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Although historians cannot agree on the cause of World War 3, what is agreed upon is that the war's thematic origins can be traced back to the over arching trends of the era. The half-century before the war had been defined by the shift of power away from the United States as the geopolitical order transitioned from a unipolar system to a multipolar one. The Collapse of the Russian Federation, rise of Turkey, and the technological cold war between the United States and China served to slowly bring tensions to a boil. Underscoring this dramatic restructuring of the global power dynamic were the increasingly visible and costly effects of climate change and automation. As rising sea levels claimed more and more cities, regimes became increasingly desperate to contain the flow of migrants into and out of their borders, fueling the rise of populist ideologues and sowing division in Western societies.

Online, the world was divided in two by the slow divorce of the American and Chinese clouds. The technological cold war between the United States and China led to disagreements over national security, prompting the US to ban the Chinese cellular service provider Huawei from American networks. American alliances further frayed as it threatened sanctions against formal allies should they continue to allow Huawei to operate on their networks. The world was roughly divided down the middle, with some countries seeking to reap the economic success of China, while others sought the stability of the United States. This digital isolation became formalized by the Shanghai Consensus, which created a collective cyber and military security network between China and it's technological subjects. This materializing Cyber Curtain cut off direct communication between the subjects of both spheres, making paranoia and fear the driving factors behind the public's backing for increasingly inflammatory tit-for-tat actions.

In Europe, revolutions in Spain and Scotland's independence from Britain distracted NATO and the EU as they sought to understand and integrate the new regimes. The Spanish Revolution, the result of populist outrage after 3 elections failed to form a government, ultimately drove Spain further from America's sphere of influence. With the new Spanish government seeking to emulate the socialist principles of China, Spain slowly entangled itself in Chinese technology and interests. This stressed the institutions of NATO, and the isolationist-protectionist swing in American foreign policy slowly pulled the alliance apart from all directions.

In Russia, the 2022 Invasion of Ukraine proved to be the final blow to the centuries-declining Russian state. Cut off from global markets and facing extreme popular unrest, Russia's failure to take Ukraine provided the foundation for Putin's removal in 2024. In a messy coup, Russia's oligarchs and generals failed to capture Putin or take control of the majority of the nation, plunging Russia into civil war. Fought between Putschists, Republicans, and Putin loyalists, the first few weeks of the war proved a bloody maelstrom. In the background, independence movements took hold in Central Siberia as the regions had been economically drifting further away from Moscow for years, finally formalizing their independence during the war. Further, some oligarchs and local leaders took the chance to establish glorified feudal states based out of several major cities. Two weeks after the coup, NATO announced its intervention in order to secure Russia's nuclear stockpile, prevent nuclear war, and keep the weapons out of the hands of the far-flung terrorist cells that had begun using Russia as a staging zone. China, too, intervened in the Far East, establishing extraterritorial "security districts," though these were little more than a veiled land grab. As it became clear that the NATO-backed Russian Republic could not reassert control over anything east of the Urals, China formalized its security districts into independent states, calving off pieces of Russia to inform its sphere of influence. As the 2020's came to their close, it had become clear that these puppet regimes were little more than colonial surveillance states under Chinese control.

Despite ending up de facto allies after the Syrian Civil war, Turkish-Iranian tensions increasingly spiraled as Turkey's neo-islamist agenda sought to restore its Ottoman legacy and again make it the preeminent power in the Middle East. Seizing on its NATO ties, Turkey made its first incursions into northern Syria in the late 2010's, occupying the region under the guise of 'peace keeping.' As domestic upheaval escalated in the United States, Turkey, in a dramatic move, crossed into Northern Iraq, occupying Iraqi Kurdistan to the horror of the International community. Despite Iran's threats of war and Saudi Arabia's sanctions, Turkey maintained its occupation, recognizing the blow to Iranian and Saudi influence in the region and the general decline of Iranian power. In retaliation to the invasion, America, Europe, and Russia battered Turkey with economic sanctions, prompting Turkey to eject American forces from their territory before Turkey itself was ejected from NATO. This drove Turkey into the hands of the Chinese sphere, and Turkey joined the Shanghai Consensus in 2036. The rising threat of Turkey in the Middle East and Balkans and Turkey's increasingly strong ties to China would be the driving factor behind detente between Russia and the West would ultimately serve to push Russia into the West's arms.

