The Ultimate Engagement

Study Notes

The term "Third World War" refers to a hypothetical new world war characterized by the use of nuclear weapons or other conflicts of global importance.
It originated from the fear that the confrontation between the two superpowers of the Cold War, the USSR and the US, would lead to a total war mobilizing their nuclear arsenal.
The use of limited or massive nuclear weapons could lead to the destruction of most inhabited lands.
The fear of annihilation was prevalent in the collective consciousness after the atomic bomb was discovered.
The crisis of the Cuban missile in 1962 was believed to trigger the Third World War.
The most well-known tensions that could have led to a world war are the Korean War, the Cuban missile crisis, and the tensions between superpowers of the Yom Kippur War.
There were false alarms of nuclear attack, such as an error in the NORAD system in 1979 and a false alert in the Soviet Union in 1983.
The use of the term "Third World War" was also depicted in various fictions that fueled the collective psychosis.
The war would have constituted an ultimate engagement, leading to the end of civilization and the extinction of the human species during a nuclear winter.
The threat of the Third World War was linked to the Cold War, the biological warfare, and the fight against terrorism.