Does Robert Pape think we are already in World War III?

Robert Pape says the world is not in World War III. He reserves the term for the largest powers attacking each other's homelands and militaries directly, as in the two world wars, and says proxy wars like those fought almost every year of the Cold War from 1947 to 1989 do not count. His worry is a path where Russian cyber attacks on European infrastructure cause enough public harm that Europe retaliates against Moscow directly, which he says is what World War III would look like.

• Bartlett raised Britain's latest pledge of 10 billion for Ukraine as a possible proxy war, and Pape placed it in the Cold War pattern.

▸In their words

“What World War III means is when the world's largest powers attack each other's homelands and their militaries kill each other” Robert Pape · at 1:16:31 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett (2026-11-05). Read the whole episode summary →

▸More from this episode