As of 7 April 2026, the world had not yet entered a Third World War, but it had reached a point at which a regional conflict could shift into a qualitatively new phase. US President Donald Trump demanded that Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz by the evening of 7 April, Washington time, threatening otherwise to launch large-scale strikes against infrastructure. Iran rejected the ultimatum, insisting not on a temporary ceasefire but on a complete halt to the strikes, guarantees that they would not be repeated, and compensation for the damage. At the same time, Russia and China blocked even a watered-down UN Security Council resolution on protecting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, while Iran had already struck the Saudi petrochemical complex at Jubail. All this means that, after the deadline expired, the crisis entered a phase in which the cost of error rose sharply.
The main question is this: does that automatically mean the beginning of a Third World War? Not yet. But it is already the sort of crisis in which one additional step could transform a limited war into a multi-layered international confrontation. What makes the situation especially dangerous is that this is not merely a dispute over territory; it concerns control over the Strait of Hormuz, a route through which, in 2024 and the first quarter of 2025, more than a quarter of global seaborne oil trade, around one fifth of global oil and petroleum product consumption, and roughly one fifth of global LNG trade passed. Alternative export routes out of the Gulf are limited to approximately 3.5 to 5.5 million barrels per day, meaning that they cannot fully replace Hormuz.
The first scenario is a severe but still limited regional war. This is the most likely immediate trajectory. After the expiry of the ultimatum, the United States and Israel may widen their strikes against Iranian transport, energy, and command infrastructure, while Iran may continue attacking the assets of US allies in the region, along with oil infrastructure and shipping. Yet even amid such escalation, diplomatic channels have not completely disappeared: Pakistan asked for the deadline to be extended for negotiations, and Tehran itself, through intermediaries, conveyed conditions for a broader settlement. Analytically, this means that the parties still retain an “exit corridor”, although it is narrowing rapidly.
The second scenario is a major war in the Persian Gulf accompanied by a global energy shock. This scenario does not begin when someone formally declares world war; it begins when a conflict renders a vital artery of global trade dysfunctional. Reuters has already reported Iranian strikes against facilities in Saudi Arabia, as well as growing security measures in Gulf states, including the transfer of some companies in Saudi Arabia to remote working arrangements. If attacks on the oil and gas infrastructure of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE, as well as on shipping in Hormuz, continue, the regional war will turn into a global economic crisis, with inflation, fuel price spikes, supply disruptions, and political pressure on governments far beyond the Middle East. Reuters, citing the EIA, has already reported that even after a possible reopening of Hormuz, elevated fuel prices could persist for months.
The third scenario is a multi-front Middle Eastern war. Its logic is that the conflict ceases to be merely a triangle of the United States, Israel, and Iran, and begins to draw in ever more neighbouring theatres. AP has already reported the deaths of peacekeepers and civilians in Lebanon and Iraq amid reciprocal strikes, while Reuters writes that Gulf states are deliberately trying to prevent the present war from becoming a broader Sunni-Shia confrontation capable of reshaping the region for decades. If the theatre of conflict becomes firmly established simultaneously in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, the Gulf waters, and around critical energy infrastructure, that would no longer be a simple escalation but a full-scale regional war with first-order international consequences.
The fourth scenario is a nuclear-radiological shock without a nuclear strike. This is one of the most underestimated risks. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that the area near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant had been affected by recent strikes, one of which reportedly landed only around 75 metres from the site’s perimeter. According to Reuters and the IAEA, the plant itself has not yet been damaged, but the very fact of strikes in such close proximity dramatically increases the risk of an accident that would instantly transform a regional conflict into a global security crisis. This would not be a “nuclear exchange” between powers, but the political effect could be comparable in scale to the international reaction triggered by one.
The fifth scenario is a transition from regional war to a quasi-global confrontation without direct military collision between the great powers. At present, Moscow and Beijing have not entered the war directly, yet their veto in the Security Council has already shown that no diplomatic unity exists among the major powers. Moreover, the Italian Defence Minister publicly warned of the risk of the United States losing its global leadership and indicated Italy’s unwillingness to align itself automatically with the American military line. The conclusion is important: even if no direct fighting emerges between the United States and Russia or China, the world may already be entering a state of fragmented global confrontation, with competing blocs, competing claims of legitimacy, cascading sanctions, proxy support, and struggles for control over energy, logistics, and international law. That is not yet the classic world war of the twentieth century, but it is already a form of systemic conflict uncomfortably close to it.
So what would constitute the true threshold of a Third World War? Not Trump’s harsh rhetoric in itself, and not even isolated strikes on infrastructure. The real threshold would be crossed if four processes were to coincide at once: a prolonged blockade of key maritime routes; regular strikes on the territories of several Gulf states; the opening of additional theatres of war beyond Iran and Israel; and the formation of durable international coalitions that begin to act not merely diplomatically, but militarily against one another. For now, judging by the information available on 7 April, the world stands dangerously close to that line, but has not yet formally crossed it.
The sober analytical conclusion is therefore as follows. After the expiry of the ultimatum on 7 April 2026, the most likely outcome is not the immediate outbreak of a “classical” Third World War, but the widening of the war in the Persian Gulf, with severe global economic consequences and a high probability of further entanglement of new actors. Yet it is precisely crises of this sort that, historically, create the environment in which world wars cease to seem impossible. The danger now lies not in any single strike, but in the fact that almost every next move by every side increases the probability of a scenario that may no longer be containable.
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