Great Power Diplomacy: How to Prevent a Third World War

There are increasing parallels made today with 1937. Back then, authoritarianism was on the rise, aggressive powers were rearming, forging new alliances, and exploiting a timid, a risk-averse West, as America had gone full isolationist after the First World War. And Armageddon, written in Greek in the Book of Revelation, becomes Armageddon. There is a sad, curious irony that humanity's first ever battle 3,500 years ago, and what's slated to be the last, given our newfound ability to annihilate the planet, should bear that same name. The choice is not just between peace and conflict, it's between shaping the next order or inheriting one imposed by our adversaries. Hello and welcome to RUSI in London. This is Global Security Briefing, the podcast devoted to providing regular insights from leading international experts to help you make sense of far-reaching changes affecting international security around the world. In today's episode, we bring you a special edition, recorded as part of our series of events held exclusively for RUSI members and associates. With war in Europe and the Middle East, the steady erosion of rules that once governed great power competition, and the arrival of artificial intelligence on the battlefield, the question of how major conflicts begin has rarely felt more pressing. What are the warning signs that the international system is sliding towards a wider war? Where is the greatest risk of escalation, and how much of it is deliberate, rather than accidental? What does grey zone warfare mean for deterrents, and are Western defence establishments equipped for it? And what will advances in AI and computing technology mean for the speed and character of future conflict? To address these questions, we hear from Tobias Elwood, a former British army officer, senior UK parliamentarian, and now a writer and commentator on national security and foreign policy. As a former Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East, and chair of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee until 2023, he has been at the forefront of shaping and critiquing UK's foreign and security policy in increasingly turbulent times, leading the committee on dozens of domestic and international visits, and publishing reports on future global threats, defence procurement, grey zone warfare, Ukraine and the Middle East. He served with the Royal Green Jackets and remains a reservist. He studied at the University of Lovesborough, City University, Business School, and Kennedy School for Government at Harvard. His remarks were recorded during a live RUSI members' event at which he discussed his new book, "Ten Steps to Prevent World War III," published by Bonnier in July 2026. The event and its Q&A session was chaired by RUSI senior associate fellow, Professor Beatrice Husa, who co-hosts RUSI's Talking Strategy podcast with former director of RUSI military sciences team, Paul O'Neill. The full recording of the event is available at: www.rusi.com/talking-strategy-podcast. It is also available to RUSI members on the Institute's website, where you can also sign up if you're not currently a RUSI member. We all feel that the world is getting more dangerous, not less, and this book tries to place everything in perspective. It is a sad fact, I'm afraid, that since the dawn of humanity, conflict has been more the norm than peace. Our planet is four billion years old. We've been around in human form for about 300,000 years. The first civilizations emerged around 5,000 years ago. And as far as I can work out, the earliest battle recorded took place some 3,500 years ago. This is one army versus another at Har Megiddo, not far from the Golan Heights. And Har Megiddo, written in Greek in the Book of Revelation, becomes Armageddon, which today becomes shorthand for humanity's ultimate catastrophic conflict, the actual destruction of the world. There is a sad, curious irony that humanity's first ever battle, 3,500 years ago, and what's slated to be the last, given our newfound ability to annihilate the planet, should bear that same name. So this book is about preventing that, a wake-up call, if you like, to where our world is drifting. How did we get here? And what should we do about it? It's worth perhaps clarifying what World War III, in my view, is and is not. We have this image that it might be World War II with nuclear weapons. I would argue that actually a Third World War is likely to be a war where there are multiple conflicts across the world taking place on multiple fronts. It's not a war where there's going to be violence across multiple domains, including the old conventional space, no doubt, but also economic warfare, gray zone warfare, as global order increasingly breaks down. To place this sense of urgency, I'm trying to get our politicians, and indeed the public, simply to appreciate just how serious the situation is. And the doomsday block starkly sums up where we stand. We're going to come across this. This is the symbolic clock that was created in 1947. Those clever people that were working on the Manhattan Project to create a nuclear bomb just realized what destruction they had had formed and how close to humanity we are to global catastrophe. They decided to form this symbolic clock. They set the time at seven minutes to midnight at the end of the Cold War. The clock was set at 15 minutes to midnight. That's a good year. That's the best it's arguably ever been. At the start of Donald Trump's second term, the clock stood at 90 seconds to midnight. And today, it's at 85 seconds. Now, it's an illustration, but it just shows you that the world is not in a great place. And understandably, there are increasing parallels made between the two. And I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. forth. Nations, leaders, authoritarian states take advantage of that. And in the book, I try to put in perspective, when did we start following rules? When did we start agreeing that it was wrong to simply