

carrier group with Tu-22M "Backfire" and Tu-16 "Badger" bombers armed with conventional missiles, resulting in the group having to shoot down over 100 incoming missiles. Backfire Raid: a large-scale attack on a U.S.However, actual Warsaw Pact plans put on display after the end of the Cold War revealed that the Soviets were planning to open the war with a sizeable nuclear bombing campaign. This is based on NATO's assumptions about probable Warsaw Pact actions during the Cold War. Nukes, or No Nukes: In many fictional accounts, nuclear weapons are not employed straight off for political reasons.The 1991 coup attempt succeeding is a popular choice for this. 1987 must find some way to remove Mikhail Gorbachev from the Soviet leadership. Gorbachev Must Die: Any scenario written after c.There are some associated sub-tropes with this setup in particular: Scenarios which have China, North Korea and/or Middle Eastern powers as the antagonists may actually involve Russia joining the Western side. China also gets used when the work's creator isn't so worried about the consequences for that. Other times, it involves a resurgent Russia and more recently, North Korea. A more modern take on WWIII is that it begins somewhere in the Middle East Israel, Iran, India and Pakistan may be involved. If the show was made before Christmas 1991, Communists are involved, even if the war is supposedly set years after 1991. Of course, it's entirely possible for the war to kill everybody, and have it center on the attendees to Humanity's Wake. If not, the winner might set up a One World Order, in which our heroes fight against The Government in a dystopian Cyberpunk type environment. If the destruction gets too out of hand it might result in The End of the World as We Know It, causing an After the End situation set on a Scavenger World. A commonly-used Gallows Humor joke is about this war's length somewhere around an hour. Then again, if a conventional war is actually fought, escalation to nuclear war is quite likely. note In fiction, anyway in Real Life it's possible it might just be another very destructive conventional war, if it ever happens, due to the sheer suicidal nature of the usage of nuclear weapons. Weapons of Mass Destruction are probably going to get used, often recklessly, causing massive casualties. So it's probably only natural that the next great global conflict is a popular subject in Speculative Fiction. Luckily for humanity, World War III has been in Development Hell for more than half a century now - and long may it stay there (indeed, it's not a sequel anyone is looking forward to, we hope). For almost the entire twentieth century it seemed like humanity was teetering on the brink of self-destruction: both World Wars, the Cold War, and then the threat of terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and biological warfare - and all that after World War I was going to be " The War to End All Wars". Some psychologists believe Humans Are Warriors and naturally predisposed towards violence.
