Cassandra must have suffered. The Trojan priestess was cursed by the gods to see the future yet never be believed. She warned her fellow Trojans about the coming war with the Greeks, the fall of Troy, and their coming deaths. But her warnings changed nothing because no one likes to be told that bad things are coming and there is little anyone can do to stop them. Humans are almost cognitively incapable of hearing such truths. 

Five years ago, to commemorate the 75^th anniversary of the end of World War II, I warned that “We are at risk of remembering World War II by fighting its sequel, teaching the war’s lessons by reliving them, and remembering its mistakes by recommitting them. Unless we take drastic action, we will commemorate the end of the Second World War by replicating the path to it.” 

We are on the road to World War III.

Or something close to it: a militarized crisis among the world’s great powers, a localized clash, nuclear brinksmanship, a proxy war, or something similar. We already have a proxy war (Ukraine) and a localized clash (Israel and Iran). We have the makings of a militarized crisis and nuclear brinksmanship (Taiwan). We are not in an era of presumed comity and peace among the great powers. The default is conflict. The question is not whether there will be conflict, but when, what kind, and how large. 

The World in 2020

World War II came about because of the combustible mix of power imbalances (a rising Germany), economic collapse (the Great Depression), ideological extremism (fascism), a climate of tyranny, international aggression, and liberal cowardice. That’s all conventional wisdom, but my argument was that those ingredients were present in 2020. 

A rising China is the new power imbalance. The financial crisis of 2008 and the COVID-induced recession had the makings of an economic collapse. We have ideological extremism with rising nationalism, populism, and authoritarianism—and with the left-wing illiberalism that arose in reaction. Russia, China, and Iran have created a climate of tyranny. As for international aggression, I noted Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 and China’s invasion of the South China Sea in 2013, and I speculated about “another Russian landgrab in Eastern Europe.”

Five Years of Anarchy 

Less than two years later, Russia invaded Ukraine in the most blatant land grab since 1939. A nuclear-armed authoritarian great power crossed borders with armed force with the express intent to conquer and annex a smaller, weaker neighbor. At stake in the conflict is not just Ukrainian independence, but the principles of territorial inviolability, sovereign statehood, and a rules-based international order. The US has flooded Ukraine with weapons and some US officials advocated for direct intervention; in response, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons. The Russo-Ukrainian war is the most dangerous moment in the world since the Cuban Missile Crisis.  

Ukrainian courage inspired political will in Europe and, temporarily, the United States. But three years on, it is not enough. The war is a stalemate which favors Russia because it is vastly larger and can afford to waste lives in a long war. Putin simply needs to have more patience than Donald Trump has courage or the Europeans have unity, which is not asking much. We seem to face an impossible choice between losing the war—thus encouraging more aggression—or escalating and risking nuclear war. 

The US is hardly in an ideal position to make such judgments, preoccupied as we are with our own turmoil. Five months after my last essay, a terrorist mob attacked the US Capitol and tried to overthrow American democracy. Four years later, the American people reelected the man who inspired it, but only after a would-be assassin came within millimeters of murdering him. In between, a geriatric caretaker president ordered the US to evacuate its embassy in Kabul, abandon tens of thousands of Afghan allies, and hand the country over to the Taliban. We are at a low point in national honor and self-respect. 

War in Ukraine and democratic decline in America are not the only signs of deteriorating world order over the past five years. Political crisis paralyzed the governments of France and South Korea last year. A mob attacked the Brazilian Congress, inspired by the American example. Coups toppled governments in Myanmar, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and Gabon. Attempted coups failed in Peru and Bolivia.“Global freedom declined for the 19th consecutive year in 2024,” according to Freedom House. We are two decades into democracy’s retreat. The authoritarians are winning, and we are barely fighting back.

The authoritarians are also rearming. North Korea continued a steady drumbeat of ballistic missile tests, including intercontinental ballistic missiles. Russia tested anti-satellite weaponry in 2021, which should give you a hint about what the first day of World War III will involve (the GPS on your phone will stop working). China held massive live-fire military exercises around Taiwan in 2022 as a show of force to protest a visit by Nancy Pelosi, then the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, to Taiwan. Iran more than doubled its military budget since 2021.

