With less than six weeks left of 2024, the spectre of global conflict looms larger with each passing day as nations across multiple continents brace themselves for potential catastrophe.
The world finds itself increasingly polarised, the threads of diplomacy fraying under the weight of territorial disputes, rocket barrages, promises of retaliation – and the ever-present threat of a radioactive Armageddon.
In Eastern Europe, Ukraine’s audacious strikes deep into Russian territory with US and UK-supplied missiles this week were met with an alarming response when Vladimir Putin lowered the threshold for Moscow’s deployment of nuclear weapons.
East-West tensions are now at heights unseen since the Cold War, with NATO scrambling to scale up their military capacities and European governments instructing civilians to prepare for the unthinkable.
The Middle East is reeling amid the aftermath of Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel – a dastardly scheme that triggered an inferno of violence and has left tens of thousands dead in Gaza and Lebanon with no clear end in sight.
Hamas and Hezbollah’s chief backer Iran has further escalated the situation with missile and drone strikes against Israel, while analysts suspect Tehran is drawing dangerously close to developing nuclear weapons.
In the Indo-Pacific, China’s escalating aggression against Taiwan and the Philippines has stoked fears of an explosive clash in this strategically critical region.
Recent months have seen Beijing adopt an increasingly threatening posture with top US defence officials warning China could attempt an invasion of Taiwan well before the end of the decade.
All the while, Kim Jong Un stands by, his fist clenching the keys to North Korea’s burgeoning nuclear arsenal having completely severed ties with South Korea and sent troops to aid Putin in his war on Ukraine.
Here, MailOnline explores how these fault lines are deepening and assesses the potential for a spark in any one of the above theatres to push us over the edge into a new World War.
A Swedish artillery team fires a projectile from an Archer self-propelled Howitzer during the NATO ‘Exercise Lightning Strike’ on November 20, 2024
Russian army’s multiple rocket launcher Solntsepyok fires towards Ukrainian positions in the border area of Kursk region
Russia & Ukraine
The 1000th day of war in Ukraine brought with it a dramatic escalation in the conflict as Kyiv carried out its first-ever strike on Russian soil with US-made missiles.
A fiery explosion at a missile and artillery ammunition depot lit up the night sky around 3am on Tuesday morning in Karachev, around 75 miles from the Ukrainian border, after ATACMS rockets penetrated Russian air defences and rained down over Bryansk.
‘This is, of course, a signal that they want to escalate,’ Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said, while foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin said attempts by NATO countries to facilitate Ukrainian missile strikes deep inside Russia ‘would not go unpunished’.
Mere hours later, Vladimir Putin signed off on an updated version of the Kremlin’s nuclear doctrine that broadens the scope for Moscow to turn to its fearsome atomic arsenal in response to attacks on its territory.
Then on Wednesday, reports emerged that Ukraine had deployed UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles in a series of strikes in Kursk.
Russia’s amended nuclear doctrine, first announced in September, allows Putin’s strategic forces to deploy their devastating weapons if Russia or Belarus is threatened by a non-nuclear nation supported by a nuclear power.
Threats that could warrant a nuclear response from Russia’s leadership include an attack with conventional missiles, drones or other aircraft, according to the updated document.
Ukraine’s attacks in Bryansk and Kursk meet these criteria – and the Russian President has previously said he would consider Western nations ‘direct participants’ in the Ukraine war if their weapons were used by Ukraine to hit targets in Russia.
He also suggested he may provide Russian missiles to Western adversaries to strike Western targets abroad as a course of retaliation.
Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, said earlier this year: ‘If there were to be some kind of a massive launch – or several [Russian] missiles were launched – then it’s pretty much impossible to guarantee that everything will be intercepted’.
Russia boasts a fearsome nuclear arsenal with more atomic weapons than any other country.
It is said to have some 5,800 nuclear warheads, 1500 of which are operational and ready for deployment with Putin declaring in March that his nation was ready for the eventuality of a nuclear war ‘from a military-technical point of view’.
