‘World War III’ May Claim Over 500m Lives – Group

The Foundation for Peace Professionals (PeacePro) has warned that a third global war could result in more than 500 million deaths.

It cited historical escalation patterns in warfare and the unprecedented destructive capacity of modern nuclear weapons to buttress its point.

The group gave the warning in a new strategic report titled “Global Escalation of Warfare and Projected Human Cost of a Potential World War III,” authorised by its executive director, Abdulrazaq Hamzat.

According to the report by PeacePro, modern history shows a clear pattern of rising casualties in successive global wars.

“The World War I, fought between 1914 and 1918, resulted in approximately 10–20 million deaths. Just 21 years later, the world descended into World War II, which lasted from 1939 to 1945 and claimed an estimated 50–70 million lives, representing a 400–500 percent increase in casualties,” it stated.

It noted that this dramatic escalation was largely driven by advances in military technology and the expansion of warfare to civilian populations.

“The lesson from history is that each major global war has been far more destructive than the one before it,”the group said.

The report emphasised  that modern warfare has entered a fundamentally different era due to the development of nuclear weapons.

The group added that if a global war were to occur in the nuclear age, the human cost could reach more than 500m deaths.

It said that casualties would likely arise from multiple sources, including direct military strikes on cities and infrastructure, nuclear detonations and radiation exposure, collapse of global food and energy supply systems, economic and financial system breakdown and  mass displacement and humanitarian crises.