History Main / WorldWarIII

** In "Quarantine", 80% of the world's population was wiped out in a nuclear war in 2043. The authorities of the time considered it a limited engagement as only six missiles were fired by each side.

** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E8TimeEnoughAtLast Time Enough at Last]]", a nuclear war breaks out. Henry Bemis [[SoleSurvivor survived]] as he was reading in the bank vault when the H-Bomb that destroyed his city was detonated.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E20Elegy Elegy]]", Professor Kurt Meyers tells Jeremy Wickwire that Earth was devastated by a nuclear war in 1985 and it has taken 200 years for humanity to rebuild.
** {{Played with}} in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E66Two Two]]". The man and woman appear to be American and Soviet soldiers respectively who are still alive five years after the war devastated the world but Rod Serling's opening narration leaves the time period vague, even stating that the story could have taken place two million years ago.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E127TheOldManInTheCave The Old Man in the Cave]]", a nuclear war devastated Earth in 1964. Millions of people were killed and [[PollutedWasteland the world is contaminated with radiation]].

* In the ''VideoGame/HeartsOfIronIV'' mod ''VideoGame/TheNewOrderLastDaysOfEurope'', this is explicitly [[spoiler:[[BigBad Heinrich Himmler]]'s end goal]]. Set in a timeline [[AlternateHistoryNaziVictory where the Axis won World War II]], the USA, Japan and Germany emerge as the three definitive superpowers of the world, only by the 1960s Germany to fracture entirely upon Adolf Hitler's death as four successors war for the throne to the Führer's seat. In particular, Heinrich Himmler was part of a contingent of Nazis the ''[[EvilerThanThou Nazis themselves]] [[EvenEvilHasStandards thought were too insane]]'' leading to the [[DystopiaJustifiesTheMeans almost-cartoonishly dystopic Burgundy hellstate]] to emerge in place of North Korea in this world. Ultimately, being something of a StoryBranching-type game, the game has multiple ways, or "fail states" as the devs call them, that will almost assuredly lead to thermonuclear war, all of them invariably leading to the onset of this trope. Aside from the great enemy being Fascists than Communists, it otherwise fulfills much of the general criteria as a traditional example, especially for the era the game starts in.

Some psychologists believe HumansAreWarriors and [[InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves naturally predisposed towards violence]]. For almost the entire twentieth century, it seemed like humanity was teetering on the brink of self-destruction: both UsefulNotes/{{World|WarI}} UsefulNotes/{{W|orldWarII}}ars, the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, and then the threat of terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and biological warfare... and all that ''after'' UsefulNotes/WorldWarI was going to be "TheWarToEndAllWars". Luckily for humanity, World War III has been in DevelopmentHell for more than half a century now -- and long may it stay there (indeed, it's not a sequel anyone is looking forward to, we hope). So it's probably only natural that the next great global conflict is a popular subject in SpeculativeFiction.

* Anime/FutureWar198X''Based loosely on ''Literature/TheThirdWorldWar'', it chronicles Japan's contributions (and consequences:[[spoiler:Tokyo takes a Nuke]]) to a [=NATO=]/Warsaw Pact was sometime in the 1980s

* The later games in the ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'' series are set against a massive global war between the Mishima Zaibatsu and G Corporation, which Jin Kazama instigates after taking control of the Zaibatsu. The war, in essence, is an evolution of the long-raging family feud within the Mishima family, with Kazuya Mishima, Jin's father, siding with G Corp, while Heihachi, the Mishima patriarch, fighting to regain control of the Zaibatsu. The characters in the series consist of those aligned with the Zaibatsu or G Corp, in addition to those caught in the middle.

[[folder:Visual Novel]]

* ''Series/DeadliestWarrior'' showed a highly likely 'what if scenario' of if North Korea and South Korea redeclare war in the episode US Rangers vs NKSOF. The allies of both nations would most likely assist them, causing this trope. United States of America, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, France, Great Britian, and South Korea vs China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. And these are only the most likely ones to join the war, more nations could join most likely.

** The Doctor had previously mentioned World Wars Five and Six (in the Ninth Doctor episode [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E3TheUnquietDead "The Unquiet Dead"]] and the Fourth Doctor serial [[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E6TheTalonsOfWengChiang "The Talons of Weng-Chiang"]], respectively), so clearly WWIII wasn't permanently averted in the Whoniverse.

Some psychologists believe HumansAreWarriors and [[InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves naturally predisposed towards violence]]. For almost the entire twentieth century, it seemed like humanity was teetering on the brink of self-destruction: both [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI World]] [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Wars]], the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, and then the threat of terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and biological warfare... and all that ''after'' UsefulNotes/WorldWarI was going to be "TheWarToEndAllWars". Luckily for humanity, World War III has been in DevelopmentHell for more than half a century now -- and long may it stay there (indeed, it's not a sequel anyone is looking forward to, we hope). So it's probably only natural that the next great global conflict is a popular subject in SpeculativeFiction.