Speaking of Iran, it is likely that Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, was at Iran’s behest, or at least encouragement. Israel’s response—just and necessary in most respects—brought some discredit to the free world with the seeming excess and looseness in its targeting (though, to be fair, it is nearly impossible to know what to believe when it is filtered through the reporting of a congenitally anti-Israel international media). While Israel’s destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah is an unmitigated good for the world, Israel’s failure to articulate any vision for the future of Gaza does not inspire hope for peace. Instead, the escalation of the war into a direct confrontation between Israel and Iran earlier this year seemed more like the opening act of a new phase of war than the finale of a conflict ready to wrap up.

That’s a lot of history in a short half-decade, and it’s virtually all bad. I can think of one good thing in five years—the fall of the Assad regime—which hardly outweighs the parade of horrors we’ve lived through.

Democracy On the Line

And that was before Trump’s reelection. Five years ago, I envisioned World War III much like its predecessor: the US leading a coalition of free nations against tyrannical aggressors to re-found and expand a free world order. Now, if there is a major difference between 1939 and 2025, it is that we can no longer be certain that the US will be on the side of the democracies. It isn’t clear that the United States is interested in leading the free world. 

Start with Trump’s assault on American law enforcement. He fired the FBI Director and purged the FBI of prosecutors and investigators who worked on January 6 cases and cases against Trump. He threatened law firms with retaliation if they took cases against his administration. He pardoned 1,500 people connected with January 6, encouraging a culture of impunity for political violence done in his service. Trump is undermining the rule of law, introducing elements of personalistic rule, oligarchy, and even authoritarianism into American governance.

Now look at Trump’s attitude towards democracy abroad. Trump defunded, eliminated, or cut many of the most important tools of soft power and democracy promotion, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the US Agency for Global Media (which funded the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty), the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute, and the US Institute of Peace. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has overseen a drastic reorganization and proposed cuts to his department that would eliminate half of existing funding for humanitarian and health programs and international organizations and completely end some educational programs, including the Fulbright and Payne fellowships. Trump is openly hostile to the idea of championing democracy abroad. 

The most telling incident was Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in February. Vice President JD Vance falsely accused Zelensky of unnecessarily prolonging the war by refusing to engage in diplomacy, repeating the Kremlin’s talking points and taking Russia’s side in the propaganda war. It looked as if Trump was switching sides, ready to back Russia against Ukraine rather than the other way around. He’s backed down in recent weeks as even he came to recognize the obvious fact that Putin, not Zelensky, is the obstacle to negotiations—but it shows how far Trump is willing to reconsider America’s traditional role in the world.  

Now consider Trump’s actions towards the US military and national security establishment. Within weeks of taking office, Trump fired the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, the Director of the National Security Agency, and the Inspectors General of the Departments of State and Defense. There is simply no precedent for this in American history. As a former intelligence analyst, I know exactly what I would say if I saw this happening in a foreign country. I would say that the leader was purging the security forces to ensure loyalists are in top positions. That’s an extremely dangerous situation for a democracy. 

At the same time, Trump has increased the Defense Department’s budget by some 13 percent, to just over $1 trillion. By itself, that’s not a bad thing. But look at the pattern: Under Trump, the US is disarming itself of its soft power while doubling down on hard power in the midst of a multifront Cold War against the nuclear autocracies. That gives you a good sense of how Trump thinks of foreign affairs and what kind of war he expects to fight. It is a big game of Risk, moving armies around on a global chessboard, with no role for diplomacy or soft power. 

Adding It Up

It could add up to a military confrontation between the US on the one side, and either Russia or China, or both, on the other. But now, I worry about two other possibilities. If America does not stand for liberty, equality, and democracy, World War III may come, but may not have any meaningful moral dimension. It could be a great power war fought for no other reason than “competitive prestige,” (Orwell’s phrase), to see who the biggest dog is, who will be the alpha. It will be a war fought to answer the question: Is America still biggest badass, or is the 21^st century China’s moment in the sun? Such a war would be a despicable waste of lives for no just cause. There is no intrinsic justice to badassery. If American leadership exists for no other reason than American greatness, who cares which great power rules the world?

Worse yet, maybe World War III will not come because no one will fight when the tyrants come conquering. Maybe Trump will pull the plug on aid to Ukraine and let Russia finish off the job. Maybe then they’ll sit down and carve up Europe and the Middle East into spheres of influence. Maybe China will take the hint and move on Taiwan—and Trump will side with China. Perhaps Russia, China, and Trump’s America will collaborate together to create a world where the strong do what they will and the weak suffer as they must. In that scenario World War III will not come because the bad guys will already have won.