invade another country? And you can go back to arguably 1648. This is when Henry Kissinger, in his Global Order book, marks a line and says, that's the moment, the treatise of Westphalia, after the 30 years war, when finally countries came together and said, right, we've actually got to agree a set of rules. You can't just invade another country, because they've got a different religion to you, and you don't really like them. So that's the first moment in time, perhaps, certainly in the West, where we agreed a set of rules. And then a pattern approached of a treaty being agreed, and stability then lasting, but then that stability being decreased. And then a pattern approached of a treaty being agreed, and stability then lasting, challenged, leading to conflict, another major war, and then we have another treaty. And the 1648, we could arguably say that the next line in the sand was the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. That was a bun fight after the future of Spain. Countries came together and again, agreed a new set of rules. That lasted some time until, of course, Napoleon did his thing across Europe, and we had the Viennese Congress. The big Vienna Congress in 1814. A new set of rules, a new set of treaties, which we more or less adhered to. It kept Europe, most of Europe, safe. And until, of course, World War I. And after World War I, we then had a very poor treaty, as we now look back, the Treaty of Versailles. And that, I'm afraid, set up the World War II, which led to the Yalta Conference, Potsdam, and so forth. And what we now call Bretton Woods. And that's what we now call the Treaty of Versailles. And that's where all the agreements were made, based on the Atlantic Charter. This was the America and Britain agreeing during the war to say, you know, we've got to stop this. We've got to stop, you know, we've got to have a set of values that we need to uphold and defend. And we want other countries to join with us in upholding international laws. So Bretton Woods, our global order as it, you know, sits today, has four major pillars. And the first one is security. That's governed by the United Nations Security Council. Braid is governed by what was then GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, now the World Trade Organization. We have development. The IMF was created, the International Monetary Fund, to provide financial stability for countries that perhaps weren't particularly strong at the time. The World Bank was formed to help countries chivvy along, to deal with different challenges that they may face, to prevent them from sliding in towards internal conflict, and to protect the international courts, the International Criminal Courts, the International Courts of Justice, to hold states and individuals to account. And that, essentially, is the modern-day global order. But anybody who was watching Davos, the leader after leader was saying, actually, it's crumbling. The global architecture is falling apart. And we see that. United Nations Security Council is paralyzed because the veto hasn't been updated. The World Trade Organization, well, America hasn't put its lawyers in to uphold the appeals process, which means that the World Trade Organization doesn't work. You can't go anywhere to complain that a country has invoked tariffs on you. And on top of that, you have the IMF and the World Bank is no longer attractive because China is operating something called the Belt and Road Initiative, ensnaring countries into programs where they get into huge debt. But the World Trade Organization is no longer attractive because China doesn't benefit from infrastructure. And we see this much across Africa and so forth, meaning the IMF and the World Bank aren't able to have the same punch as they did. And finally, the International Courts, well, many countries didn't even sign up to them in the first place. So perhaps it's no wonder that many years on from 1946, '47, when these were created, it is all starting to wobble. And this isn't not just about authoritarian states pushing back, but actually Western nations, not least the United States, one of the original architects of Bretton Woods, actually giving up on it completely. And the consequences, we're seeing countries, in particular, this access that's been termed, you know, coming together. And they've actually got little in common, Russia, China, and Iran. Obviously, Iran's changed a little bit, but Russia is a centralized autocracy, China, a communist dictatorship, and Iran, a theocratic republic. Not natural bedfellows, bearing in mind that, you know, in the '60s, '70s, China and Russia fell out completely because of their views on what real communism looked like. Russia and Iran, well, during what was called the Great Game, they were certainly at loggerheads, with Russia joining Britain into owning and controlling much of Iran in the First and Second World Wars. And when the Iraq War came on, came across, Russia was actually on the other side. And when it comes to Iran and China, well, Iran actually publicly criticized China over the COVID outbreak and what happened in Wuhan. And yet here they are, these three countries now mutually supporting each other, and many other countries in the global south, looking at where our world is, not knowing which way to turn, and bizarrely actually seeing more stability, more predictability in what China is doing, even though they ask less questions when it comes to human rights and governance, and so forth. But let's put things in perspective. Let's look at it, at the world from their shoes. The West, let's be honest, has been a bit selective about abiding by that very international rules-based order that it created. And when you look at it from Russia or China's perspective, what's happened in Venezuela quite recently, with Donald Trump taking the president out, is actually a long list of problems. And that's been the case since the end of the Second World War. Vietnam is the big one, but the Cuban Missile Crisis, sorry, the Cuban Bay of