
operating equipment that's just as poorly maintained.
Despite years of propaganda good enough to fool western
analysts, it's clear for all that Russian forces are incapable of combined arms
warfare, and the West would give Russia master class lesson in proper modern
combat.
This leaves Russia with only one option to counter superior
NATO conventional power: nuclear weapons.
However, doing so would immediately prompt a response by
NATO nuclear members, driving further escalation up the nuclear ladder.
While Russia would likely first use tactical nuclear weapons
against NATO forces, it’s unlikely it would simply choose to absorb the
inevitable retaliatory strikes against its own military forces and
installations.
Putin for one does not seem like the type to simply accept
both a conventional and nuclear defeat, and the next round of strikes would
come against western cities.
In that case, being a citizen of any major western city
would be a bad idea.
Likely, the first major escalation would come from nuclear
strikes inside of Europe itself against industry and military targets, rather
than cities.
This means places like the Ruhr Valley in Germany would be
gone in a flash of nuclear fire.
Strikes against America would be very unlikely at this stage,
as Russia would try to not antagonize a nuclear response from the United States.
However, the United States is unlikely to simply accept
nuclear attacks on nations that are under its nuclear umbrella- or nations that
the US has sworn to defend against nuclear attack, considering strikes against
them equal to strikes against the US homeland.
This includes every NATO member as well as Japan, South
Korea, and Australia.
Strikes against these protected nations will initiate an
immediate nuclear response byte United States, and this makes living in any
major city in the west or Russia a very bad idea.
But even if the conflict didn't go nuclear, once again even
a conventional fight would spell death and destruction for a large number of
people.
As the Baltics are overrun and then occupied by Russian
troops, they would suffer doubly when NATO forces do break through and the
conventional war to retake the territories begins, with massive urban battles
between both sides.
NATO uses mostly precision weapons and has vast fleets of
recon assets, which would severely limit collateral damage, but any urban
fighting is going to cause massive loss of life and property.
Displaced populations would have nowhere to go either, as
the ocean hems them in on one side, Russia borders them on the other, and
Kaliningrad and Belarus threatens them from the south.
The only hope would be to escape to neutral Finland via
boat, but we've already seen in Ukraine how Russia honors civilian evacuation
corridors.
With significant Russian naval presence in St. Petersburg,
these ocean escape avenues would be unlikely to remain open for very long.
Poland is likely to see extensive fighting as well- at least
in the opening weeks of the war.
But Kaliningrad and Belarus would both be turned into
moonscapes after massive conventional fighting as NATO forces take on the bulk
of Russian and allied forces.
Kaliningrad is a Russian military stronghold and would have
to be almost leveled in order to fully neutralize it and allow NATO forces to
safely operate further north; meaning the fighting here would be especially
brutal.
Inside Belarus, it's all but inevitable that an uprising
would take place against the current president and Putin BFF, Lukashenko.
This would mire down pro-Russian Belarusian forces in a
local insurgency even as both they and Russian forces try to repel a NATO
advance.
If this scenario takes place after some kind of ceasefire or
settlement has been reached in the current war with Ukraine, NATO would
undoubtedly take the opportunity to encourage Ukraine to join the fighting by
helping liberate the country.
This would weaken Russian forces as they're forced to fight
on multiple fronts in the war, but would once more thrust Ukraine into
destructive fighting.
Confronted by a much more capable force though, Russian strikes
inside Ukraine would become more indiscriminate and increasingly desperate,
putting civilians once more at major risk.
While Eastern Europe turns into a wasteland, if you think
you're safe from a conventional war elsewhere in the world think again.
With Ukraine embroiled in fighting again and Russia unable
to export its wheat, the world would be thrown into a food crisis unlike any
it's faced since the Second World War.
Once again, the most vulnerable would be the less developed
nations, but even if you ‘reliving a comfortable life in sunny Los Angeles, you
could expect to see food prices skyrocketed many of your favorite treats
disappear after a few months of fighting.
Thanks to a current ban on Russian oil, it's unlikely that
oil prices would be too severely affected by the fighting, especially since
Russia can do little to threaten oil-important trade routes in the Middle East
and beyond.
However, the disruption of the entire eastern European
economy would throw the world into an economic tailspin, with effects felt
around the globe.
Americans, far from the fighting, wouldn't be entirely
immune to military action either.
The port of Los Angeles is one of the most important in the
world, with a significant amount of US trade coming through this one single
port.
This makes it a tempting target for Russian submarines, which
could carry out a devastating sneak attack against the port and its facilities.
With the use of long-range cruise missiles they could even
threaten important rail yards well inland, crippling US trade for weeks if not
months to come.
Even more devastating would be the sinking of numerous large
cargo vessels inside the port itself, requiring months of work to remove the
sunken hulks in order to reopen the port facilities.
Such an attack would likely be suicidal thanks to the US
Navy beefing up security in the Pacific, but not impossible and would cause
significant harm to the US economy.
Even in a conventional war, no place would be safe from
military Russian military aggression- especially given Russia's willingness to
target civilians.
Instead of attempting to approach heavily defended coastal
installations, Russian submarines could instead be let loose against large
civilian vessels such as cruise ships, all in an effort to wage a global terror
campaign with the aim of demoralizing populations against continuing to support
the war.
It's not inconceivable that the tactic would work either, as
the loss of a few cruise ships carrying hundreds, or even thousands, of
passengers- with many of them being American- would have many US citizens
questioning why they are risking their own lives and the lives of their
military for yet another European war.
Once the conflict turned nuclear though, as it undoubtedly
would, nowhere would be safe and the worst place to live in case of World War
III would be the earth.
Now go check out what would happen after World War Three, or
click this other video instead!