Third World War (A Mighty Endeavour)

The Third World War was a major geopolitical conflict from 2034 to 2038. It was fought between the Pacific-Atlantic Coalition, the Asian People's Pact, and later the Eurasian Defence Pact. The conflict caused the deaths of anywhere from 24 to 32 million people.

The conflict was preceded by the 2026 Asian Crash, which caused massive economic upheaval across the world. Chinese authorities struggled to maintain the Chinese economy, with off-sheet debt exploding as well as the Southern Chinese housing bubbles bursting. Investors and businesses began to flee from the country, with skyrocketing unemployment and the Chinese government's attempts and reducing unemployment discouraging economic investment. After this, the 5G Scandal occurred, in which the collapsing Huawei business was investigated by U.S authorities, revealing widespread attempts by Chinese authorities to spy on Chinese citizens in other nations, leaving the United States, Western European nations, as well as East Asian nations to either apply sanctions on China or discourage usage of Chinese products and exports. This raised tensions between the countries. In the meantime, Russian President Putin was finally deposed from power in 2028, where he was replaced with left-wing nationalist Gennedy Zyuganov in what was seen as an extraordinary election for the 83-year-old Communist Party leader. Zyuganov began to pursue a pro-Chinese foreign policy that put the Russian Federation into the newly-founded Asian People's Pact.

The war began following the Russian invasion of Georgia on the 28th of April 2034, which had recently joined the Pacific-Atlantic Coalition as its only Caucasian member. In turn, the PAC declared war on the AP, which brought every superpower into war. The general offensive brought Chinese forces into a naval war against Taiwan in which it fought a losing against the combined naval forces of the JMSDF, ROCN and USN. At the same time, Chinese forces began incursions through Kashmir into India, later violating the neutrality of Nepal and invading through the small nation on India's northern border. Meanwhile, Russian forces engaged in a war of attrition in Ukraine, with the Battle of Kiev securing Russian control of Ukraine. Montenegro and Serbia joined the AP in March 2035, following the Battle of Kiev, although Serbia was unable to mount any effective resistance due to US forces operating in conjunction with the Kosovar military until late 2035. Fighting continued through the Balkans, with Montenegro serving as the launching-point for the Russian Invasion of Albania that April and afterwards Bosnia & Herzegovina in May.

By December 2035 the Russian Air Force was engaging in routine bombings of Italy, Germany and Poland, severely damaging the Italian economy. The Russian Navy and Army cooperated in the Landings at Bari, which established a foothold on the opposite side of the Adriatic Sea by January 2036. Meanwhile, the Chinese continued to struggle in their campaign, with the only successes being the North Korean invasion of Seoul and subsequent occupation of South Korea in December 2034. Thus, Russian and Chinese forces attempted to cooperate in the invasion of Hokkaido and Honshu in July 2035, which is largely regarded as one of the biggest failures of the Russian Navy of the 21st Century. At the same time, in September 2035, Chinese forces were finally able to gain a foothold into Taiwan via Yunlin County, which turned the Taiwanese-Chinese battle into a land war of attrition that the Chinese would eventually lose. Observing such failures, Russian sentiment began to turn against the war and in particular their Chinese allies, culminating in President Zyuganov calling a snap election attempting to consolidate his power but instead putting President Putin back into power, and with three other members of the AP, left to form the Eurasian Defence Pact. The Putin Administration set about waging war in Western Asia, focusing on securing control of the Caucasus, an area which was increasingly plagued with civil riots and a powerful Turkish force. The Battle of Pyatigorsk, and the Battle of Tsagan Aman, ensured that the Russian would later sue for peace with its Western European adversaries.

As the war turned completely against China, it launched Operation Final Salvation in October 2036, a three-part attack that involved the invasion of neutral Vietnam, the Naval blockade of the Philippines, and the infamous Naval Invasion of Los Angeles, almost all of which resulted in humiliating failures and sacrificing the strength of the Chinese Navy completely. Increasing public instability at home continued to plague the country as the war economy was sent into complete recession, destroying any further chance of victory. Meanwhile, Russia had achieved a diplomatic victory in Europe, securing peace talks from German and Italian diplomats while its Western ventures busted, with the separate Russo-Turkish War to continue on for several years later. Following this, the People's Liberation Army invaded Siberia in March 2037, occupying the region and creating the People's Republic of Siberia, essentially a resource state for China. This put the Russian government on the defensive, forcing the EDP and PAC into cooperation. Pakistani-Indian forces repelled Chinese forces from Kashmir in June 2037, while Chinese forces were repelled from Vietnam that December. On the 25th of December, 2037, the Christmas Peace occurred in Sakhalin, where 25,000 Chinese soldiers deserted their posts along with 43,000 members of the JSDF, causing the largest mass defection in recent history and forcing the Chinese government to meet with both coalitions. By January 2038, most fighting had died down, and on the 2nd of February, 2038, the Third World War came to an end.

