I played around in my own timeline (Eleya's continuity) with the idea that the Eastern Coalition was actually a breakaway faction of the United States, led by a junta of rogue generals who didn't recognize an increasingly autocratic presidency (which had declared martial law and suspended elections circa 2060 due to the escalating conflict). I essentially envisioned WW3 as less a single war than as a confluence of multiple conventional and nuclear wars from approximately the 2040s to 2067:
Dr. Zefram Cochrane, an Air Force combat vet from the Da'ish War of the late 2010s-early 2020s, leads early work on warp drive at NASA, JPL, and the University of Houston, but the intensifying world war, culminating in the partial collapse of the United States due to nuclear attacks on the Eastern Seaboard and the Eastern Coalition's secession, gradually costs him his funding. He continues working on it as a passion project with philanthropist Micah Brack footing the bill, despite his worsening bipolar disorder and increasing alcoholism. His first launch of an unmanned warp-capable test probe from Cape Canaveral is successful in 2060, but an airstrike pancakes the Cape and he is forced to relocate to a condemned nuclear silo outside Bozeman, MT, donated by the US government through Brack's campaign contributions to President David Cohen.
Notable WW3 sub-conflicts:
The Saudi Civil War. Saudi Arabia is forced to implement severe austerity measures due to the green energy revolution depriving it of most of its income. It then dissolves into civil war when Optimum (functionally neo-TRIBBLE) terrorists deorbit a mining asteroid in Earth orbit into the desert near Mecca, all but destroying the city.
The Augment Wars, also inaccurately referred to as the Eugenics Wars. Khan Noonien Singh, created as a super-soldier by Indian nationalists, overthrows the Republic of India in a military coup and creates the Khanate, which rampages across central Asia and overthrows the Islamic Republic of Iran, wiping out the Revolutionary Guard Corps and removing the ayatollahs from power. He is initially lauded for this by Iranian secularists and it is viewed as one of his few generally-agreed-to-be positive acts in later times. Other similar Augment dictatorships arise in Argentina and Cambodia. These are all ultimately overthrown, and Khan steals a prototype impulse-powered deep-space exploration ship from the Indian Space Research Organization and flees the planet in cryostasis with his followers.
The Second Korean War (roughly RoK-USA-Japan v. DPRK-PR China), ends with the fall of the Kim dynasty and reunification on South Korean terms.
Finland and Poland reconquer territories lost to Russia in World War II and then some.
The major nuclear exchanges end in 2063 with the collapse of the various major far-right blocs (French Third Empire, the Krasnov dictatorship in Russia) and the PRC and DPRK, but:
A couple billion people (estimate at the time) are dead worldwide and much of the world is in ruins. Average cancer rates alone have gone up 0.5% from all the extra radiation in the air.
The Eastern Coalition has broken away from the United States and President Cohen now rules from a temporary capital in Aspen, CO (it became permanent) and has declared martial law with the consent of Congress. Elections are cancelled in 2064 and 2068 due to ongoing hostilities and unrest, and Cohen refuses to leave office in 2069 due to a secession crisis in Texas. A plebiscite in Mexico narrowly votes in favor of annexation by the United States for protection from ECON and the ongoing struggle with drug-funded warlords; it is rumored that Cohen and/or his local proponents fixed the vote.
Much of southern England, including London, is controlled by the Optimal Republic of Great Britain; British royalists (with help from various Dominion members not otherwise occupied) in conjunction with Ireland and Jordan are fighting to retake the area.
Then the time travel event is foiled by the Enterprise and Cochrane is able to launch his first manned warp ship (only the second overall). The Vulcans and their allies begin providing humanitarian aid (mainly medical assistance and rad scrubbing) and humanity starts to climb out of hell.
2063-2130: Earth gradually stabilizes.
President Khalifa Jones, formerly the Speaker of the House and sworn in after President Cohen and his VP finally resigned from office in 2071 (and then died in prison after surrendering himself for trial), reabsorbs the Eastern Coalition in 2076.
The Hashemids in Jordan cement their control over the former western half of Saudi, including Mecca and Medina. Kuwait and Iran have taken chunks of Saudi and Iraq.
The independent Commonwealth of Kurdistan, an ally of the Israeli-Palestinian Union, has absorbed Turkish Kurdistan from Turkey.
A unified Earth Cargo Service (really an industry group for the fledgling interstellar shipping industry), in conjunction with various blocs and superstates and the Vulcans, begins settling unclaimed stars near Sol. The Vulcan High Command begins to become wary of humanity's rapid and rapacious advancement and tries to slow down transfers of knowledge, with limited success.