NATO faced an existential shock in the early 2030's with Turkey's expulsion. Facing increasing obstacles to its interests within the alliance, Turkey opted to leave so as to pursue its ambitions with the veritable help of the Chinese and Iranians. This decision was controversial as Turkey was formally expelled from the alliance, though it claims to have withdrawn of its own volition. This precipitated a decades-long decline in NATO's influence as various member states withdrew and rejoined. When it became clear that the domestically-focused United States could no longer provide for the protection of Europe the Europeans turned to themselves. The European Union was formalized into a defensive alliance in the mid 2020's as the threat of international conflict rose out of the ashes of the Coronavirus pandemic, and as the climate crisis worsened and European nations struggled to protect and house their populations. It had become clear the European Union needed to go further. When in 2038 waves of Belgian and Dutch refugees came streaming into France and Germany the countries seized on the momentum, centralizing the EU government and creating the European Federation. The Federation did not initially incorporate all members of the former EU, but instead allowed states to opt out of the Federation while staying within the defensive and economic zones of the European Community.

In America, the erratic behavior of successive populist administrations, as well as the heightened labor and racial agitation resulting from the Coronavirus pandemic, lead to the dramatic rise of the New Progressive party in the early 2030's. An off-shoot of the Democratic party, the New Progressives rose to power after the passing of the Equal Rights Amendment in 2026, and sought radical reform within the United States in order to achieve a more equal society. Eco-friendly economic recovery programs became permanent, and new legislation rolled out expanding on the established environmental protection acts. This progress, however, did not come with out its opponents. Throughout the 2020's the United States was the victim of shocking civil unrest. In the South and Midwest, radicalized conservatives established a disjointed series of white supremacist and evangelical states, dedicated to the preservation of what they believed was traditional American society and American international power. Ironically, their rebellions only served to weaken the United States on the world stage, redirecting its resources to put down their insurgency as well as painting the US as a collapsing and unstable power on the international stage.

In Asia, China's Communist party accelerated the creation of artificial islands in the South China Sea, much to the chagrin of America and the ASEAN states. With India, tensions remained high after the Indian occupation of Bangladesh. The expected escalation to war came with the outbreak of the Pakistani Civil War between Baloch separatists and the Pakistani government. However, China and India were able to successfully deescalate their sides of the conflict, resolving instead to wage a proxy war in Pakistan. In spite of these successes, the Chinese economy wavered. Unable to continue the rapid growth of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the legitimacy of the Communist party came into question. Mild unrest swept the nation in the 30's and 40's, however the increasing isolation of the Chinese internet from the American internet slowly eroded the population's memories of Enlightenment ideas, easing domestic tensions. Majorly, North Korea's regime gave way under the weight of China's economic slow down. Unable to continue providing the necessary economic aid to keep the regime on life support, the death of Kim Jong Un in 2046 sparked a Chinese-backed military coup and the installation of a new military junta.

Despite all these flash points, it was the beginning of the Second Nigerian Civil War in 2050 that catalyzed the decline into war. With the flooding of the Christian South causing the displacement of hundred of thousands, the Northern Islamic states seceded to form the United Emirates of Hausa and Kanuri. Officially, the Emirates cited the intentional erosion of their culture by resettlement programs as the impetuous for their secession, however separatist sentiment had been simmering for decades. The war quickly devolved into a proxy conflict between American and Sino-Turkish interests, but regional escalations came with the accusation of sectarian cleansing of the North by the South. This prompted the intervention of several Islamic Sahel states and brought more waves of migration and suffering to the region. Responding to reports of unrest in Mali and Niger, Turkey and Iran deployed peacekeeping forces to the region, despite the presence of American drones. In March of 2056 the escalation came. An American drone targeting Malian supply lines killed a high ranking Turkish General in a targeted strike. Turkey accused the US of intentionally targeting its peacekeeping forces and vowed a retaliation, saying the US had already opened hostilities. The retaliation took the form of orbital strikes on American bases in Nigeria, killing 54 Americans and 200 Nigerians. Turkey gambled that it could emulate Iran's 2020 retaliation against the United States, destroying military facilities without killing any American personnel in order to avoid full scale war; however, the deaths of a staggering number of Americans and Nigerians in the Turkish counter attack made war an inevitability. The US invoked Article 5 of the NATO charter, plunging the World into war. As violence spread so did economic chaos, drawing further countries into the war as each alliance sought military domination in space, online, and in the actual theater of war.

www.deviantart.com/charles-por…
www.deviantart.com/charles-por…
www.deviantart.com/charles-por…
www.deviantart.com/charles-por…
www.deviantart.com/charles471/…
Sea levels depicted in this map are courtesy of Sean McKnight: YNot1989

Description
Although historians cannot agree on the cause of World War 3, what is agreed upon is that the war's thematic origins can be traced back to the over arching trends of the era. The half-century before the war had been defined by the shift of power away from the United States as the geopolitical order transitioned from a unipolar system to a multipolar one. The Collapse of the Russian Federation, rise of Turkey, and the technological cold war between the United States and China served to slowly bring tensions to a boil. Underscoring this dramatic restructuring of the global power dynamic were the increasingly visible and costly effects of climate change and automation. As rising sea levels claimed more and more cities, regimes became increasingly desperate to contain the flow of migrants into and out of their borders, fueling the rise of populist ideologues and sowing division in Western societies.

