World War III World War III , also known as the Third World War , was a conflict that broke out on planet Earth . Both it and World War IV occurred prior to the 25th century . ( AUDIO : " Frostfire " ) Preparations . During the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st century , fear of a third world war was usually connected to it being a potentially civilisation - destroying nuclear war . ( AUDIO : " Protect and Survive " ) Much of these tensions were caused by the Cold War . ( TV : " Cold War " ) In the 1960s , the United States government built a on the far side of the Moon using alien technology . It was named after U . S . President Dwight D . Eisenhower . The moonbase was designed to contain a viable minimum population . In the event of a nuclear war , the plan was for its inhabitants to eventually return to Earth and rebuild human civilisation . It was destroyed by the Sixth Doctor on 23 November 1963 . ( AUDIO : " " ) The United Kingdom kept open the four World War II " citadel " bunkers in London , so the British government could continue operating in a nuclear war . ( The British Secret Service quietly built a fifth ) Sir Toby Kinsella darkly noted that the government wouldn ' t be interested in fighting aliens after World War III , instead wanting all the help it could get . ( AUDIO : " The Fifth Citadel " ) Thwarted wars . Citadel Five threatened that unless Britain disarmed its nuclear arsenal , they would flood their reactor and leave the London Underground radioactive . They knew this could trigger a nuclear war with the Soviet Union . This was prevented through deception by Sir Toby . ( AUDIO : " The Fifth Citadel " ) The Doctor prevented this war from breaking out prematurely on several occasions in the late 20th century , ( TV : " The Mind of Evil " , " Robot " , PROSE : " Revolution Man " ) in two occasions ensuring that an alternate timeline where the war " did " happen never occurred . Due to the actions of the psychic " Revolution Man " from 1967 to 1969 , the nuclear powers grew tenser until missiles were actually fired on 18th May 1969 ; the Eighth Doctor stopped the missiles from impacting . ( PROSE : " Revolution Man " ) Later , though " earlier " for the Doctor , war almost broke out between China and the Soviet Union ; fighting broke out in southern Asia and South America before Sir Reginald Styles was able to negotiate peace and the crisis cooled . The Third Doctor prevented a group of time - travellers from accidentally assassinating Styles and causing the war . ( TV : " Day of the Daleks " ) The United States was also involved and the conflict started over Middle East ern spheres of influence . ( PROSE : " Day of the Daleks " ) In 1974 , American President Richard Nixon intended to destroy Britain through nuclear war in order to prevent the Remoraxian s from invading Earth . ( COMIC : " In With the Tide " ) Adam Mitchell claimed that he nearly caused World War III in the late 1990s , when he hacked into American Department of Defense computers . ( TV : " Dalek " ) The Slitheen family tried to cause World War III in 2006 so they could sell Earth ' s radioactive remains as fuel . They nearly succeeded but were foiled when Mickey Smith blew up 10 Downing Street with a missile on the Ninth Doctor ' s orders , killing them . ( TV : " World War Three " ) In 2084 , the Silurian s attempted to start a war between the contemporary ( human ) superpower blocs . The Fifth Doctor stopped them firing Sea Base 4 ' s nuclear missile s . ( TV : " Warriors of the Deep " ) Alternative timelines . In an alternate timeline , WOTAN was successful in taking over the minds of much of the population in 1966 . It was destroyed in an uprising in 1969 but left behind a broken world in which international communication and cooperation became non - existent and numerous factions struggled for control . In response to the incident , Britain made radio communications illegal , which later proved to be a large disadvantage . World War III began in the following years , the main fight being between the United Kingdom and South Africa . South Africa made agreements with the Cybermen who occupied the Arctic in 1986 , gaining weapons and technology which gave them a huge edge in the fighting . Outmatched , the British , led by the fascist General Louise Bamford , sought to win the war with time travel using Imperial Dalek artefacts recovered from the Shoreditch Incident . In 2006 , the South Africans occupied France and began launching bomb ing raids against Britain as a precursor to an invasion , and when said invasion did come , the British were quickly overcome . Refusing to surrender , Bamford was killed by Griffiths , a double agent working for the South Africans . Their leader dead , the British hurridly began looking for someone to elect so that they may come to armistice terms with South Africa . The First Doctor , with his companion s Susan , Ian and Barbara , as well as Griffiths , averted this timeline when they used Britain ' s time travel hoop to travel back to October 1972 . There , they both destroyed the Dalek artefacts before the time travel experiments could properly begin and had a more positive influence on a younger Bamford , convincing her to aid in the reconstruction of a more positive Britain and more positive world . ( PROSE : " The Time Travellers " ) Later in his personal timeline , the First Doctor defeated both WOTAN ( TV : " The War Machines " ) and the Cybermen ( TV : " The Tenth Planet " ) before either of them could contribute to a third world war . In another alternative timeline created by the Elder Gods in the hope of destroying Earth , Vladimir Kryuchkov became the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union instead of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 . On 9 November 1989 , World War III broke out between the United States and its allies including the United Kingdom on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other hand . Given that nuclear weapon s were used by both sides , hundreds of millions of people were killed in the conflict . This timeline was ultimately negated by the Seventh Doctor except for in a pocket universe where the Doctor trapped the two Elder Gods responsible and , accidentally , his companions Ace and Hex . ( AUDIO : " Protect and Survive " ) In a third alternative timeline , it was thought that U . S . President John F . Kennedy would have started a nuclear war on 22 January 1964 if he had not been assassinated on 22 November 1963 . ( PROSE : " Who Killed Kennedy " ) In another timeline , a 22nd century anti - Dalek resistance fighter named Shura travelled back to the 1970s and set off a dalekanium bomb which destroyed the World Peace Conference . World War III started as various global factions accused each other of having done so . In the aftermath , the Daleks conquered and ruled over the survivors , resulting in the world that Shura had tried to prevent from coming to pass in the first place . However , the Third Doctor undid the damage by ensuring that when the bomb went off , the delegates had already left . The Daleks and Ogron s who had travelled back to the conference were killed by Shura ' s bomb . ( TV : " Day of the Daleks " )