Meanwhile, countries in Europe are scrambling to prepare for a wider war with Russia.
Zelensky vowed his forces would ‘never surrender’ to Putin’s Russia
ATACMS – Army Tactical Missile – being fired from an M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System
A fiery explosion lit up the night sky around 77 miles from the nearest Ukrainian border at an ammunition store in Karachev, in Russia’s Bryansk region, on Tuesday
The German government has reportedly compiled a 1000-page plan entitled ‘Operation Deutschland’, under which Germany would host hundreds of thousands of troops from NATO countries and serve as a logistics hub for sending huge quantities of military equipment, food and medicine toward the front.
The German army is also instructing companies and civilians on how to protect key infrastructure and mobilise for national defence, envisaging a situation in which Russia expands drone flights, spying operations and sabotage attacks across Europe.
Germany’s preparation follows examples set by Nordic countries, where pamphlets and emails have already been sent to millions of homes with advice on seeking shelter, stockpiling supplies and rudimentary military training.
Finland reminded its citizens of their ‘national defence obligation’ and recently launched a new information website, while Sweden laid out a detailed guide on how to seek shelter and what to do in case of a nuclear attack.
Their instruction manuals follow similar advice issued by their Baltic neighbours Norway and Denmark, which both put out checklists for food and medicine supplies citizens should have ready.
NATO is also holding its largest-ever artillery exercise just 70 miles from the Russian border this week.
Finland, which joined the military alliance last year, is hosting up to 3,600 soldiers from 28 nations for the exercise known as Dynamic Front.
Live fire drills began on Sunday in the northern Lapland region, and are part of a series of exercises, with further ones planned in Estonia, Germany, Romania and Poland.
The British Army is using the opportunity to put its Archer 155-mm guns to the test, weapons which can release high explosive shells or GPS-guided munitions and hit targets 30 miles away.
October 2022 – the launch of a Russian nuclear capable Yars missile at Plesetsk cosmodrome
Russia boasts a fearsome nuclear arsenal with more atomic weapons than any other country (Pictured: the mushroom cloud from the Soviet Union’s Tsar Bomba – the largest nuclear weapon ever tested)
North Korea
There was a time not so long ago when it seemed as though the West could reconcile its differences with North Korea.
In 2018, Trump became the first US president to ever meet a North Korean leader, coming face to face with Kim Jong Un at a summit in Singapore in a landmark moment heralded by analysts as Washington recognising the so-called Hermit Kingdom as a legitimate state.
It triggered a major shift in bilateral relations as Pyongyang’s dynastic chief engaged in talks with US diplomats, laid the foundations for denuclearisation and appeared genuinely keen to repair relations with the West.
Trump and Kim met again in 2019 for a historic handshake in the demilitarised zone splitting the Korean peninsula – but weeks later their talks went off the rails.
Ever since, Kim has pursued a much more hawkish policy, seeking closer ties with the likes of Russia and China while ordering military scientists and his massive defence industry to embark on a campaign of rapid armament and nuclear expansion.
But relations between North and US-backed South Korea have plummeted in recent months as Kim flaunted his advancing nuclear and missile programme, which includes various nuclear-capable weapons to hit Seoul and intercontinental ballistic missiles that can potentially reach the US mainland.
Last month, the North amended its constitution to define South Korea as a ‘hostile’ state, months after Kim declared Seoul his country’s ‘principal enemy’.
The constitutional amendment came as North Korean troops blew up railroads and highways linking the two Koreas in a symbolic cutting of ties.
All the while, Pyongyang relationship with Moscow is growing ever stronger.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un aims a weapon as he visits the training base of the special operations armed force of North Korea’s army at an undisclosed location in North Korea
This undated picture released this month by North Korea shows the test launch of a Hwasongpho-18 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at an undisclosed location
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un attend a state reception in Pyongyang, North Korea June 19, 2024
Putin paid Kim a state visit over the summer and the result was a new mutual defence pact that states each nation must come to the other’s aid if either of their territories are threatened.
North Korea is believed to have sent hundreds of thousands of artillery shells and hundreds of missiles to Moscow for use on Ukraine.
