World War Three

World War Three (or World War III) was a major, international war lasting from April 6th 2018 to December 25th 2027 (9 years, 8 months and 19 days). The war had, compared to World War I and II, a significantly smaller amount of casualties. The total death count is estimated at around 10 million, of which 8,300,000 million military deaths, and 1,500,000 million civilian deaths (but over 50 million displaced by army activity and forced evacuation), mostly due to failed tactical nuclear strikes or conventional bombing. Because of this, World War Three is also known as the Gentlemen's War. The four main belligerents, NATO (and allies), Russia, China and India, mostly held to treaties with the purpose of limiting civilian deaths.

The war ended not in total victory for any belligerent, however, the NATO (later the NAPG) was able to make peace with equal or favorable terms. China made peace twice, both unfavorable. India

NATO (later NAPG) and allies
Main article: Allies (World War Three)

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), later the NAPG, and its allies were the main belligerent of the war. It also came out of the war the best (allthough some say India came out better). This alliance, also known as the Allies, or the Allied Powers. The alliance consisted officially of a number of smaller alliances, which included the Allied Coalition in Indochina (ACI, which consisted of NATO, Japan, Korea and ASEAN), the European Front Alliance (EFA, which consisted of NATO/NAPG, Turkey (secceded from NATO after the formation of the NAPG) and Finland), the Coalition Against Russian Annexation (CARA, which consisted of the NATO/NAPG, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Israel and Turkmenistan) and the General Allied Alliance (GAA, which consisted of the NATO/NAPG, Australia and New Zealand). Turkey also originally operated under the NATO banner, but secceded from the alliance in 2025 to pursue their own interests in Central Asia and the Middle East.

Russia
The Russian Federation was the second main belligerent of the war. It was the main opponent of the NATO. Russia's main allies were China and India. Before the war began Russia also tried to pull the African states and Brazil into its alliance. Most of Russia's power was concentrated in Central Asia and Western Russia. However, the alliance with China and India did not the last the entire war, Russia was the only power who remained to oppose the NAPG.

China
The People's Republic of China was another major belligerent in the war, allied with Russia and India. China's interests were especially concentrated in the Indochina region, while it did supply forces to support Russia in the Middle Eastern and Central Asian theater. It also had to deal with India, with which it warred after India abruptly terminated the alliance.

India
The Republic of India was the fourth main belligerent of the war, allied

Donbass theater (2018-2027)
Main article: Donbass theater

The Donbass theater was the main theater of the war, and it lasted from the beginning to the end. Most soldiers lost there lives in this theater. In Donbass, or Eatern Ukraine, the European Front Alliance and the General Allied Alliance, mostly consisting of an Eastern European coalition, fought against the Russians. It was in this theater that the first tactical nuclear strike was executed, on June 28th 2018. The theater saw almost no extremely large battles, but was mostly fought in hundreds of smaller battles with groups usually no larger than a thousand. These battles however did make the difference between victory and defeat. The largest and most important battle was the Battle of Luhansk, where Allied forces were able to capture the city and expel the Russians troops. The theater ended a month after the battle with a small offensive performed by the NATO on a town east of Luhansk, which was followed by a small tactical nuclear strike, which was the last of the war.

Indochinese theater (2019-2024)
Main article: Indochinese theater

Indochinese was the second theater of the war. In 2019 China annexed a number of countries in Indochina, but NATO and ASEAN (of which the target nations were all members) disputed these claims. What was known as the Allied Coalition in Indochina (ACI), which included large amounts of Japanese and Korean troops, fought a series of battles with Chinese and Indian forces. After India made peace with China (on who it was concentrating most) and the NAPG China could concentrate more on the ACI and was eventually able to consolidate its claims, with the last battle fought in October 2024, after which the ACI was disbanded. ASEAN, with material and monetary support from the United States, continued the war, being helped by local guerilla groups. These series of conflicts, known as the Indochinese Civil War, lasted until late in the 2030s.

Middle Eastern and Central Asian theater (2020-2026)
Main article: Middle Eastern and Central Asian theater

The Middle Eastern and Central-Asian theater was argueably the most complex theater. Fighting began shortly after Russia annexed a number of Central-Asian countries. The NATO saw this as a threat to the stability of the region and its interests in it, and launched an offensive from Afghanistan. However, a coalition of Russian, Chinese and Indian troops pushed back the NATO, which had to fall back further into Middle Eastern territory, greatly destablizing the region. A new wave of civil wars broke the region once more, and the Syrian ceasefire was ended as well. The tide changed in 2025, when Chinese forces retreated to China, giving the NATO the upper hand. It was then that Turkey secceded from the NATO and annexed a significant portion of the lands east of their nation. NATO at first threatened to take back the land, but eventually decided to let Turkey have it, not wanting to take military action against the former ally. Turkey stayed out any other conflicts.

Naming the belligerents in this theater is significantly more complex, as a large number of local militias and governments allied themselves with both sides, leading to a lot of infighting. The main belligerents however, were the Coalition Against Russian Annexation, which fought against Russia, India and China.

Pacific theater (2020-2022)
The Pacific theater was a relatively short-lived theater that consisted of a number of naval battles between mostly ACI and Chinese forces. It ended when the NATO abandoned its naval bases in Taiwan and other Southeast Asian countries and concentrated most of its force in northern Korea in what was known as the Chinese theater.