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': What kind of Mushrooms did you think were in the Mushroom War? (Hint: Not [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs those shrooms, though you would be forgiven for thinking otherwise]].)

* The ''Manga/DeathNote'' tie in novel L: Change the World mentions that L's first solved case was that of the Winchester Bombings, the solving of which averted World War III. He solved it at 8 years old and met Watari shortly afterwards. The date is unclear, but is unarguably between 1987 and 1988.

** ''Film/{{Testament}}'' is another example from the same era. Unlike other examples, the film is set on the outskirts of a nuclear war, with the drama stemming from the influx of fallout and the collapse of outside society.

** ''Film/{{Threads}}'' is an interesting twist to the Soviets Started It scenario: the conflict kicks off when the USSR invades Iran in what was at the time an EvilVersusEvil scenario from the perspective of the US and NATO. Unwilling to lose access to Iranian oil supplies, and in keeping with the Truman Doctrine, the US intervenes (although most Americans at the time would have vastly preferred the Soviets to the Ayatollah Khomeini). The narrative is [[FogOfWar deliberately vague]] as to which side used nukes first (a Soviet base was destroyed by a US nuke and US carrier group in the Persian Gulf is destroyed by Soviet nuclear weapons), but the timing of the all-out attack in the wee hours of the morning Washington DC time (when the President will most likely be asleep and NATO response will be slowest) suggests that the Soviets launched their [=ICBMs=] first.
** ''Film/TheDayAfter'' is ambiguous on whether it is a The Soviets Started It scenario or not. This ambiguity was put in by Nicholas Meyer, the director and writer of the movie, on the belief that assigning blame to either side was pointless -- millions would be dead no matter who struck the first blow. This cost the movie a chance to be BackedByThePentagon, as the Air Force was fine with lending resources to film the movie only as long as it was made clear that the first strike was a Soviet strike.
** ''Film/{{Testament}}'' is another example from the same era.

** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' equated World War III with the Eugenics Wars, which supposedly took place during the 1990s. In ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', a RetCon moved the setting of World War III to sometime in the mid-21st century. Thus, the Eugenics Wars and World War III became separate conflicts, even though the Eugenics Wars apparently took place on a global scale. ''Series/StarTrekPicard'' and ''Series/StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds'' pushed the Eugenics Wars into at least the 2020s, essentially retconning the Eugenics Wars back into being the same conflict as World War III. They also established that they were spun off by the Second American Civil War.

->''"Trzecia wojna światowa trwa w naszych głowach,\\

Trzecia wojna światowa - każdy przeciw każdemu!\\
Stawaj w szeregu i nie pytaj czemu!"''[[labelnote:Click for translation]]\\
''"World War III lasts in our heads,\\
in our cities, on the streets, in our homes!\\
World War III - everyone against everyone!\\
Line up and don't ask why!"''[[/labelnote]]
-->-- "III wojna światowa" by Music/GrupaOperacyjna

Some psychologists believe HumansAreWarriors and [[InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves naturally predisposed towards violence]]. For almost the entire twentieth century it seemed like humanity was teetering on the brink of self-destruction: both [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI World]] [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Wars]], the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, and then the threat of terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and biological warfare - and all that ''after'' UsefulNotes/WorldWarI was going to be "TheWarToEndAllWars". Luckily for humanity, World War III has been in DevelopmentHell for more than half a century now - and long may it stay there (indeed, it's not a sequel anyone is looking forward to, we hope). So it's probably only natural that the next great global conflict is a popular subject in SpeculativeFiction.

[[WeaponOfMassDestruction Weapons of Mass Destruction]] are probably going to get used, [[NukeEm often recklessly]], causing massive casualties.[[note]]In fiction, anyway; in RealLife it's possible it might just be another very destructive conventional war, if it ever happens, due to the [[MutuallyAssuredDestruction sheer suicidal nature]] of the usage of nuclear weapons. Then again, if a conventional war is actually fought, escalation to nuclear war is quite likely.[[/note]] A commonly-used GallowsHumor joke is about this war's ''length''; somewhere around an hour. If the destruction gets too out of hand it might result in TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, causing an AfterTheEnd situation set on a ScavengerWorld. If not, the winner might set up a OneWorldOrder, in which our heroes fight against TheGovernment in a [[{{Dystopia}} dystopian]] CyberPunk type environment. Of course, it's entirely possible for the war to kill ''[[EverybodyDiesEnding everybody]]'', and have it center on the attendees to HumanitysWake. If the show was made before Christmas 1991, [[RedScare Communists]] are involved, [[FailedFutureForecast even if the war is supposedly set years after 1991.]] A more modern take on WWIII is that it begins somewhere in the Middle East; Israel, Iran, [[UsefulNotes/TheKashmirQuestion India and Pakistan]] may be involved. Other times, it involves a [[MakeTheBearAngryAgain resurgent Russia]] and more recently, North Korea. China also gets used when the work's creator isn't so worried about the [[BannedInChina consequences for that.]] Scenarios which have China, North Korea and/or Middle Eastern powers as the antagonists may actually involve [[RussiaIsWestern Russia joining the Western side]].

