Possibility of the Third World War

As you know, or generally speaking, World War III hasn't started...yet. I would say, 'yet' because there is enough possibility that it occurs.


The United Nations, mainly General Assembly and Security Council, are authorized by the United Nations Charter. The charter says that these institutions are responsible for international peace and security. Therefore, the UN may intervene into international conflict, which means conflicts of more than two states. However, the charter does not include any civil war which means internal conflict that happens within one state. The charter never talks about it. That means that the state where a conflict is happening has to solve the conflict by itself, basically.


Also, one more thing that has to be pointed is that the Untied Nations ant its charter were created, based on the world experience: World War I and II. Both the wars started with aggression of states: Germany in WW I and Japan in WW II. Aggression simply refers to an attack from one state to another without any reasonable or legal consequence. The framers have assumed that world war may occur with such an aggression of a state. They have not thought of nonstate behaviors.


The possibility of the Third World War comes from, maybe, nongovernmental, interest, or religious groups. Such wars are already happening in the world, such as War on Terror, which is kind of religious war from one perspective. If this war was more worldwide, such as that, for example, Islam extremists acting over the world and if such activities involved more more states, isn't the war 'world war'?


Actually, I cannot still clearly imagine such a situation. However, this is true that wars are not necessarily done by states, but they can be done by nonstate actors, like religion.


I used to believe that the world is more peaceful than it used to be, and I haven't taken such wars involving nonstate actors. I used to think that religious conflict is a small part of war or just a conflict. I have never thought that such conflict could be worldwide and involve many states in the world.


It is too hard to express what I am thinking as sentences and even as speaking. Language I use doesn't matter. But, what I learned today, which is a great astonishment to me, was this: the Third World War can happen.


I want to do more and more research on this topic.


I, of course, do not want WW III to happen.