Pigs, the Iran coup in 1953, when the MI5, MI6, and the CIA removed a prime minister, an Iranian prime minister that looked like he was getting too close to the Russians. But there are many examples. The annexation of Hawaii, for example, they can point to many examples whereby we've been a little bit questionable about actually upholding our rules-based order. So they never signed up to Bretton Woods in the first place. They also remember their history, and this is where the book focuses on that we don't understand their angle of the world enough. And consequently, there is actually no trust from the very, very start. Take Russia, for example. It's history demonstrates what Russia is today. For centuries, it's been many principalities, and they realized very, very quickly that unless they had one authoritarian central leader, then the country was then vulnerable. I often compare Russia in the 1500s and so forth to a game of risk. The green is actually very, very hard to defend. What's the best way to defend? To attack. Russia was the first to recognize this, empowered to represent Russia, pushed the Mongols back, pushed east. Catherine the Great pushed the Polish-Lithuanians north. Peter the Great also, sorry, Catherine the Great went south, Peter the Great went north, and of course, Stalin went west, pushing back the Nazis. So this is what strong leaders, it's in the mindset of Russia, do to protect the country. And Putin is just another strong leader. That's what the motherland believes. The idea that we would impose democracy on this country overnight is simply something that isn't credible for us to then do and understand. China, likewise, remembers their history, and we don't understand that enough. Most MPs are familiar with the fact that Hong Kong was handed back to China recently, but China remembers. China remembers vividly how it lost Hong Kong in the first place, how it was ruthlessly taken in the 1800s through the opium wars, where we decided to make China high because we wanted China's tea, but didn't want to pay for it, so we took opium from India and swapped it instead. It led to the collapse of the Qing dynasty. It led to the civil war, which eventually the communists won, but interestingly, when the communists won. Chairman Mao. The nationalists, the Kuomintang, did a runner to Taiwan. Yet when the UN was formed, we didn't give the UN seat, the Security Council seat, to Beijing. We actually gave it to the nationalists in Taiwan. It wasn't until 1971 that finally Beijing was able to sit at the United Nations Security Council in that permanent seat. So they remember all this. They remember what the West did to their country. And it's taught every day. in their schools. And that's why they feel a necessity to rebuild their country, but invest heavily in defense. And we need to appreciate where they are coming from. We see today China is absolutely growing economically, and they certainly have been busy. But they've also been clever in developing a long-term strategy that I'm afraid today openly challenges the very world order, which we hope they would have signed up to back in 1946, but never actually had an opportunity. And China is developing a rival architecture. I mentioned their Belt and Road, but you have the Shanghai Corporation Organization, probably an organization most people know little about. But if you imagine the EU and NATO together, but for East Asia, that's what the Shanghai Corporation Organization is developing into, led by China. The Asia Infrastructure Bank, the BRICS, and so forth, these are rival organizations and modeling that actually put that challenge, the Bretton Woods construct itself. And again, I repeat, the Global South and others are saying, well, which way do I turn? Where do I actually focus my energies? Can I actually work with both sides? And that's a dilemma countries are increasingly facing. So we have multiple challenges today. The rise of authoritarianism, the demise of democracy and globalization in international cooperation, and a splintering of our world into two competing spheres, East versus West, compounded by the West itself, splintering. But America and Europe are not on the same page in many fronts. We actually have an American president openly bringing our adversary in Europe, namely Putin, in from the cold. Openly reaching out to Kim Jong-un, openly wanting to do further business, but without any challenges or caveats with President Xi. And it's just worth saying what Trumpism is, which I explore in the book. My view is that Trump has actually written off any prospect of trying to repair the global order, sees a country now being challenged in its status across the world, fed up with perhaps trying to honor them. And I think that's a challenge. Those rules, looking over their shoulder, seeing countries exploit the weakness of our global order, and says, fine, right, I'm not going to honor them anymore at all. I'm going to look after America. America first. The world is now a jungle with big beasts in it, each with their own areas of influence. We've got the Americas, that includes Venezuela, and includes Cuba and so forth, and indeed Greenland. Well, Russia, they can have Ukraine, not fussed about. China, of course, they can have their neck of the woods too. And I will do business, transactually, with these other beasts. And we will recognize and respect each other's domains with other smaller areas, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and other beasts in this jungle, able to do business, but each with their own influence. And that, I believe, is where Trump is going. It's great for the short term, but long, but very, very dangerous for the long term. And I then now turn to why war will be so different from World War II. And here is perhaps a fresh perspective on the domains of war. You ask anybody what the domains of war are, we normally turn to the physical. Sea, land, air. You could add now nuclear, certainly to that. Space is another dimension that's very, very pertinent