The Third World War brought an end to the global influence of China, completely destroying the Chinese economy and forcing it into isolation, with its remaining allies facing similar predicaments. It empowered the United States but encouraged its subsequent Mark Directive; gave Russia an amount of peace to ease relations with Western Europe but proved to be a disaster for its ongoing war with Turkey; and permanently crushed the global system which billions had become accustomed to.

Background
Following the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003 and the rise of China in the early 2010s and 2020s, the world saw tumulous relations and growth best characterised by the resurgence of the Russian superpower and the 'Little Cold War' in East Asia.

After the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, the Russian Federation found itself cut off from much of the wider European market, with a coordinated US-EU effort against its endeavors in Eastern Europe. The War in Donbass, funded by the Russian government, became a point of contention against Russia, especially in Ukraine and Poland, whose respective governments used it as justification for expansions of their militaries and enactments of authoritarian laws. The MH17 Incident, in which a Malaysian Airlines plane was shot down over Donbass, forever tarnished the reputation of the Ukrainian rebels, and despite Russian support, the Donbass rebels negotiated with the Ukrainian government and created a Special Administrative Region in Donbass by 2027, much to the Russian government's chagrin. Later, in 2030, the Russian Federation would invade and occupy Ukraine until 2038.

Meanwhile, China had been rising internationally thanks to its economic growth, pressuring nations across Asia and Europe to ignore its numerous human rights violations and the increasing authoritarianism of the Xi Administration via economic means. At the same time, however, the Chinese economy began to show signs of systematic weakness, with off-sheet balance debt first popping in 2023, with the Hebei Financial Crisis, and culminating in the Asian Crash of 2026, putting China in crippling debt to itself and affecting the global economy, causing global unemployment to skyrocket and for China to consider a more isolationist policy.

One of the main catalysts for the war was increasing tensions between the United States and China over the 2023 Shelling of Taiwan. After the U.S, Canada and Mexico cut relations with the country, China, for its part, retaliated by expelling all American, Canadian and EU citizens from China, and militarily occupying the Senkaku Islands.

At the same time, Japan, one of the hardest-hit countries by the Asian Crash, saw the formation of the Progressive Coalition, a unified group of the four largest opposition parties in Japan. The PC went on to win the 2029 shugi-in(House of Representatives) election and the 2028 sangi-in(House of Councilors) elections by landslides, putting Japan on an early route to recovery via economic reforms outlined in the Shin-doro(New Road) laws.

The United States, having essentially went isolationist, went unaffected by the economic crisis, and largely passed from any effect during the entire fiasco; attempts by Chinese authorities to forcibly sell American government bonds and debt failed to achieve anything.

Europe was one of the regions hardest-hit by the economic crash, with Italy in particular suffering massive economic damage due to its reliance on the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. The Balkans saw particular instability, with Montenegro seeing an emergency election held in response to the Podogorica Protests, and border tensions between Serbia and Kosovo. With a demographic decline incoming, most of Europe was destined for continued stagnation, and unemployment remaining high. Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, from the seizure of the Baltic States and the occupation of Ukraine, further antagonised the region, forcing the region into different alliances and permanently destroying the European Union; NATO later lost German, Italian and Austrian membership, all of its Balkan members leaving (with the exception of Kosovo).

At the same time, in 2028, Russian President Vladimir Putin was defeated in his bid for an eighth term as Russian President by Communist Party leader Gennedy Zyuganov, who promised liberal economic and conservative social reforms. Zyuganov and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping entered into talks of not just reviving the recently-expired Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship, but turning it into a military pact. In January 2029, Russia and China signed the creation of the Asian People's Pact, then an economic pact that ensured that in the event that either nation went to war, both would supply resources and equipment. Syria and Pakistan would later join.

During the 2031 Security Summit in Shangri-La Singapore, Chinese delegates accused American and Malaysian representatives of unfair treatment over the ongoing Chinese Migration Crisis. In response, pressure by the U.S and Japan convinced several East Asian nations to forcibly close off access to air travel for Chinese refugees. This raised tensions in the region, and at the 2031 Dublin Conference, with the future nations of the Pacific-Atlantic Coalition, the now-famous 'we will not cower' speech by Taiwanese President Ker Chien-Ming accompanying the formal founding of the PAC. Taiwan was formally admitted as a member of the United Nations despite Chinese, Russian and African protests, causing the Walkout of '31, in which 64 members of the United Nations quit, following the Chinese lead. China and Russia were replaced at the Security Council with Indonesia and Japan, later reforming the Security Council to become an elected position.

Similarly, by 2034 Turkey and Russia had been at war for 4 long years in the Russo-Turkish War, both nations' forces entangling militarily around the Black Sea with only Georgia being spared; Russian and Turkish economic ventures forcing an uneasy peace.