And there are said to be more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers deploying to fight alongside Putin’s troops to push back the Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region, with Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence warning thousands more may follow.
Last week, Kim personally oversaw the testing of new kamikaze drones, watching on as they sent cars erupting into flames before ordering military and industrial chiefs to accelerate mass production of the weapons.
And in September, North Korea unveiled to the world the first-ever glimpse into a facility producing weapons-grade uranium for its ever-growing nuclear arsenal.
Kim also stressed the need to further augment the number of centrifuges to ‘exponentially increase the nuclear weapons for self-defence,’ a goal he has repeatedly stated in recent years.
North Korea needs greater defence and preemptive attack capabilities because ‘threats perpetrated by the US imperialists-led vassal forces have become more undisguised and crossed the red-line,’ North Korea’s state-run news agency said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, his daughter and an official watch what it says is an intercontinental ballistic missile launching from an undisclosed location in North Korea in December 2023
Kim Jong Un inspected the live artillery firing by graduates of O Jin U Artillery Academy but state media did not report when the exercise took place
Israel, Iran and the Middle East
Hamas’ ruthless October 7, 2023 attacks on Israeli civilians set in motion a series of events in the Middle East that has triggered multiple wars, seen tens of thousands of people massacred and left the entire region on the brink of disaster.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has doubled down on his vows to eradicate Hamas and dismantle Hezbollah while seeking to secure his premiership, surrounding himself with loyalists and hard-right, pro-war figures.
The death toll in Gaza is approaching 50,000 thanks to Israel’s incessant bombardment of the desolate Palestinian territory, while civilians across southern Lebanon and in the capital Beirut have been subjected to similar punishment as of late as the IDF seeks to cripple Hezbollah.
Israel has also traded intermittent missile and drone strikes with its ultimate enemy Iran – the chief backer of both Hamas and Hezbollah – raising the fear of an uncontrollable conflict.
Recent weeks have seen a pause in the exchanges with both sides signalling a willingness to hold back a potentially catastrophic escalation.
But Iran is believed to be pressing ahead with its nuclear programme and could be months away from developing nuclear weapons.
The Islamic Republic’s estimated stockpile of enriched uranium has reached more than 32 times the limit set in the 2015 nuclear deal, the UN nuclear watchdog warned in a report earlier this week.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that as of October 26, Iran has 182.3 kilograms (401.9 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60%, an increase of 17.6 kilograms (38.8 pounds) since the last report in August.
Uranium enriched at 60% purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
Iran had capped its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief and other key provisions as part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed in 2015, but kickstarted nuclearisation efforts anew after the US backed out of the deal under Donald Trump three years later.
In this picture released by the Iranian Defence Ministry on Thursday, May 25, 2023, Khorramshahr-4 missile is launched at an undisclosed location in Iran
Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel
The IAEA did confirm that Iran was starting to prepare to stop increasing its enriched stockpile of uranium amid discussions with investigators.
But Kasra Aarabi, Director of IRGC Research at United Against Nuclear Iran, told MailOnline: ‘In the past four years during the Biden presidency, the circle around the Ayatollah have started to openly discuss weaponisation as the regime has significantly increased its uranium enrichment to near weapons-grade levels.
‘Those who claim the regime would never use nuclear weapons are the same people who, for decades, claimed the regime in Iran would never directly attack Israel.
‘Make no mistake, if the regime in Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons this would constitute an existential threat not just to Israel, but also the West as a collective.’
Most analysts agree that Washington’s support for Israel is likely to increase next year after president-elect Donald Trump appointed several pro-Israeli figures to key positions in his transition cabinet.
But analysts are split over what such support might look like and whether Trump will give Israel free rein to continue its military offensives in Gaza and Lebanon – or push Netanyahu to bring the conflict to a swift, albeit potentially brutal, close.
Meanwhile, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian is not the anti-Western cleric his ill-fated predecessor Ebrahim Raisi was, and appears willing to renegotiate with Washington in search of sorely-needed sanctions relief.
