With the war in Iran entering its fourth week, Western officials are planning for an uncertain future dominated by conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, and fearing new battles in Asia.
Senior Nato and Western intelligence sources increasingly describe a world where conflict is no longer contained within neat regional silos. They have told The i Paper of their fear that tensions in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia are drawing a clear line between East and West.
Rather than a march towards a traditional, single, explosive global war, officials warn that a gradual drip of overlapping conflicts – sparked by Donald Trump’s brutal foreign policy – could slowly drag allies into a conflict on multiple fronts with its enemies.
Increased alignment between Russia, China and Iran, both on and off the battlefield, is forcing officials to ask, what does world war look like in 2026 and are we heading there?
In the waiting room of World War Three
For decades, the idea of a third world war has been framed as a sudden single trigger that would divide the world into opposing camps overnight. But that is no longer how Western defence officials understand the situation, The i Paper has been told.
Instead, the assessment emerging from Nato officials, and intelligence and defence sources, is more unsettling. They say the world may be edging towards a form of conflict that is already under way, even if not yet fully recognised.
From Ukraine to the Middle East and into the Indo-Pacific, crises are no longer isolated events. They are increasingly interconnected by allies and enemies sharing military capabilities, intelligence, and motives.
A Nato official described the current threat landscape as a “coherent scenario of more than three separate regional conflicts,” warning that in all of them, the West is battling the same enemy.
Members of Palestinian Hamas’s Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades and Islamic Jihad’s Quds Brigades at Al-Saraya Square in Gaza City for Eid al-Fitr prayers, marking the end of Ramadan (Photo: Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP/Getty)This does not mean a global war in the 20th-century sense is imminent. There are no formal declarations, and no alliances mobilising for total war. But with rising tensions, and growing alignment between the so-called axis of evil – China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea – there is a heightened understanding within the corridors of Whitehall and Washington of an East vs West war.
That concern is echoed by a US intelligence source who describes the current situation as “the world at war” – a stitching-up of overlapping conflicts linked by technology and equipment rather than treaties.
James Everard, the former deputy supreme commander of Nato in Europe, said the “interconnectedness” between conflicts was “inevitable”.
“Just as we welcomed the fact that Russia was bogged down in Ukraine,” he said, “so our adversaries will see merit in making the Iranian conflict as expensive and as painful for the US as possible.”
That is why some European policymakers are beginning to speak more bluntly. Marko Mihkelson, an Estonian lawmaker who chairs the country’s foreign affairs committee, said a global war has not begun in the traditional sense, but the conditions for one are steadily falling into place.
“We have entered the waiting room of World War Three”, he said.
Closer alignment of enemies
Russia’s war in Ukraine has become a testing ground for modern warfare, particularly in drone use and electronic systems, and the lessons learnt have not stayed confined to Eastern Europe.
Iran and Russia have developed close ties since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with Iranian developed Shahed drones being used to devastating effect on military and civilian targets.
According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, over 57,000 Shahed-style drones have been used by Russia in Ukraine since 2022, and Russia has built a vast factory complex in the Tartasan region to build the drones. The relationship is two-way.
On 3 March, Russian expat Telegram channels began sharing what appeared to be fragments of a Russian-made Geran-2 drone that was intercepted and landed near the Jebel Ali Port in Dubai. The Geran-2 drone is the Russian equivalent of the Shahed. The i Paper has not been able to confirm the authenticity of the image.
Firefighters battle a blaze in an apartment building following a Russian missile attack in Kharkiv, on 7 March (Photo: Andrii Marienko/AP)Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi told US broadcaster MS Now that China and Russia were providing “military co-operation” with Iran.
This has become a major concern for Nato, which is tracking the increased overlaps in technology on the battlefield. A second senior Nato official said focus is not only pointed to the sharing of weaponry, but also “personnel and expertise in things like sanctions evasion.”
One senior Ministry of Defence official said, “It’s hard not to draw the conclusion that these are two battles in the same war,” in reference to Ukraine and Iran.
“The parallels we are seeing are very much aligned and with the US being drawn further into what they may have perceived to be a short war, opportunities arise for China and North Korea,” they said. “Dealing with them as a single issue is simpler for allies.”
While the war in Iran risks bringing enemies closer together, it also has the reverse effect of pulling allies apart. In a post on his Truth Social on Friday, Trump said that without the US, Nato is a “PAPER TIGER!”.
The Ministry of Defence official accused the US of “alienating itself” from allies in a “war of words and tariffs”. They said “the more they become embroiled in Iran, the more the door opens for others.”
Moscow benefits when the US is tied down in the Middle East. Tehran benefits from Russian expertise. And Beijing benefits from a West distracted across multiple fronts. Each actor pursues its own interests, but the cumulative effect encourages alignment across all fronts.
The remains of a Russian-made, Iran-designed Shahed-136 drone fired into Kharkiv, Ukraine, in July last year (Photo: Scott Peterson/Getty)The UK’s former defence attaché to Moscow, John Foreman, cautions against the idea of a single grand strategy binding Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and the Iranian regime together.
“I see co-operation between the various hostile actors rather than alignment,” he said. “Obviously Russia and Iran have long ties, but I see Russian intel and other support to Iran as an opportunistic spoiler rather than any grand strategy.”
The i Paper previously revealed that Russia and China were learning from one another’s hybrid warfare. An intelligence assessment, sent to Brussels last year and seen in part by The i Paper, said: “What is innovated by China on one end of the globe will be perfected by Russia on the other.”
In the corridors of Whitehall there is tension between recognising these connections and resisting them. A Foreign Office source said it is strategically necessary to treat conflicts as separate, to avoid escalation. Others warn that doing so risks missing the bigger picture.
Taiwan: a looming battlefront
If today’s conflicts form part of a wider pattern, then Taiwan poses the next dangerous edge. For many Western officials, Taiwan is not simply another flashpoint. It is a conflict that could transform a regional crisis into a global conflict.
Mihkelson describes it as “the most critical choke point”. Much like the effect of the oil trade stemming from the Iran war, disruptions to Taiwan’s semiconductor industry would have immediate worldwide consequences. But the risk is not confined to economics.
A conflict over Taiwan would draw in the US directly and test the credibility of its alliances in Asia. If Washington was already heavily engaged in Europe and the Middle East, its ability to respond decisively in the Indo-Pacific could be compromised.
The Pentagon said last year that China was preparing to take Taiwan through “brute force” by 2027. But a US intelligence report released this week indicated that Beijing would prefer to “peacefully” pursue its goal of taking control of the island.
However, an intelligence assessment of the likely causes of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, seen by The i Paper, stated that a scenario whereby “the US is entangled in another warfare and won’t be able to take on the Chinese in Taiwan” would be the “most likely” time for Beijing to strike.
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