Indian-Chinese wars (2021-2024)
Main article: Second Sino-Indian War

The Indian-Chinese wars began when India abruptly terminated its alliance with China. It moved forces over the Chinese border and claimed a large amount of land, additional to the already existing border disputes. Russia was furious and organized the C(hina)I(ndia)R(ussia) Conference of Moscow in June 2021. However, the conference failed, and Indian and Chinese forces fought a number of small battles in the disputed territory. China however called back no forces from Northeast China or the Middle East and had a hard time keeping the Indian forces away. However the wars ended when in 2024 the two nations signed an agreement that resulted in a 5% increase of area for India.

(Northeast) Chinese/North Korean theater (or Invasion of China) (2022-2026)
Main article: Invasion of China

The Northeast Chinese/North Korean theater was another large theater fought in by the ACI and General Allied Alliance. In the beginning the offensive was held off by Chinese forces with relative ease, but this changed in 2023 when Korea and Japan formally declared war and sent a combined force of 300,000 soldiers over the border, which was than followed by a NATO force of 150,000. These forces fought one of the largest battles in World War Three, but were eventually pushed back. A true invasion was initiated in 2026 with Operation Red Sun, which saw the deployment of 520,000 ACI troops which reached Beijing, where the Battle of Beijing was fought, which was the largest battle of the entire war. After this invasion, in which Allied forces failed to take Beijing but take control of almost entire Northeast China, the NAPG ended the war with favorable terms, and ceased Northeast China back to China.

Indian theater (2023-2024)
Main article: Battle of Mumbai

The Indian theater was a minor theater initiated by Allied forces which sought to take Mumbai. It was mostly a naval theater, with the overwhelming majority of the battles being fought on sea, with the exception of the failed Battle of Mumbai, where Allied forces sought to land in Mumbai. The attack was completely repelled and over 50,000 Allied troops were captured, the biggest capture of Allied forces in one battle in the war. The battle also saw a large amount of civilian deaths, almost 80,000, accounting for 80% of India's civilian deaths. This was mostly caused by three tactical nuclear strikes, two performed by India and one by the NATO in an unevacuated residential district.

Ceasing of hostilities
World War III ended formally on December 25th, 2027, Christmas Day, with the Treaty of Cape Town, wherein the Western states (ruled de facto by the North Atlantic Provisional Government (NAPG)) on one side, and the Russians on the other side, agreed to make peace. Hostilities had already ended 20 days earlier, the last explosion, a tactical nuclear strike performed by the NAPG, was recorded on December 5th, near what was once the border between Ukraine and Russia. The terms of the treaty were favorable for the NAPG, and included damage payments by the Russians.

China had already made peace with the NAPG on October 3rd 2026, and with India on January 29th 2024 (after being allied between 2018 and 2021). India made peace with the NAPG on January 29th 2024, its peace with the NAPG also formally terminated the alliance with Russia. The terms between India and China were favorable for India, those between India and the NAPG were equal and those between the NAPG and China favorable for the NAPG.

Aftermath
The war had costed an immense amount of resources and had caused a great number of military deaths, however, compared to World War I and II, World War III was nothing. Casualty numbers were as follows (B means active belligerent):

The great resource cost and the continiously shifting fronts had forced the involved nations to expand their borders and demand formal control over what where originally allies. This especially happened with China and the NATO. When the NATO installed the Supreme Military Council of the North Atlantic (SMCNA), they started to act more as a state than as an alliance. The NATO seized control of almost the entirety of Europe and placed it under the NAPG, which at the end of the war controlled almost the entirety of the area orginally owned by NATO members and allies.

China also expanded control over Mongolia and Indochina. At the same time most of the Turkic countries (excepting Turkey, which remained independant, even from the NAPG) came under Russian control. India's borders remained more stable, as they were also less involved than China, Russia and the Western nations.

During the war Spain compelled most of the Spanish countries in South- and Mid-America to form the Spanish Union, which consisted of all the Spanish-American countries, including Mexico, and most of the non-US territories. The Spanish Union transformed into a seperate state after the war, its constitution was accepted on November 8th 2028.

Apart from simple loss of resources, millions of people had been driven from their homes, and reintegration proved difficult, most socially and financially. The Spanish and Middle Eastern states (which were still in turmoil) had to lend incredible amounts of money to rebuild areas destroyed by tactical nukes and clean radioactive material. The three main belligerents also lost enormous amounts of industrial buildings through bombing, which had to be rebuilt.

All this together, the housing need, the impending food shortage (because of all the displaced people, there were less people left to farm, especially in the damaged regions), the resource shortage, led to an extremely high demand for energy and materials. This led to a huge boom in sub-Saharan Africa, which had come out of the war mostly unscathed. Developments in anti-viral treatments, such as those against HIV (vaccine was launched in 2021), had proved to be the final turning point for the HIV/AIDS pandemic in 2025. By 2028, the amount of people affected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa had fallen to around 10 million, from the 50 million high in 2021.

This finally allowed sub-Saharan Africa to go into a period of rapid economic growth, Africa's GDP rose from 3 trillion USD at the beginning of the war to almost 20 trillion in 2030. Thousands of large factories were moved from East Asia to Africa, which led to an enormous increase in jobs. The African Union decided that by building a more united state, with a shared military force, they could have a louder voice. The African Union set in motion the Mokhasi African Association Plan (MAAP) in 2031, which led to the formation of the African Association, which was a loose confederacy of almost 80% of Africa's nations (some nations wished to be independant, but remained members of the original Union). The African Association had a single currency, African Sahrans.

The Middle East League was another new nation, this one formed after it was the battlefront of the Russian-NATO war during 2019-2022. Intervention and seizing of territory by these two belligerents led to the downfall of almost every government in the region, leading to almost total anarchy. Both Russia and the NATO then installed military provisional governments. After the two powers finished their business in the area in the latter half of 2022, the provisional governments kept control of the region until they merged into the Middle East League in 2020.