A WORLD ON THE BRINK

As tensions heighten among the world’s superpowers, what are the chances of a global war breaking out? We asked the experts

WORLD leade r s squaring up to one another, chemical attacks, nuclear blasts, missi le tests . . . One look at the biggest global news headlines over the past months and it’s easy to see why “World War 3” is being searched more frequently on Google. It certainly feels as if the world is on the brink of war.

US president Donald Trump recently sent a navy strike force to the Korean Peninsula in a bid to deter North Korean leader Kim Jong-un from carrying out more nuclear tests. Jong-un’s response? He’s vowed to wipe out US forces and “leave no man alive”.

Japan is believed to have launched an advanced satellite system to spy on the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. China, an ally of North Korea, is said to be “on alert” but is calling for peace in the face of the combative rhetoric between Trump and Jong-un.

Then there’s the Middle East situation, which escalated tension between Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin.

It’s little wonder the Doomsday Clock, a symbol representing the likelihood of a human-caused global catastrophe, is standing on two-and-a-half minutes to midnight. But is humanity really heading for large-scale global conflict? Here’s a look at the current situation.

WHAT’S BEHIND THE ESCALATING TENSIONS

“We live in a period where it looks as if the old is dying but the new hasn’t been born yet – a kind of transition phase,” says Hussein Solomon, senior professor in the University of the Free State’s political studies and governance department.

“Up until World War 1, Britain was the world’s top superpower.” And when the US took over this role after World War 2 “there was continuity because they shared the same democratic values”.

But now American power is dwindling and economic giant China is flexing its muscles. “The same applies to Russia,” Solomon says. “But Russia is in a bad position economically and otherwise”.

Military analyst Helmoed-Römer Heitman agrees. “Russia is trying to reassert itself, but its economy is barely the size of Italy’s,” he says. It’s trying to increase its sphere of influence in different ways, which sometimes leads to conflict.

Another factor in global tensions, Solomon says, is that the structures mandated to maintain global peace, such as the United Nations (UN), international law and the International Criminal Court (ICC), don’t function properly.

For a long time international security was dependent on the amount of power