WW3 (Alternate)

== The War’s Start ==
World War Three broke out in 2025, when the nation of China sent it’s military into the island of Taiwan. After 2022, tension was rapidly rising between the two states, with Chinese President Xi Jinping growing the Chinese military into the largest in the world, and buying advanced defense mechanisms from countries such as Russia, Turkey, Iran, or Indonesia. They also amped up their nuclear arsenal, and by the invasion having 762 modern nuclear weapons. Overall, during the period leading to the invasion, the Chinese state rapidly modernized it’s military, improving it’s weapons too.
The invasion of Taiwan was not unexpected to western states, with president Joseph Biden of the United States having stationed troops near Taiwan during 2023, and such a move being continued by president Ron DeSantis during the start of his rule. United States foreign policy turned vastly against the East during those years, creating doctrines such as the CANZUKUS (CANZUK+US) agreement with Taiwan, or the East Asia Defense Pact, with the US, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. 
In March of 2025, Chinese troops departed the coast and neared Taiwan, which was met with strong reactions throughout the western world, and troops from the United States stationed in Taiwan began a strong defense. The first attack was executed by China, in the south of the island, shooting at Australian and American troops and eliminations them. Using spies throughout the island, they located where troops were and strategically bombed the areas.
That dealt great damage to troops stationed on the island, as the Chinese military advanced up north, using warfare strategies similar to that of Russia in the Russo-Ukrainian war, yet with more planning. Within two months troops started to near Taipei, with a battle setting in.
== The Korean War and Taiwan War ==
Against South Korea, and on China’s side, North Korea decided to invade the South. About half of South Korea’s army was in Taiwan, causing North Korea’s attack to have not as good of a defense. The forces pushed into the northern part of the country, causing South Korean forces to leave Taiwan and go to their home country.
In Taiwan, the front remained a stalemate, despite slight Chinese advances towards Taipei due to a South Korean retreat. However, to make up for that, Japanese forces arrived on the island, along with British and Canadian forces, allowing a small pushback on the island, yet not big enough to truly cause a change.
In South Korea, the North Korean forces were stopped near the city of Gangneung, and the South Korean forces started to push them back. Chinese forces did cause a brief stalemate, yet with the majority of the forces being located in Taiwan, the Koreans were able to push the invading forces all the way to the border by 2026.
However, in Taiwan, the defense by the West proved to be too weak for Chinese forces, with the bombing campaign continuing and knocking out large portions of the armies stationed on the island, and eventually knocking them out. An encirclement was made near Taipei, and after taking the city, Taiwan officially surrendered.
== Russia ==
In 2023, it was leaked by the Russian press that Putin had dementia, yet was in the early stages of the disease. According to the Washington Post, Newsweek, Vox, and many other news networks, Putin’s condition had deteriorated, and in late 2024, he announced his resignation, and by 2025, died of cancer.
Succeeding the Russian leader was president Dmitry Medvedev, who has had an influential position in Russian politics for years, but only under Putin’s rule. After the Ukrainian war, Russia had a couple of years of peace, yet while the East Asian war was happening, Russia decided to invade Moldova.
The invasion was quick, with Russians launching a nuke on the capital Chișinău, and Transinstria revolting. Ukrainian forces, with Ukraine being a Russian puppet, pushed into Moldova, with the help of Transnistrian rebels, and without a strong military, and the capitol being taken out, Russian forces rushed through Moldova.
An important part of the Russian military campaign was missiles, with the Russians freely launching missiles. Sergeant Ivan Volkov, a far-right Russian military leader, decided to try his luck and launch a missile onto the Romanian capitol Bucharest. It landed, right as the Moldovan war ended, enraging the Romanian government, who decided to activate Article 5 of NATO.
== Full-On War ==
Most of NATO decided to oblige by Article 5, joining in on the war, but with two exceptions. First was Hungary, which had been led by a pro-Putin leader, Viktor Orban, for 15 years. He did not back NATO during the Ukraine war, or Finland and Sweden joining the alliance. He also voiced concerns for Hungary’s security against Russia.
Turkey’s leader is Racep Erdogan, who has transformed Turkey from a more democratic state, which was setting an example for nations in the Middle East, into an authoritarian state, being one of the nations which backslid the most in democracy. They also decided to improve relations with Russia, and did not join the war because of that. Erdogan stated, “It is not in our better interest to join a war against Russia, unless we have good reasoning.”
Russian troops, which seemed to already have been planning to invade NATO, started a push into Estonia. The Estonian military is one of the weakest in Europe. Eastern Estonia starts to fall, with Russia also pushing into Latvia. The two states have Russia pushing out to capture the capitols of the states. First to fall is Estonia, which, after a short battle for Tallinn, falls, has to retreat to the costal islands, which are occupied by a joint Finnish-Swedish-German force to keep control over the Baltic Sea.