World War 3 Would Be ‘Catastrophic’ Says Defense Secretary As U.S. Sends Third Warship Toward North Korea

In the latest news about an impending World War 3, Defense Secretary James Mattis said Sunday that a war between the United States and North Korea, which many would consider the beginning of the world’s third all-encompassing war, would prove “catastrophic” to nations near to North Korea.

Speaking on Face the Nation, Mattis claimed that Pyongyang has within its arsenal “hundreds of artillery cannons and rocket launchers,” which could be used to bring destruction to Seoul, South Korea, a city with an extremely concentrated population, thus if Kim Jong-un decided to use Seoul for target practice, a high number of human casualties would result, and this, among several other matters, worries James.

Mattis also said that a war with North Korea would involve “the worst kind of fighting in most peoples’ lifetimes.”

Put simply, if a military conflict were to arise between the U.S. and North Korea, war-capable countries within North Korea’s region would be placed in a vulnerable place and have little options as to which direction to take. Hence, if the States launch an offensive on Pyongyang or vice versa, World War 3 could be an inevitable result.

Tensions between the two world superpowers of Mattis’ concern have been high for quite some time now, and it doesn’t look as if that will be changing anytime soon, as over the weekend President Trump okayed the deployment of a third warship, the USS Nimitz, to meet with the two (USS Carl Vincent and USS Ronald Reagan) that have already arrived near to the Korean Peninsula.

According to VOA, the USS Nimitz was sent as an “apparent warning” in response to Kim Jong-un’s continual aggressive practices of missile launch testing and activities relating to nuclear warfare.

Although Donald Trump has promised Americans that Pyongyang will never have the opportunity to nuke the U.S., those with advanced knowledge of the subject insist it could be within Jong-un’s range of capabilities in the 2020’s.

On Tuesday this week, the United States is planning on testing a defense tool specifically designed to take out an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), a type of missile that North Korea could use in a strike against the U.S. in the future.

During 2017’s North Korean holiday “Day of the Sun,” Pyongyang held the traditional events of that day, which included a flaunting of their latest military arsenal, and within that arsenal was what looked like ICBM’s, though it’s difficult to know for sure if the missiles were of the intercontinental ballistic variety, as well as if they’re real weapons at all, according to Frank Lavin, a man who used to serve as American ambassador to Singapore, during an interview on CNBC.

It is still unknown if Jong-un has an ICBM at his disposal at this time.

Many have claimed that World War 3 would mean the end of the world, and the Defense Secretary’s use of the word “catastrophic” fits that theory. Experts are split on whether or not a Third World War is imminent but less divided on what WW3 would mean for humankind.

North Korea is the only nation that has a leader appearing to be looking forward to World War 3. Jong-un has said that “nuclear war could break out at any moment,” when talking about the United States, among many other inflammatory, threatening rhetoric, but while some fear he means what he says, others believe the chubby dictator is bluffing.

When comparing Pyongyang to other countries that would play a prominent role in World War 3, they’re weaker in many aspects. According to Global Firepower, an organization that ranks world military strengths annually, North Korea is the twenty-third most powerful, behind the U.S. (first), Russia (second), and China (third).

GFP factors in 50 different components to get to their final ranking. Manpower, geography, and weapon variety are a few of the things that play a part. Nuclear capability is not factored in, and neither is the political ideology, or strengths and weaknesses of a nation’s leadership.

Though GFP doesn’t count nuclear arms in their final tally, these are the weapons that would yield the most damage to earth. If a nuclear war were to break out between the United States and Russia, for example, one predicted consequence is that humanity would be left to live for years in a smoke-filled world, as the explosions would produce 150 million tons of smoke that would distribute itself across the globe, according to nucleardarkness.org.

The consequences listed are based on specific factors and only take into account a war between the U.S. and Russia, the two countries that make up about 95 percent of the world’s nuclear collection.

The smoke would block large amounts of sunlight, and as a result of this, the world would become cold, possibly cold enough to cause the next ice age. Snow, ice, and rain would fall less than half as often as it did before and seasons would cease to exist for a prolonged period of time.

The ozone layer, which protects Earth and humans from lethal sun rays, would slowly deteriorate, resulting in those rays poisoning everything it touches. Land would lose its fertility and a large portion of humanity would die of hunger.

All in all, if leaders of the world allow a massive nuclear war to happen and the majority of the Earth’s nuclear arms got used up, we’re looking at an extinction level event similar to that of the dinosaurs.

This type of crisis may not be what Defense Secretary James Mattis meant when he used the word “catastrophic,” but clearly he’s worried about the fallouts of war.

How many world leaders are privy to the consequences of a World War 3? Could one benign attack lead to the end of the world?

[Featured Image by Billion Photos/Shutterstock]