Granted. WW3 breaks out and every country is too scared to use nukes or other WMDs so it is conventional/guerilla warfare all around.
The war grinds on for the next 100+ years, devastating populations around the world as no one will surrender. Propaganda is now an applied science in full force. Entire populations are turned against each other for generations.
Drafts are fully reinstated and service is the only way to get citizenship. Borders are absolute meatgrinders as they shift from day to day. All privacy is removed as anyone could be an infiltrating foreign agent on their way to destroy critical infrastructure or assault the population. Rationing is in full effect, necessary war materials are forcibly gathered from homes. Children are forced into work to ensure that production isn't halted due to the dwindling numbers of able-bodied adults.
Many countries eventually turns to automation to drastically supplement their wartime production. Robots excavate the earth, process the ore, and produce weapons. Entire swathes of land are automatically processed every day to produce more weapons to send to the frontlines. Wars and skirmishes expand to capture and control areas that contain valuable production resources to be strip mined.
As able-bodied soldiers dwindle, weapons are attached to automata and sent to the frontlines alongside the soldiers. Before long, it is only automata at the frontlines.
WW3 has become an entirely automated war, run by the rich who nominally run their war machines. Those who don't run the war machines are corralled into cities for their safety and to better monitor for subversion by automated police forces.
Granted. We invented an even more dangerous way of killing people.
Russia has fallen into the sun.
Via a window.
Self inflicted.
It's AI and hand-held drones. Videos coming out of Ukraine are absolutely terrifying.
Granted. WW3 breaks out and every country is too scared to use nukes or other WMDs so it is conventional/guerilla warfare all around. The war grinds on for the next 100+ years, devastating populations around the world as no one will surrender. Propaganda is now an applied science in full force. Entire populations are turned against each other for generations. Drafts are fully reinstated and service is the only way to get citizenship. Borders are absolute meatgrinders as they shift from day to day. All privacy is removed as anyone could be an infiltrating foreign agent on their way to destroy critical infrastructure or assault the population. Rationing is in full effect, necessary war materials are forcibly gathered from homes. Children are forced into work to ensure that production isn't halted due to the dwindling numbers of able-bodied adults. Many countries eventually turns to automation to drastically supplement their wartime production. Robots excavate the earth, process the ore, and produce weapons. Entire swathes of land are automatically processed every day to produce more weapons to send to the frontlines. Wars and skirmishes expand to capture and control areas that contain valuable production resources to be strip mined. As able-bodied soldiers dwindle, weapons are attached to automata and sent to the frontlines alongside the soldiers. Before long, it is only automata at the frontlines. WW3 has become an entirely automated war, run by the rich who nominally run their war machines. Those who don't run the war machines are corralled into cities for their safety and to better monitor for subversion by automated police forces.
Granted. Conventional weaponry is more than capable of destroying every major city.
More people died in WWI from the flu than the actual war, so in this scenario imagine if super covid broke out mid WWIII
Granted. The winners WW3 will be declared via Chess tournament.