The D-Day commemorations in Normandy took place against a sombre backdrop. Ukraine’s war for national survival has been raging for over two years, and the Middle East is on fire. While the Second World War is in our thoughts this week, we should soon be turning our thoughts on World War Three.
The UK’s strategic competitors are obvious: China seeks dominance over the Pacific theatre as well as mineral-rich countries in Africa and Asia. Russia aims to establish Soviet-style dominance over former USSR client countries. Iran seeks the end of US and wider Western hegemony in the Middle East. The Turkish and Qatari-backed Muslim Brotherhood seek domination of the Arab world.
Take a step back, and it looks as if the Third World War has started already. It just doesn’t look like the conflict we thought it would be. Rather than a shooting war, we are seeing intense strategic competition. No country can compete with the USA and Nato on the battlefield, so instead our enemies are trying to defeat us through economic and cultural means without firing a shot.
These states have been anticipating a coming confrontation for a long time, and preparing for it. China’s Belt and Road Initiative has invested in more than 140 countries, covering 75 per cent of the world’s population and more than half of its GDP. Beijing has bought influence, created international economic dependence on Chinese infrastructure development, and gained access to strategic ports and other potential military bases. Meanwhile, Western universities have been flooded with students, creating a loop of financial dependence even as valuable knowledge flows back to the Chinese economy.
Russia, meanwhile, has conducted subversive activities across the West, attempting to influence US presidential elections, poisoning opponents on British soil and creating EU dependence on Russian gas. Moscow has been a key proponent of international disinformation campaigns, strategically investing online and in the media to undermine its opponents and destabilise pro-Western support in the Balkans and central and eastern Europe. Putin has demonstrated military aggression in Ukraine and Georgia and shown a willingness in the former to commit to a lengthy and costly military campaign of attrition.
Iran, meanwhile, has taken advantage of chaos in the Middle East to establish regional hegemony since the Iraq War in 2003. Tehran has built influential and violent proxies in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, funded and supported by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which provides command, training and arms for these proxies. The Houthis have shown the ability to disrupt vital shipping lanes approaching the Suez Canal; Hezbollah in Lebanon, battle-hardened by the Syrian Civil War, has set northern Israel on fire, repeatedly launching rockets since 7th October. Iranian-backed militias have fired on US bases in Iraq, and the regime puts a heavy emphasis on pushing its narrative in the USA and Europe.
Qatar and Turkey, meanwhile, have played both sides. Turkey exploits Nato membership and EU trade links, and Qatar offers the West military bases in Doha and huge financial investment. At the same time, they continue to support Hamas in Gaza, which has started a regional war enabling Iran and their militias to escalate attacks on Israel. Heavy investments have been made in Western academic institutions, buying influence in the organisations that train and advise our Foreign Office and security service. The Qatari funded media organisation, Al Jazeera, has been a critical vector in pushing anti-Israeli narratives in the West, while Hamas leaders shelter in Doha. Turkey has provided medical care for wounded Hamas fighters.
Through buying influence and soaking Western media in disinformation designed to demoralise and undermine support for military action, these countries have subverted our democracies, media, and academic institutions, with the aim of building support in the West and destroying our will to fight. Ukraine and Israel give us a taste of the deluge of influence operations that will swamp us, should things escalate to a shooting war.
These conflicts have been noticed around the world. But for over a decade, our enemies have been using influence, a weapon equipped with a silencer, to fire the opening shots in a global conflict—and we have only just noticed. With all eyes on Normandy, the Third World War is closer than we realise: we are already fighting it.