Averting World War III

Fascinating as the clairvoyance of Nostradamus, the French 16th Century author of Les Prophéties was, his acclaimed prognostications are not obligatory in 2024, to apprehend the material risks of WWIII, given serious geostrategic tensions between Western and Eastern superpowersand their respective proxies.

Leading western superpowers’ hegemony, is America; its allies notably the 32-nation military NATO alliance; Australia, Israel, Ukraine inter alia, united by philosophical claims to, albeit relatively inconsistent applications of, democratic ideals of freedom, liberty, justice, the rule of law, and uncontested security.

Ideologically, Western powers seek a secure and safe global order on their terms, concurrently safeguarding their national, geoeconomic, geopolitical, geostrategic interests, and proactively enforcing their will, oftentimes in concert, through robust military command of the air, land, sea and spatial domains.

According to Noam Chomsky (2011), “there’d never been a time in history when one power (United States) had such overwhelming control of the world, or such overwhelming security…the dominance of the UnitedStates had to be maintained.” Thirteen years on in 2024, Chomsky’s thesis, on American economic and military pre-eminence remains valid. The inference is a unipolar global order.

Counterbalancing that is Russia, the flagship of Eastern superpowers’ aspirational hegemony seekingto challenge the America’sglobal pre-eminence; with proxies characterised as the “axis of resistance.”Russia is a nuclear-superpower with veto-wielding UN Security Council (UNSC) powers like America. Russia’s growing economic and military influences in Africa, Eastern Europe, South America, and beyond are strikingly noticeable.

Russia’s axis of influence/resistance includes North-Korea, China, Belarus, Iran and Yemenetcetera. China, presents an interesting challenge forAmerica on three pivotal grounds. First, the country operates a one-party political model, which clashes with American libertarian ideals. Second, China operates a “hybrid” command and market-oriented economy which strikes American ideals of free markets and open-competition. Third, and crucially, China is an economic, military and nuclear superpower with veto-wielding UN Security Council powers.

Plus, China is widely perceived as a direct threat to the United States over strategic contestability regarding Taiwan, which China claims as ‘One-China’; industrial rivalry; China’s pragmatic relationship with Russia et al. A Pew Research Centre poll conducted in May 2024 for instance, established 42 per cent of Americans viewed China as an enemy of the U.S., which was an increase from 25 per cent in 2023. These perceptions, to a greater or lesser degree, invariably inform America’s hawkish foreign policies towards China. The inference of the axis of influence/resistance is,in philosophical terms, a multi-polar world where American economic and military pre-eminence is challenged on multiple domains.

Plainly, there is a virulent ideological clash between America’s, and its allies (the ‘allies’), de facto global pre-eminence and those of Russia, its influence/resistance axis (the “axis”) manifesting in genocidal wars and serious conflicts globally. The overriding concern is that these dangerous dynamics, heighten the serious risks of WWIII and sensible steps are necessary to mitigate those hazards. None of which will be easy nor pain-free because it impinges the ideologically neutral concept of just wars or legitimate wars, and the unimpeachable right to self-defence under international law:particularly article 51 of the 1945 UN Charter.

The immediate flash points are the Russia/Ukrainian war and Israeli/ Palestinian (Hamas) war and the striking ramifications, intersected so far, by the inability and/or unwillingness of the UNSC, to develop enduring modalities for peace in those regions. Consider the Russian/ Ukrainian war effective: February 24, 2022. This was a war of aggression by Russia on its western-neighbour defined by the latter’s leader, Vladimir Putin, as a “special military operation” with vaunted objectives of Ukraine’s ‘demilitarisation’ and ‘denazification.’

However, informed analytical assessment was Ukraine’s not so subtle moves to join NATO and the latter’s eastbound expansion, which Russia viewed, and views, as an unacceptable encroachment upon its geostrategic domain collides with Russia’s national interests.

That hypothesis further posits that much as America would not accommodate a Russian or axis military build-up in Cuba, or the United States’ geostrategic domain, along the lines of the 1962 Cuban nuclear missile crisis, Russia would not stand for it either! American and the NATO riposte has been sharp: Ukraine is a sovereign state, can join any alliance of its choosing, in its geostrategic, geo-national and geoeconomic interests in so far as it does not breach international law! Plus, Ukraine, in concert with allies will defend these objectives to the hilt, because Russia is the aggressor and that the war is, de facto, and de jure, just and legitimate. The logic coherence therein is impeccable.