* Creator/BernardWolfe's 1952 novel ''Literature/{{Limbo}}'' has World War Three involving vast airfleets ranging across Europe and Africa, destroying cities with H-Bombs and radioactive dust. The protagonist deserts from the military hospital he's working at and returns years later to a rump United States inhabiting [[UndergroundCity underground cities]] in the centre of the country. Ironically, he returns right when another war is about to break out with what's left of the Communist bloc.

* In ''Ape and Essence'' by Aldous Huxley, the great powers, acting on the fatal motives of Progress and Nationalism, obliterated each other's civilizations with not only atomic bombs but {{Synthetic Plague}}s and plant diseases of all kinds. Some areas of the world, including New Zealand and Equatorial Africa, survived due to being too remote to be of any strategic importance; elsewhere, the increasingly mutated survivors refer to the catastrophe only as "the Thing."

* * Music/GrupaOperacyjna: "Trzecia Wojna Światowa", as the name implies. It is describes as a war to survive, a war on the streets and in homes, between everything and everyone. But when you look deeper into the song's lyrics, it actually describes a crappy everyday scenario.

* ''WebOriginal/TheInnocent'' is set during a war between [[KidsVersusAdults children and adults]] that turns into this and ends with the children winning and creating a [[Spoiler: TeenageWasteland]].

* A variant occurred in ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare2''. The BigBad orchestrated a fake US-sponsored terrorist attack on a Russian airport, which led to Russia declaring war on the U.S. and managing to invade the East Coast. Russia isn't the USSR at the time in the game, but it ''is'' controlled by Ultranationalists, who are essentially militant Soviet supporters. However tie in materials state that this was ''not'' WWIII proper, but simply the Russo-America War, it didn't involve enough countries to truly count as a World War.
** The events of the Modern Warfare 3 (appropriately enough) put World War III into overdrive, with Ultranationalist maverick Vladimir Makarov taking over Russia in a coup and proceeding to launch a full-scale invasion of Europe, made possible by simultaneous chemical attacks on all major European capitals carried out by his terrorist cronies. Interestingly, it never becomes a full-blown nuclear war, most likely because all sides know that crossing that line would effectively end the world. Makarov ''wanted'' to get control of Russia's nuclear arsenal from the President, but was unable to extract it from him before he was rescued.

* Patrick Tilley's ''The Amtrak Wars'' features the "War of a Thousands Suns". A thousand years in the past, a global nuclear war initiated by the U.S. and its allies against the Soviet Union devastates the world.

* ''Chieftains'' (Robert Forrest-Webb, 1982) is ''Team Yankee'' from the British perspective, focusing mainly on the adventures of a Chieftain tank crew near Hannover, though other characters include a US Abrams crew, an SAS stay-behind unit and a British colonel. The Soviets Start It. The author acknowledged that, like Team Yankee, it's inspired by Hackett's Third World War, but it does deviate from that book's plot [[spoiler:everyone dies in a nuclear strike on day 3 of the war; unlike Team Yankee, not one character is left standing by the end]].

* The 2015 novel ''Ghost Fleet'', features a Third World War with China starting it. The Chinese actually invade and occupy Hawaii at the start. It centers on different characters playing different roles in the war. From LaResistance in occupied Hawaii, to the conventional military, to hackers that have become cyber warriors. The title comes from the U.S. reactivated some of it's decommissioned naval ships it had mothballed, pitting them against the Chinese.

* Creator/BrianAldiss' ''Moreau's Other Island'' has a shipwrecked soldier surviving on an island where a Dr. Moreau copycat is repeating his experiments. World War III is in full with NATO and China fighting the USSR and its Middle Eastern allies.
* Creator/HBeamPiper's Terro-Human future stories presuppose that World War III destroyed civilization in the northern hemisphere in 1973. Few of the stories examine the war itself.