Iran’s resolutely hardline Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei could well spoil those efforts, however.
A handout picture provided by the Iranian Army media office on January 19, 2024, shows the launch of a missile during a military drill at an undisclosed location in southern Iran
Iranian leader Ali Khamenei meets members of Assembly of Experts at Imam Khomeini Hosseiniyeh in Tehran, Iran, on November, 7 2024
China, Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific
The economic and military behemoth that is China is set on cementing its influence in the Indo-Pacific region – a term used to describe the area where the Indian and Pacific Oceans converge and the more than two dozen countries located there.
But nowhere is its increasingly aggressive defence posture more visible than in its behaviour towards Taiwan.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sees the self-governing island as a renegade province to be brought back under Beijing’s control – something the authoritarian president Xi Jinping has said he’s willing to do by force.
But Taiwan’s elected Democratic Progressive Party steadfastly argues it presides over a self-governing, democratic, capitalist society with overwhelming support from its people.
In October, China launched ‘total blockade’ drills around Taiwan in an open show of force after Taipei vowed to resist any attack.
The fresh round of war games saw Chinese military warships, planes and land vehicles encircle the island and its outlying territories as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) declared it was conducting ‘joint assaults’ to practise ‘patrols, blockades of key ports and areas, and assaults on maritime and ground targets’.
The PLA Eastern Theatre Command also said the drills were a ‘stern warning to the separatist acts of ‘Taiwan Independence forces’.
Former US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Philip Davidson predicted that an invasion of Taiwan by China could occur as early as 2027, while an analysis of emerging threats in the Indo-Pacific region by RUSI estimated the period 2027-2033 as ‘one of acute danger’ for Taipei.
A diagram released by the coast guard showed four fleets encircling Taiwan and moving in an anticlockwise direction around the island
Armed military vehicles patrol outside the Songshan Airport in Taipei after China deployed fighter jets and warships to encircle Taiwan on October 14, in drills Beijing said were aimed at sending a ‘stern warning’ to ‘separatist’ forces on the self-ruled island
Taiwan has remained defiant thus far.
‘In the face of enemy threats, all officers and soldiers of the country are in full readiness,’ its defence ministry said in October.
Taipei has long been allied with the US and has a bristling military arsenal equipped with state-of-the-art American air and sea defence systems, manned by highly trained troops.
But the island’s landmass and military might are simply dwarfed by the PLA, meaning the US would be forced to step in and protect the island should China launch an attack.
To that end, many analysts are calling on the US to dramatically scale up its military posture and deterrence in the Indo-Pacific in the hopes of discouraging Beijing.
In the meantime, Washington is seeking to strengthen relationships and military cooperation with several Indo-Pacific nations including Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Thailand and others to monitor China’s moves.
Beyond Taiwan, China’s Navy has come into increasingly frequent clashes with vessels from the Philippines in recent months amid disputes over several island territories in the South China Sea.
China asserts sovereignty over nearly all of the strategic waterway, including areas that have long been claimed by the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Brunei.
Chinese soldiers march with the national flag (C), flanked by the flags of the Communist Party of China (R) and the People’s Liberation Army (L) during a military parade at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on October 1, 2019
China’s military declared last year it is ‘ready to fight’ after completing three days of large-scale combat exercises around Taiwan
In a show of its nuclear capabilities, the Chinese military conducted a test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile in September.
Beijing had not launched a test of an ICBM at such a scale since 1980.
‘This is extremely unusual and likely the first time in decades that we’ve seen a test like this,’ said Ankit Panda, Stanton Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Despite the fact that Beijing has never disclosed the size of its nuclear arsenal, US intelligence said China had rapidly expanded its nuclear capability and possessed over 500 warheads as of May last year.
It has been estimated that the number will likely reach over 1,000 by 2030.
Changes to the numbers, capability and readiness of Chinese nuclear forces in the coming years were ‘likely to outpace’ potential developments by the nuclear forces of any rival, the Pentagon concluded in a report issued in October last year.
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