Intimations of world war three – the big one, nuclear Armageddon – didn’t arise yesterday. But they got more urgent when Donald Trump was elected the second time. In December 2024, Newsweek published a map of the “safest US states to live during nuclear war”. The article was not reassuring. “Nowhere is truly ‘safe’” from such consequences as “contamination of food and water supplies and prolonged radiation exposure”, said the senior policy director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Another expert noted that “even a ‘small’ nuclear war would ... kill at least a billion people”.

And since 28 February, when the US and Israel began their bombardment of Iran, chatter about a world war has spiked, with everyone from anonymous social media users to Harvard policy wonks weighing in.

Speaking with the Norwegian political scientist Glenn Diesen this weekend, the Columbia University economist and public policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs ticked off the many current or potential theaters of war, from Ukraine to Cuba. “We are probably in the early days of World War III,” Sachs concluded.

After it was reported that Russia is providing Iran with intelligence on US military positions in the Middle East, CBS News asked the British and US historian Niall Ferguson if world war three was brewing. “I don’t think a World War III is likely,” he replied. But “it’s not a crazy question.”

China continues to raise its defense spending to try to catch up with the US. In response to Russia’s unrelenting aggression against Ukraine – and Trump’s ambitions for Greenland – Europe has turned increasingly hawkish on nukes. Last week, France and Britain sent “defensive” warships to the eastern Mediterranean; yesterday, Macron said he would send 10 more. Australia sent a reconnaissance and command aircraft to help protect the Gulf’s airspace. Axios named nine more........

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