The third world war is not excluded, but the probability of it, fortunately, is rather low. Let's take a look at why and what can be done to prevent it.
The worst-case scenario is a world war between the West - NATO, the US, the EU with Japan, Taiwan, South Korea - and the East - the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with Russia, China, Central Asia as members, and India, Pakistan and Iran as observers.
Moreover, there will be four nuclear powers on each side, and the main issue will be the conflict between the West and Islam. At its center will be an explosive mixture of a fractured territory (Israel-Palestine) and Jerusalem, a walled capital city.
We have gone through this before: the Cold War, the main issue of which was the conflict between the West and communism. In the center was an explosive mixture of shattered Germany and Berlin - the walled capital - and Korea, bisected by the demilitarized zone. And at the same time, without a direct, "hot" war, except for those that were waged by someone else's hands: Korea, Vietnam. Why?
Undoubtedly, one of the reasons was the nuclear deterrent factor. They came to the edge, but turned away - as during the 1962 Cuban-Turkish Missile Crisis. And, no doubt, nuclear deterrence is also playing a role today, limiting strikes against Israel, American support for Israeli strikes against Arab-Muslim countries, Syria-Iran in particular, and any attack on Russia-China. However, nuclear deterrence is not the material from which a positive peace is made: no depolarization, and definitely no solution and reconciliation.
The Cold War system of NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries was polarized, with the secret police controlling contact, speech and thought, looking for treason. But the world was not polarized: there was a huge non-aligned movement. Europe was not polarized: there were 10 neutral or non-aligned countries. In the end, a powerful anti-war movement emerged.
The NATO + - SCO + system is less polarized, but the world and Europe is more polarized. At the moment, there is no movement for non-alignment and a powerful movement for peace.
The UN vote showed that 3/4 of the world is united in its “yes” to Palestine and “no” to the USA-Israel. Both of these states turn any of their moral superiority into moral inferiority through the ongoing expansion-occupation-blockade and extrajudicial killings in foreign territory. The world is not against the US-Israel defense of the present borders of the [Jewish] national hearth or the 1967 borders, it is against the force and excesses that seem incapable of changing the course of things. By reversing this policy, they could regain moral superiority.
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However, there are still no actors - bearers of a specific peace policy like the Helsinki agreements. The reason lies in the difference between the conflicts along the West-Islam and West-Communism line. Islam, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, covers more of the world's territory and population than the West, but it has few friends outside - unlike the West, which is imitated and admired by Russia-China-India, Latin America and Africa.
Everywhere except Israel, Islam has a huge and growing diaspora due to immigration and fertility. Not a superpower, not an alliance, just "Islamic cooperation", but present everywhere.
The result is uncertainty and fear: what do they want? A challenge to other worldviews guaranteed by freedom of speech and conscience. Islam offers the West, suffering from materialistic individualism and selfishness, healing spiritual unity and complicity.
But Islam also threatens Western institutions with unwanted change. Western secular states won the fight against the church thanks to atheism, which was also exported to Muslim colonies as a guarantee of their loyalty to the state and the empires behind it. Today, part of the Islamic diaspora strikes back, demanding loyalty to Allah and the ummah (community), placing it above loyalty to Western states.
For immigration to benefit the cause of peace, immigrants must respect the laws and customs of their host country and must be greeted with interest and respect in a mutually beneficial dialogue that enriches everyone with something new. If this process is disrupted by one or both of its parties, immigration should stop and the ummah should be built at home.
How about other dangerous points and areas in the world?
The epic in Afghanistan is nearing its end, and not only in connection with the withdrawal of NATO - with the exception of guarding what it was all about: the bases for a possible war with China and the oil pipeline. There may be wars between India and Pakistan, but no other country has an adamant position on Kashmir to participate in them. The world's concern for Israel is not driven by anti-Semitism, but by an alliance that could involve such a large part of the rest of the world.
North Korea has both nuclear weapons and missiles, but it will never attack or be attacked. The struggle for a peace treaty and a normalization of relations with the United States will probably bear fruit for the common good.
Taiwan and China will slowly converge towards a Hong Kong-style one country, two systems solution as Taiwan becomes part of China while maintaining a high degree of autonomy. Common sense would require the same for limited Tibet. And in neither case do we have a conflict from which a third world war can be arranged. For it to happen, there must be strong ties - like the United States has with other NATO countries and Israel. Or, like those that supposedly exist between Russia and China.
The confrontation between the West and Islam remains. Lack of cohesion on the Islamic side helps here. But we are overlooking the non-aligned Hindu India, which stands in solidarity with the West in any significant opposition. Indonesia and Egypt are on the side of Islam, neutral Yugoslavia no longer exists, Latin America is the Christian West, and Africa is divided.
We need moderate actors on both sides. Tunisia-Turkey and the Non-Aligned Powers, Egypt and Indonesia. And the West - maybe Germany, experienced in conducting interfaith dialogue? Germany must play a major peacekeeping role!
Johan Galtung (Norwegian sociologist and mathematician, scientist and practitioner. Founder of the discipline "research of peace and conflict problems").