Online, the world was divided in two by the slow divorce of the American and Chinese clouds. The technological cold war between the United States and China led to disagreements over national security, prompting the US to ban the Chinese cellular service provider Huawei from American networks. American alliances further frayed as it threatened sanctions against formal allies should they continue to allow Huawei to operate on their networks. The world was roughly divided down the middle, with some countries seeking to reap the economic success of China, while others sought the stability of the United States. This digital isolation became formalized by the Shanghai Consensus, which created a collective cyber and military security network between China and it's technological subjects. This materializing Cyber Curtain cut off direct communication between the subjects of both spheres, making paranoia and fear the driving factors behind the public's backing for increasingly inflammatory tit-for-tat actions.

In Europe, revolutions in Spain and Scotland's independence from Britain distracted NATO and the EU as they sought to understand and integrate the new regimes. The Spanish Revolution, the result of populist outrage after 3 elections failed to form a government, ultimately drove Spain further from America's sphere of influence. With the new Spanish government seeking to emulate the socialist principles of China, Spain slowly entangled itself in Chinese technology and interests. This stressed the institutions of NATO, and the isolationist-protectionist swing in American foreign policy slowly pulled the alliance apart from all directions.

In Russia, the 2022 Invasion of Ukraine proved to be the final blow to the centuries-declining Russian state. Cut off from global markets and facing extreme popular unrest, Russia's failure to take Ukraine provided the foundation for Putin's removal in 2024. In a messy coup, Russia's oligarchs and generals failed to capture Putin or take control of the majority of the nation, plunging Russia into civil war. Fought between Putschists, Republicans, and Putin loyalists, the first few weeks of the war proved a bloody maelstrom. In the background, independence movements took hold in Central Siberia as the regions had been economically drifting further away from Moscow for years, finally formalizing their independence during the war. Further, some oligarchs and local leaders took the chance to establish glorified feudal states based out of several major cities. Two weeks after the coup, NATO announced its intervention in order to secure Russia's nuclear stockpile, prevent nuclear war, and keep the weapons out of the hands of the far-flung terrorist cells that had begun using Russia as a staging zone. China, too, intervened in the Far East, establishing extraterritorial "security districts," though these were little more than a veiled land grab. As it became clear that the NATO-backed Russian Republic could not reassert control over anything east of the Urals, China formalized its security districts into independent states, calving off pieces of Russia to inform its sphere of influence. As the 2020's came to their close, it had become clear that these puppet regimes were little more than colonial surveillance states under Chinese control.

Despite ending up de facto allies after the Syrian Civil war, Turkish-Iranian tensions increasingly spiraled as Turkey's neo-islamist agenda sought to restore its Ottoman legacy and again make it the preeminent power in the Middle East. Seizing on its NATO ties, Turkey made its first incursions into northern Syria in the late 2010's, occupying the region under the guise of 'peace keeping.' As domestic upheaval escalated in the United States, Turkey, in a dramatic move, crossed into Northern Iraq, occupying Iraqi Kurdistan to the horror of the International community. Despite Iran's threats of war and Saudi Arabia's sanctions, Turkey maintained its occupation, recognizing the blow to Iranian and Saudi influence in the region and the general decline of Iranian power. In retaliation to the invasion, America, Europe, and Russia battered Turkey with economic sanctions, prompting Turkey to eject American forces from their territory before Turkey itself was ejected from NATO. This drove Turkey into the hands of the Chinese sphere, and Turkey joined the Shanghai Consensus in 2036. The rising threat of Turkey in the Middle East and Balkans and Turkey's increasingly strong ties to China would be the driving factor behind detente between Russia and the West would ultimately serve to push Russia into the West's arms.

