World War 3: How world came close to ARMAGEDDON five times

Many believed the conclusion of World War 2 would mark a change in international diplomacy and prevent future global conflicts. However, the story is far more complex and the fate of the world as we know it has hung in the balance on several occasions. Below, Express.co.uk has outlined the five key flash points when war of such magnitude was only narrowly avoided.

Korean War 1950 – 1953 

This arguably was World War 3 and occurred after Korea was split into two sovereign states in 1948.

A socialist state was established in the north under the communist leadership of Kim Il-sung and a capitalist state in the south under the anti-communist leadership of Syngman Rhee. 

The conflict escalated into warfare when North Korean military (KPA) forces – supported by the Soviet Union and China – crossed the border and advanced into South Korea on June 25, 1950.

As a result, the United Nations dispatched forces to Korea to repel a North Korean invasion, but after the first two months of fighting were on the brink of defeat.

These setbacks prompted US General MacArthur to consider using nuclear weapons against the Chinese or North Korean interiors, with the intention that radioactive fallout zones would interrupt the Chinese supply chains.

However, the fighting ended on July 27, 1953, when the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed. 

The agreement created the Korean Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) to separate North and South Korea, however, no peace treaty was ever signed, so the countries are still technically at war despite their 2018 breakthrough.

Cuban Missile Crisis 1962

Probably the best-known event of the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis was a 13-day-long confrontation between the US and the USSR following the discovery of Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba, just 90 miles from US shores.

During a secret meeting between Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, the pair agreed to construct a number of missile launch facilities on the Caribbean island following the failed US Bay of Pigs invasion.

On October 16, A US Air Force U-2 spy plane produced clear photographic evidence of medium-range (SS-4) and intermediate-range (R-14) ballistic missile facilities.

The US established a naval blockade on October 22 to prevent further resources from reaching Cuba and the White House announced it would not permit offensive weapons to be delivered.

After several days of tense negotiations, an agreement was reached between US President John F. Kennedy and Khrushchev. 

The Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union, subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for a US public declaration and agreement to avoid invading Cuba again. 

Yom Kippur War 1973 

Again, some have argued this was actually World War 3, despite the war only going on for three weeks.

The conflict was between a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria against Israel and began when the Arab coalition launched a surprise attack on Israeli positions on Yon Kippur – the holiest day in Judaism.

Both the US and the Soviet Union initiated massive resupply efforts to their respective allies during the war, and this led to a near-confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers.

On October 22, a United Nations-backed ceasefire unravelled, with each side blaming the other for the breach. 

By the next day, the Israelis had improved their positions considerably and completed their encirclement of Egypt’s Third Army and the city of Suez. 

This development led to further tensions between the US and the Soviet Union, and a second ceasefire was imposed cooperatively on October 25 to end the war.

Able Archer 1983

Historians such as Thomas Blanton, Director of the National Security Archive, and Tom Nichols, a professor at the Naval War College, have argued that Able Archer 83 was one of the times when the world has come closest to nuclear war.

Able Archer was the codename for a military operation carried out in November 1983 by NATO.

While it was simply a communications test, paranoid Soviet agents believed this was exactly how the US would mask a real attack.

The operation introduced several new elements not seen in previous years and also simulated a move through all alert phases, from DEFCON 5 to DEFCON 1, which KGB agents wrongly assumed to be a real move into the highest nuclear threat.

The Soviet politburo believed their only chance of surviving a NATO strike was to preempt it, and so readied its nuclear arsenal. 

The CIA reported activity in the Baltic Military District and in Czechoslovakia, and it determined that nuclear-capable aircraft in Poland and East Germany were placed “on high alert status with readying of nuclear strike forces”.

However, East German spy Rainer Rupp, also known under the code name Mosel and later Topaz, worked in the NATO headquarters in Brussels and claims he helped avert nuclear war by transmitting the message that NATO was not preparing to launch to the USSR.

Days later, on November 11, 1983, Soviet fears were eased as they learned the exercise had finished thanks to double agent Oleg Gordievsky.

9/11 attacks, 2001

On September 11, 2001, a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks were carried out by al-Qaeda against the US. 

Orchestrated by Osama Bin Laden, they killed almost 3,000 people and injured more than 6,000 others.

Four passenger planes were hijacked by 19 terrorists, with two of them crashed into the World Trade Centre, one into the Pentagon and the fourth landing in a field in Pennsylvania.

Mohamed Atta, one of the ringleaders said al-Qaeda initially planned to target nuclear installations rather than the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but decided against it, fearing things could “get out of control”.

The US responded to the attacks by launching the War on Terror and invaded Afghanistan with the support of the UK, Canada and Australia, alongside 40 other NATO members.

The war is still technically ongoing and has seen more than 70,000 terrorists killed and almost 40,000 civilians.