World War III was the Cold War. It was a war fought with great determination for about 40 years between two great alliances. It featured a few major engagements (like Korea and Vietnam and Afghanistan) and a whole bunch of somewhat minor ones...some of them fought by proxy, some by direct action of the major players, all of them fought in peripheral areas. It involved intense economic and political warfare as well, and a ceaseless flow of propaganda from both sides, and the deaths of millions of people. It involved assassinations, coups, treachery and deceit. It involved the destabilization of many societies, and the destruction of many people's livelihood and future. It involved the mortgaging of our collective futures in many ways.

A full-scale shooting war between the major players was only avoided (and narrowly) because the nuclear weapons they had were so destructive that they could not contemplate using them without themselves being destroyed in the process.

It finally ended when the weaker economic side (the Soviets) went broke trying to keep up with the high tech arms race. Fortunately, they were under a sane and responsible leader at the time, Gorbachev, and instead of launching his collapsing system into a final conflagration (as often happens with dying empires) he simply peacefully disbanded it, to all intents and purposes.

In so doing, he may have saved the lives of billions, and there isn't a day when I don't silently thank him for that.

- LH