The world is currently facing an unprecedented rise in tensions; war wages on in Ukraine and the wider Middle East while its specter looms over the Taiwan Strait, all conflicts that involve the United States. Because of this (and because many news organizations make money from clicks), talk about a possible World War Three have begun to well up. The New York Times published an op-ed visualizing how worldwide nuclear fallout would look, Tucker Carlson interviewed Russian dictator Vladimir Putin over the threat, and I’ve seen a thousand Instagram posts foretelling the “end of civilization” and telling me to build a bomb shelter. Given that, it’s important for the sake of our sanity to look at what’s actually going on internationally, and why WIII is a lot farther off than it might seem.

Let’s start with Ukraine. Russia’s 2022 invasion pushed the world the closest to nuclear war it had been since the Cold War. With Ukraine doing far better on the battlefield than expected, analysts worried that a threatened Putin would launch a nuclear missile as a last resort. Things have since come down a few notches. Cold-War-Era communication hotlines between the US and Russia have been resurrected, and the invasion itself has settled into a stalemate, reducing the likelihood of a nuclear hail-mary. Escalation doesn’t prove much of a risk either, given that Russia is running dangerously low on soldiers and ammunition. If WWIII starts, it won’t be on the Eastern Front.

The US doesn’t even have troops in Ukraine, though. Surely the presence of the American military makes a war inevitable, right? Surprisingly, not really. Even in the Middle East, the risk of serious US involvement remains low. Over the last few months, the Israel-Hamas war has spiraled into a conflict that peripherally involves most of the Middle East. Despite past aid to Israel, the US is unlikely to directly intervene for any reason other than humanitarian. The biggest threat of escalation lies with Iran, who fund the Houthi insurgent group, who have been launching strikes on US and UK ships in the Red Sea. The US has already launched retaliatory strikes against the Houthis, and the major worry is they might decide to tackle the problem at the source by striking Iran (a state famous for repeated attempts to build nuclear weapons). However, Iran can’t afford to strike back, either militarily or economically. The government remains on edge after widespread protests last year, and so much of their military funding goes to their proxies that they struggle to spare any for themselves. The next world war won’t come from the Middle East, either.

All of this is to say that WWIII isn’t happening anytime soon, don’t build a bomb shelter, and don’t spend 3 hours doomscrolling on the current events side of Tiktok. If the international community can’t learn from its own mistakes, you can at least learn from mine.