Is this how world war three starts?

Russian Artillery pound Ukrainian forces.

Things are moving quickly across Europe. Countries are fragmenting and borders seem to be redefined on a daily basis.

It feels to me that the maps of Europe in the future will resemble those of 19th century Europe.

With my author head in mind, I’ve been watching the news with great interest, especially the claims that we are entering a new Cold War. But what if we’re entering a new war entirely?

Here are my thoughts on the situation.

The US, Britain, France and Germany all get involved in the Ukrainian conflict as events move slowly but with gathering pace out of the Crimea. What this means is that we have the major powers locked in an escalating war in Ukraine whilst cyber attacks devastate countries such as Latvia, Estonia and Georgia after they declare their support for the Ukraine.

North Korean troops running through a South Korean town.

Meanwhile, North Korea takes advantage of the fact that everyone is looking further west. Not many people commenting on the exercises and live firing that North Korea is doing right now. Knowing that they aren’t being watch closely enough, they launch an attack that uses the heaviest artillery bombardment in history, nullifying all defending forces south of the border for five miles.

Blindsided by these events, western powers are unable to support the South Korean quickly enough. Japanese and Australian forces are able to help however and deploy.

China strongly condemns North Korea’s actions, but takes advantage of the confusion to seize territory it has always considered to be Chinese from the Russians.

There are no WMD deployed at all during these events, all parties knowing that conventional warfare is, for now, the only option.

How this ends I don’t know, but this is I think it could go. The most likely thing to happen? There’s a lot of shouting, some limited exchanges between Russian and Ukrainian troops, everything dies down, Russia remains in charge of the land it has seized.