NATO faced an existential shock in the early 2030's with Turkey's expulsion. Facing increasing obstacles to its interests within the alliance, Turkey opted to leave so as to pursue its ambitions with the veritable help of the Chinese and Iranians. This decision was controversial as Turkey was formally expelled from the alliance, though it claims to have withdrawn of its own volition. This precipitated a decades-long decline in NATO's influence as various member states withdrew and rejoined. When it became clear that the domestically-focused United States could no longer provide for the protection of Europe the Europeans turned to themselves. The European Union was formalized into a defensive alliance in the mid 2020's as the threat of international conflict rose out of the ashes of the Coronavirus pandemic, and as the climate crisis worsened and European nations struggled to protect and house their populations. It had become clear the European Union needed to go further. When in 2038 waves of Belgian and Dutch refugees came streaming into France and Germany the countries seized on the momentum, centralizing the EU government and creating the European Federation. The Federation did not initially incorporate all members of the former EU, but instead allowed states to opt out of the Federation while staying within the defensive and economic zones of the European Community.

In America, the erratic behavior of successive populist administrations, as well as the heightened labor and racial agitation resulting from the Coronavirus pandemic, lead to the dramatic rise of the New Progressive party in the early 2030's. An off-shoot of the Democratic party, the New Progressives rose to power after the passing of the Equal Rights Amendment in 2026, and sought radical reform within the United States in order to achieve a more equal society. Eco-friendly economic recovery programs became permanent, and new legislation rolled out expanding on the established environmental protection acts. This progress, however, did not come with out its opponents. Throughout the 2020's the United States was the victim of shocking civil unrest. In the South and Midwest, radicalized conservatives established a disjointed series of white supremacist and evangelical states, dedicated to the preservation of what they believed was traditional American society and American international power. Ironically, their rebellions only served to weaken the United States on the world stage, redirecting its resources to put down their insurgency as well as painting the US as a collapsing and unstable power on the international stage.

In Asia, China's Communist party accelerated the creation of artificial islands in the South China Sea, much to the chagrin of America and the ASEAN states. With India, tensions remained high after the Indian occupation of Bangladesh. The expected escalation to war came with the outbreak of the Pakistani Civil War between Baloch separatists and the Pakistani government. However, China and India were able to successfully deescalate their sides of the conflict, resolving instead to wage a proxy war in Pakistan. In spite of these successes, the Chinese economy wavered. Unable to continue the rapid growth of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the legitimacy of the Communist party came into question. Mild unrest swept the nation in the 30's and 40's, however the increasing isolation of the Chinese internet from the American internet slowly eroded the population's memories of Enlightenment ideas, easing domestic tensions. Majorly, North Korea's regime gave way under the weight of China's economic slow down. Unable to continue providing the necessary economic aid to keep the regime on life support, the death of Kim Jong Un in 2046 sparked a Chinese-backed military coup and the installation of a new military junta.

Despite all these flash points, it was the beginning of the Second Nigerian Civil War in 2050 that catalyzed the decline into war. With the flooding of the Christian South causing the displacement of hundred of thousands, the Northern Islamic states seceded to form the United Emirates of Hausa and Kanuri. Officially, the Emirates cited the intentional erosion of their culture by resettlement programs as the impetuous for their secession, however separatist sentiment had been simmering for decades. The war quickly devolved into a proxy conflict between American and Sino-Turkish interests, but regional escalations came with the accusation of sectarian cleansing of the North by the South. This prompted the intervention of several Islamic Sahel states and brought more waves of migration and suffering to the region. Responding to reports of unrest in Mali and Niger, Turkey and Iran deployed peacekeeping forces to the region, despite the presence of American drones. In March of 2056 the escalation came. An American drone targeting Malian supply lines killed a high ranking Turkish General in a targeted strike. Turkey accused the US of intentionally targeting its peacekeeping forces and vowed a retaliation, saying the US had already opened hostilities. The retaliation took the form of orbital strikes on American bases in Nigeria, killing 54 Americans and 200 Nigerians. Turkey gambled that it could emulate Iran's 2020 retaliation against the United States, destroying military facilities without killing any American personnel in order to avoid full scale war; however, the deaths of a staggering number of Americans and Nigerians in the Turkish counter attack made war an inevitability. The US invoked Article 5 of the NATO charter, plunging the World into war. As violence spread so did economic chaos, drawing further countries into the war as each alliance sought military domination in space, online, and in the actual theater of war.

www.deviantart.com/charles-por…
www.deviantart.com/charles-por…
www.deviantart.com/charles-por…
www.deviantart.com/charles-por…
www.deviantart.com/charles471/…
Sea levels depicted in this map are courtesy of Sean McKnight: YNot1989