* The AlternateHistory novel ''Resurrection Day'' by Brendan [=DuBois=] had the Cuban missile crisis turn hot. The Soviet Union has been obliterated, while only a comparatively few nuclear detonations is enough to turn the United States into a third world country, dependent on aid from Britain and shunned by all other nations.
* Creator/AndreNorton's ''Sea Siege'' (1957) is set on a small island in the Caribbean. They survive World War III (between UsefulNotes/{{NATO}} and the UsefulNotes/WarsawPact) at about the midpoint of the story, but have only sketchy information from radio broadcasts about what happened (mainly a list of major cities around the world that had been nuked early on). They eventually help rescue the survivors of a Soviet submarine because by then, both sets of survivors have bigger problems than worrying about who was responsible for the war.

* Creator/AndreNorton's ''Star Ka'at'' has the titular race of alien beings, who have been living among us disguised as pet cats, leave Earth because they predict World War III is imminent; and they take two orphaned human children with them. This book (for young readers!) may induce FridgeHorror, because the children (the point of view characters) pay very little attention to talk of war on the radio, and leave their unhappy homes without much regret -- so the implied destruction of the human race is quite casually dismissed (the Ka'ats certainly don't care about us).
* Creator/EdgarPangborn's ''Still Persist in Wondering'' is set after a World War III, which lasted half an hour and (with the help of ThePlague) wiped out civilization.
* ''The Survivalist'' series by Creator/JerryAhern, set in a United States occupied by Soviet forces. The Soviets invade Pakistan, then when faced with a US ultimatum decide to launch a first strike attack.

* In Creator/WilliamProchnau's ''Trinity's Child'', features a limited nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States, with both sides trying to limit their strikes to each other's nuclear forces. A SuccessionCrisis in the U.S. sees an unknowingly illegitimate presidential successor trying to escalate the war, forcing the SAC Looking Glass plane to ram his to prevent a full scale, end-of-life-as-we-know-it exchange. Notably, the book takes into account the other nuclear states, with the Chinese striking Russia, India and Pakistan going at it, and the Isrealis nuking just about everyone else in the Middle East.

* The ''Wingman'' novels by Creator/MackMaloney mostly take place after WWIII. In this continuity, the U.S. has an impenetrable missile shield, so WWIII involves a massive air and ground war in Europe involving "one man knifing another in a foxhole, satellites dueling in space, and everything in between." The conflict is ended with a U.S. victory, after which the Vice President murders the President, becomes President, and shuts down the Star Wars system, allowing a disarming first strike.
* ''The Zone'' series of action novels by Creator/JamesRouch. After the initial conflict the war is (mostly) restricted by mutual agreement to an irradiated, chemical-poisoned strip of land across Western Europe to prevent escalation. This is politically and militarily convenient for the major powers - not so for the soldiers and refugees caught in The Zone itself.

* '''Nukes, or No Nukes:''' In many fictional accounts, nuclear weapons are not employed straight off for political reasons. Sometimes they're not used at all. This is based on NATO's assumptions about probable Warsaw Pact actions during the Cold War. However, actual Warsaw Pact plans put on display after the end of the ColdWar revealed that the Soviets were planning to open the war with a sizeable nuclear bombing campaign.

* ''ComicBook/WhenTheWindBlows'' features an elderly couple preparing for the war. They believe that it will be like UsefulNotes/WorldWarII (i.e. survivable). [[DownerEnding They are wrong.]] Also adapted for film and radio.

* ''WesternAnimation/WhenTheWindBlows'' is a faithful adaptation of the graphic novel about an elderly couple trying to survive [=WWIII=].

* ''ComicBook/BlakeAndMortimer: The Secret of The Swordfish'' starts off as a repeat of World War II: An Asian empire (the fictional Yellow Thibet, headed by Basam Damdu) launches a simultaneous raid on just about every world capital (and Pearl Harbor) including Washington and Moscow. Fortunately, the British have an ElaborateUndergroundBase from which they can launch nuclear powered superplanes (the titular swordfish), and as things get worse for Damdu [[TakingYouWithMe he decides to fire off all his nukes]] before an entire squadron of Swordfish blows them up before they can launch.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Chrononauts}}'', you can alter the time line so that the Cuban Missile Crisis went hot, destroying all civilization. A couple of cards actually require this as part of a secret win condition.

** In "Resurrection", humanity was wiped out in a biological war on July 24, 1997.
** In "Bits of Love", billions of people were killed in a nuclear war on November 3, 2046. Aidan Hunter managed to survive in a special bunker. He believes that he may be the [[SoleSurvivor last living person]].

** In "Final Appeal", a nuclear war, known as the War of 2059 or the New Holocaust, killed 80% of the world's population (6.8 million people).
** In "The Human Factor", everyone on Earth, with the exception of several high profile political figures and their families, is killed in the war between the Free Alliance and the Coalition of Middle Eastern and Pacific States on April 23, 2084.