However, those dynamics prompt fundamental questions. First, will the fact that since the commencement of the war, Finland and Sweden, which share north-eastern borders with Russia, joined NATO in 2023 and 2024 respectively; and America’srecent 10-year bilateral military pact with Ukraine, to Russia’s chagrin; increase or decrease the prospects of a longer virulent conflict?

Second, given the fact that America, and its allies, have endorsed Ukraine’s utilisation of highly sophisticated weapons like ATACMS long-range precision guided missiles and defence interceptors; supplied by allies, how likely is Russia to respond with tactical nuclear weapons?

Third, Russia and North Korea, are both nuclear superpowers, have strong economic and military links, and are brigaded in their disdain for America’s unipolar global hegemony; can their united military might overwhelm that of the Allies in the extant crisis? Finally, given these portentous dynamics, how can the imminent risks of WWIII be reversed and on what terms?

Addressing these points concurrently, NATO’s expansion to Finland and Sweden, plus, America’s10-year military pact with Ukraine certainly muddies the waters for any denouement and will, in all reasonable probability prolong of the war. Equally, the allies’ authorisation of Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory, is a significant escalation of the war and the intensity, proportionality or disproportionality, regional or international trajectory, and timing of Russia’s response remains a certain uncertainty.

And, whatever is Russia’s response, America and NATO will certainly react which, will inevitably bring the allies and the axis into direct conflict, a hypothesis which implicates de facto WWIII. Therefore, the case for effective diplomacy could not be stronger in the overriding interests of world peace. Afterall, nuclear war between superpowers is uncharted territory and it’seminently reasonable to assume devastating outcomes for humanity given significant advances in AI and weapons technology. Doing nothing or exerting the same old tedious containment strategies will not fly.

The Israeli versus Palestinian war is the other significant flashpoint in these virulent geostrategic dynamics which, given the colliding interests of the allies and the axis in the region, could herald the foundations for WWIII.

That specific war started on October 7,2023, when Hamas, the Palestinian political-and-military movement governing Gaza, attacked Israel, killing an estimated 1200 persons and abducting approximately 251 Israelis, with over 110 so far released.

The conflict is rooted in contested claims to agricultural rights, Israeli settler expansion and land grabs deemed illegal under international law. Thus far, 37,120 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces, over two million persons displaced thereinand a similar number facing starvation according to the UN.

Furthermore, an independent report to the UN Human Rights Council in June 2024, directly accuses Israel of crimes against humanity for torture, ‘extermination’ and “gender persecution targeting Palestinian men and boys”. The report also accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes and launching attacks against civilian populations and “murder or wilful killings.”

On December 29, 2024, South Africa launched a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), alleging that Israel had persistently committed genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza strip, violating the Genocide Convention. Israel countered, contending it was exercising a just war and anexistential right to self-defence.

On January 26, 2024, the ICJ ordered Israel to take all measures to halt any acts contrary to the 1948 Genocide Convention. Israel did not comply. The latter’s non-compliance prompted an additional request to the ICJ, which ordered, on March 28, 2024; new emergency measures ordering Israel to immediately ensure basic food supplies because Gazans face famine and starvation; and, a third order on May 24, 2024, ordering an immediate halt to Israel’s offensive in Rafah. Israel has failed to comply and advances with its military offensive in Gaza and Rafah.

What then is the point of a rules-based international order if the ICJ’s rulings can be flagrantly ignored? The short answer is precious little, where the interests of superpowers collide. Israel is a critical American ally in the Middle-East, receives $3.3 billion annually in U.S. military assistance; plus, extensive diplomatic cover at the UNSC.

American and Israeli interests are strategically brigaded in their objective of wiping out Hamas. On the flip side, Russia and Iran have robust bilateral economic and military ties ditto, sharing the axis of resistance objectives of a multipolar world without American pre-eminence. The ramifications of the latter dynamics are being felt on the Red Sea where Iran-backed-Yemeni-Houthi-forces are attacking Israeli-bound or Western flagged ships in solidarity with the Palestinian cause; itself prompting countervailing allied responses from American and UK air and sea forces.

The foregoing therefore illustrates the complexities of these two major conflicts, which could escalate the prospects of WWIII. Therefore, theimperative on U.S., Russia and China especially, to fashion out pragmatic modalities to de-escalate these ravaging tensions could not be greater. Afterall, effective diplomacy is not a destination, but an enduring processof incremental and, hopefully, positive, milestones.

Ojumu is the Principal Partner at Balliol Myers LP, a firm of legal practitioners and strategy consultants in Lagos, Nigeria, and the author of The Dynamic Intersections of Economics, Foreign Relations, Jurisprudence and National Development.

By ‘Femi D. Ojumu