today. But you also have the digital and the virtual. So the cyber capabilities there of attacking in that area, disinformation campaigns. And then you have the societal, the strategic, the industrial capacity to endure war. We have 150 battle tanks now, Britain does. State of the art, very shiny, very capable indeed. And they will win their first battle. But where's our ability to replenish them, to replace them? It's non-existent. So if the government is not able to do that, then we will lose simply because we haven't got the ability to replace. And you then have soft power, the ability to influence others, to get others to join your cause, to put different types of fires out before they actually lead to conflict. Extremism, for example, dealing with Boko Haram, al-Shabaab. That's done through soft power work. And then finally, there is the political will, the will to actually step forward. And Ukraine, I would argue, is an example whereby the West, NATO, even Britain to some extent, was hesitant in wanting to step forward and support Ukraine. Britain did eventually lead the way, but after public debates on whether we should slide across anti-tank missiles, tanks, F-16s, long-range missiles, and so forth, that's not the way you support Ukraine. That's not the way you stand up to Russia. That's not the way you account. And this leads on to steps six and seven in the book, which is improving our soft and hard power. There are certainly warnings from the head of MI6 to the NATO Secretary General that threats are growing and we are increasingly vulnerable. I would argue that in every realm of competition I've just mentioned, we are lacking competence and lacking capability. And that was very evident when I attended the recent Turkey-NATO summit, whereby countries were asking me what Britain is doing. Why aren't we upgrading? Why our defense posture? Why are we behind other countries in rearming and spending more on defense? And the 2025 defense review spelt out the threats heading our way and the gaps in the defense posture that need filling. The delayed defense investment plan. And we've mapped out how that gap could be filled. But as we saw play out, it took the resignation of the defense secretary to prove that the money is not there. And there's an irony that he's now the chancellor and still the money isn't really forthcoming. I would argue that were the government to be more honest about the totality of the threats that we face, our ability to defend our water supplies, to guard our energy supplies, our undersea cables, our access to minerals, our virtual digital world, our critical assets in space, the threat from China harnessing quantum technology before us. I believe that the British people would be willing to spend more on keeping the nation safe if that money was ring-fenced. Not least because if we don't spend more, our economy is then hit. If our economy is hit, there's less money in the treasury coffers, not just for defense, but for all government departments, including welfare. We need to wake up. Sadly, I do fear it may take a major attack, an acute event, for the penny to drop. So this requires bold leadership. It requires statecraft. And as I cover in step eight, which is all about doing democracy better, we are increasingly lacking the strategic leadership required to help navigate us through this new era of insecurity. Who would step forward to be a member of parliament today? We need to ask that question because the great and the good will not be counted, will not step forward into the public life, which means that gene pool of competence that you have in parliament, that's where you get your ministers. And indeed, your prime minister is from. But domestic politics is dominated by populism, soundbites, which increasingly overshadow sound policy development. So this is where we find ourselves today. Our world faces three potential scenarios, to put it simply. One is that we fix our decaying global order. We upgrade it. We create a Bretton Woods 2.0. Which includes the needs, aspirations, and concerns of our adversaries. The second is that our world continues to splinter into those spheres of competing, conflicting influence. And you get conflict on the edges, but there's enough back channels in place to prevent a world war. And the third is we don't do enough, and we continually slide towards a world, a world of conflict, a world war three. That for me, simply put, is where potentially we might go. So to summarize the book itself, this is about clarifying our values, understanding our adversaries, learning from failure in the past, preparing for how wars will be fought in the future, rebuilding alliances, investing in our resilience, aligning our economies with our security, repairing democracy at home. And offering the world a way back from the brink. History is unforgiving for those who drift. Moments like this do not wait. This is why statecraft and leadership is so pivotal in making this happen. The choice is not just between peace and conflict. It's between shaping the next order or inheriting one imposed by our adversaries. Thank you. And that brings us to the end of today's special episode of Global Security Briefing, a discussion of the risk of a slide towards a third world war and the steps that might yet prevent it. I'd like to thank our guests Tobias Elwood, Beatrice Huza for chairing and everyone in the audience who submitted questions. If you want to hear more from Beatrice and explore the strategies and ideas that have shaped our understanding of defense and security, RUCI's Talking Strategy podcast returns with itself. Keep an eye on RUCI's website for more details at RUCI.org. Global Security Briefing is available on all major podcast platforms. Please like and subscribe. And if you enjoy the podcast and would like to help us reach even more listeners, a great way to do so is by sending this episode to a friend or a colleague or by leaving a review wherever you listen to us. 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