It's finally happened, the world's gone all topsy turvy and the leaders of the world have decided enough is enough- it's time to settle every score on the book in one major, titanic brawl, winner take all.

It's East versus West, North versus South, Capitalism vs Communism, fanboys who think The Mandalorian was a good show versus people with actual good taste in television.

The gloves are off and the world is at war once more.

Lucky for you though you're one smart cookie and you subscribe to The Infographics Show- the internet's best resource for cataclysm survival stories, awesome challenges, and more than a fair bit of informative sass.

Thanks to your excellent viewing habits, you're better prepared than most to survive the end of the world,

basically you're a pre-order customer for Fallout 76 and are getting a one week headstart on the Armageddon over everybody else-

if of course Fallout 76 wasn't literally the worst video game ever created and nobody who likes fun should ever play it.

To survive the end of days, you're going to have to be prepared, and be ready to respond even before the end officially starts.

So what in the world should you be on the lookout before you pack your bags and join in on the world's biggest Fallout LARP event?

If not dying in radioactive fire is in your top ten list of favorite things, then good news because despite what the disaster-hungry media may be screaming at you every day over the TV,

internet, Facebook, and the sad half-dozen of you that still use livejournal.com, the truth is that the world is more peaceful than ever.

Now, just because the world is more peaceful than it's ever been doesn't mean that there's no conflict, or even a lot of them, so pump the brakes on blowing up our comments section for a sec and hang in there with us.

Violence has been on the decline across the spate of human history, though it's only in the last century that we've seen significant progress towards turning the earth into one giant hippy commune.

Simply put, we as individuals are more averse to violence than we have ever been in our history.

In the 16th century France's idea of public, wholesome, family entertainment was to gather the community together for a good old fashioned cat-burning, where a cat was tied to a rope and then slowly lowered into a roaring fire.

The cat would shriek in pain until it finally died, and all the while the gathered crowd would roar with laughter.

If you think this type of entertainment was limited to the lower classes by the way, you'd be wrong, as it was all the rage amongst the aristocracy as well.

Today though no sane person would think that lowering an animal into a raging fire was good entertainment, in fact that person would be harshly punished by law enforcement nearly anywhere in the world.

As societies we've come to abhor violence, and actively work to prevent it or avoid it whenever possible- or at least limit its impact.

Small-scale conflicts are still common throughout the world, but only in the less developed parts.

The developed nations of the world are almost universally stable and peaceful, something which would have blown the pantaloons straight off your cat-burning 16th century ancestor.

For them a world without the constant threat of a major war existed only in fiction.

For the average first and second-worlder, the only war they experience is the endless flame wars that rage across the comments section of... anything.

Literally anything posted online, because someone somewhere always hates you and what you have to say.

At least today they just call you names instead of bash you over the head with a rock.

Despite the relatively peaceful state of the world though, there is still a serious risk for World War III, and that risk is concentrated amongst several potential 'flashpoints'.

The top three though are an east-European confrontation with Russia, a confrontation with China in the South China Sea, and a confrontation with China over Taiwan.

A confrontation with Russia in eastern Europe would likely be the result of further Russian aggression against Ukraine, which could trigger a retaliatory response from NATO despite the fact that Ukraine is not a NATO member.

This is unlikely though, as Russia has no appetite for a major war, though the fact that Ukraine is determined to become a NATO member by 2040 certainly ramps up the risk of war.

A more likely scenario for a third global war would be a confrontation between the US and China in the South Pacific or Taiwan.

The US has repeatedly affirmed its commitment to defend Taiwan from China, and for China allowing Taiwan to remain free and independent is an ongoing national embarrasment that the Chinese Communist Party may not be willing to tolerate for very long.

China will never be taken seriously as a global military power if it can't even retake a single island right off its own shores.

So let's say it happened, the US and China started shooting at each other and Russia decided, screw it, it's cold in Siberia and we're bored- time to kick off World War III.

How in the world are you going to survive?

If World War III goes nuclear right away, then sorry, you're not surviving. That's it, video over.

Thanks for watching, don't forget to share, like, and subscribe, and we'll see you in the nearest vault.

That might sound a bit defeatist, but when we're trying to show you how to survive,

we're hoping we can give you a game plan that will keep you alive for a few decades- not a month or two before you starve to death or become an irradiated corpse.

In the case of a full nuclear release, the first weapons will be impacting within 15 minutes- depending on where you live- meaning you have exactly zero time to get to safety with enough supplies to last you.

We hear you, Billy Bob and Ray Jay- "Well I live me in da country, I ain't no soft snowflake like you city folk."

Alright there, deliverance, hold on to your suspenders because we got bad news for you:

you're dead too and all your wilderness survival skills or youtube prepper subscriptions aren't going to do you a lick of good.

You may survive the initial volley that targets major population centers, but what you won't survive are the secondary volleys which specifically target major water supplies and arable land.

A full nuclear exchange is designed to not just military or economically defeat an opponent, but to completely obliterate a nation from the face of the earth and ensure its people cannot survive.

Radiation-rich weapons can irradiate vast swaths of territory and make water undrinkable and farmland unworkable for decades.