The Global Military Crisis of the 2020s

A Brief History

On February 24, 2022, days after recognizing Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states, Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered a full scale invasion of Ukraine.  Since then, the war has expanded to involve many more countries either directly or indirectly.  North Korea has sent military personnel to fight against Ukraine for Russia, while Iran has supplied drones to Russia for use against Ukraine.  To help Ukraine against Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and numerous other nations on nearly every continent have delivered significant numbers of weapons and other aid to Ukraine.

Digging Deeper

Exacerbating global tensions, the Gaza War began on October 7, 2023 with a combined land, air, and sea assault on Israeli territory by Hamas rockets and militants from the Palestinian controlled Gaza Strip.  The invading Palestinian terrorists attacked Israeli soldiers and civilians, massacring perhaps over 1,000 victims, wounding thousands more, and abducting perhaps hundreds in horrifying scenes of atrocities shared across various social media platforms as can be seen even on videos on YouTube.

On February 28, 2026, a war began when the United States and Israel launched surprise airstrikes on multiple sites and cities across Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several other Iranian officials.  Subsequently, claims have been made that Russia is providing Iran with intelligence, amidst Iranian missiles and drone attacks against numerous nations throughout the region.

Thus, as of March 2026, it is apparent that the world is experiencing a global military crisis of various connected conflicts with fears of the conflict escalating further:

1. Russo-Ukrainian war (2022–present) (24 February 2022 – present): see also https://liveuamap.com/ and https://understandingwar.org/analysis/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment/
2. Foreign involvement in the Russo-Ukrainian war (2022–present)
3. Nuclear risk during the Russo-Ukrainian war (2022–present)
4. Gaza war (7 October 2023 – present): see also https://israelpalestine.liveuamap.com/
5. Red Sea crisis (19 October 2023 – present): see also https://yemen.liveuamap.com/
6. 2025 India–Pakistan conflict (7–10 May 2025): see also https://kashmir.liveuamap.com/
7. Twelve-Day War (13–24 June 2025)
8. Ukrainian attacks on the Russian shadow fleet (28 November 2025)
9. 2026 United States intervention in Venezuela (3 January 2026): see also https://venezuela.liveuamap.com/
10. 2026 Cuban crisis (3 January 2026 – present)
11. 2026 Afghanistan–Pakistan conflict (21 February 2026 – present): see also https://afghanistan.liveuamap.com/
12. 2026 Iran war (28 February 2026 – present): see also https://iran.liveuamap.com/
13. 2026 Mali attacks (25 April 2026 – present)
14. 2026 White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting (April 25, 2026)

Collectively, the main opponents are primarily Israel, Ukraine, and the United States vs. the “Axis of Resistance” (Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis), the “Axis of Upheaval” (Iran, Russia, and North Korea), and the Taliban either directly or indirectly, with various other countries getting drawn into the larger conflict.

An unsettling aspect of the above conflicts is a possible parallel with how various regional conflicts in the 1930s in Europe, Africa, and Asia concerning the aggression of various members of what became the Axis Powers (Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany) eventually set the stage for or arguably merged into what became World War II:

1. Second Italo-Ethiopian War (3 October 1935 – 9 May 1936)
2. Remilitarisation of the Rhineland (7 March 1936)
3. Spanish Civil War (17 July 1936 – 1 April 1939)
4. Italian military intervention in Spain (1936–1939)
5. German involvement in the Spanish Civil War (29 July 1936 – 26 May 1939)
6. International Brigades (18 September 1936 – 23 September 1938)
7. Second Sino-Japanese War (7 July 1937 – 2 September 1945)
8. Anschluss (12 March 1938)
9. Occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–1945)
10. Italian invasion of Albania (7–12 April 1939)
11. World War II (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945)

Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: What would it entail for you to consider a global conflict “World War III”?

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Historical Evidence

For more information, please see…

Andrews, John and Matt Baker.  Timeline of World History.  Thunder Bay Press, 2020.

Brocklehurst, Ruth, Henry Brook, and Paul Dowswell.  The World Wars.  Usborne Pub Ltd, 2007.

The featured image in this article, a map by Matias Taboadaxx of actual wars in 2022, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.