2130: United Earth, the product of seven years of negotiation between the seven major national blocs, is established by the Treaty of Lagos. It repurposes much of the long-defunct UN Charter but with far greater enforcement powers, to be carried out by a unified Starfleet in space and levies of member state militaries on the surface. The UN Security Council is abolished in favor of an elected Parliament and executive president. Remaining independent states begin to apply for membership and Earth and its colonies are fully united by 2144.
2140: Earth launches its first warp four-capable ship, UES Franklin.
2150s: Similar to Reimagined Enterprise by BlackWave, with addition of UE Ambassador-at-Large Jonathan Archer (played by Mike Colter, because I loved him as Lemond Bishop and Jameson Locke). This is later dramatized with severe artistic license in a critically panned 24th century holodrama series that also attracted a record 317 defamation suits. (The timeline containing canon ENT, a branch from the 2063 incursion, willan on-erased because the Temporal Cold War destabilized its timeline to the point of complete implosion.)
United Earth ends the Andorian-Vulcan Cold War and spearheads the creation of the Coalition of Planets. It is founded as a hybrid economic pact and military alliance against the Romulans and Klingons.
The Romulan War, really a series of three wars over roughly 2155-2165, ends with the Treaty of Alpha Trianguli establishing a demilitarized zone between the Coalition and the RSE, the Romulan Neutral Zone.
2168: The Coalition of Planets is reorganized as the United Federation of Planets.
Why nuke London when you can create a small drone with a small explosive and take out the military headquarters?
Nukes are already obsolete as anything but terror or last resort retaliation weapons.
Depends on your goal. If you want to annihilate your enemies entirely they're useful. If you actually want to capture the city, yeah, not a good plan. But if you're happy to reduce the entire city to a smoking crater and wipe out everyone? Suddenly nukes are a good idea.
Nuke's don't win wars on their own. Fat Man and Little Boy did not force Japan to surrender on their own at the end of WW2, it took a Soviet invasion of Manchuria at the same time to force the surrender.
Reality check: The Japanese government asked for peace talks several weeks before the nukes fell (Stalin declared war on Japan the same day as Nagasaki). They knew damn well they were beaten, they just didn't want to surrender without getting a few preconditions out of the Americans, who wanted unconditional surrender. (And didn't get it even then: the Japanese still insisted on retaining Emperor Hirohito as head of state, to which the Americans basically said, "oh, whatever, sign the bloody thing and let's get it over with", and then Truman flat-out lied that they'd surrendered unconditionally.) The nukes and Stalin's invasion weren't nearly as necessary as we're often led to think; neither was the aborted Operation Downfall that they supposedly spared everybody from.
Anyway, you're missing the point. If a given side is crazy enough that they either don't give a rat's TRIBBLE about collateral damage, or actively want to cause mass civilian casualties, nukes and bioweapons are going to be perfectly fine as far as they're concerned. The N*zis are a great example of this mentality: as the Allies moved in, they actually ramped up the Holocaust, diverting critical military resources to the SS so that even if they lost militarily, they still "won" by exterminating those they considered subhuman. I'd bet my car that Himmler would've tried to use nuclear weapons to finish the job if his ideology hadn't inadvertently strangled the German nuclear program in the cradle by driving Albert Einstein and his like into exile.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
It's the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that has made them the only nukes dropped in anger. Nukes did make a good deterrent in the Cold War between the west and the east. The very threat of nuclear annihilation from either side often diffused a tense crisis (The Cuban missile crisis is a prime example)
WW3 would be most likely conventional tactics and armies with nukes and other non conventional weapons being used sparingly.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
khan and his followers were in space LONG before WW3 happened
No. Khan and the Eugenics war were later retconed to being later. TOS is the single lone source of it being in the 90s. It definitely takes place around the same time (if not the same conflict as) the Third World War. All references to it in DS9 and ENT bear that out.
ENT referred to it as a 20th century conflict several times. And the DS9 writers admitted that Admiral Ross' "two hundred years ago" line was a mistake on their part.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them." -Thomas Marrone
khan and his followers were in space LONG before WW3 happened
No. Khan and the Eugenics war were later retconed to being later. TOS is the single lone source of it being in the 90s. It definitely takes place around the same time (if not the same conflict as) the Third World War. All references to it in DS9 and ENT bear that out.
ENT referred to it as a 20th century conflict several times. And the DS9 writers admitted that Admiral Ross' "two hundred years ago" line was a mistake on their part.
No it dosn't. The main reference to WWIII or the EW in ENT is the line that Archers grandfather fought in the war. And though the DS9 line may have been a 'mistake' at the time, it isn't any more. Since TVH the Eugenics war couldn't have taken place in the 90s. Every other source past that point bears that out. Even early TNG ones like the chart of DY sleeper ships (like the Botany Bay) show the ships being launched in the 2100s, shortly after Conestoga leaves for Terra Nova or Friendship One is launched in the 2060s.
It's just a relic of TOS that has been ignored by later writers.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
Rising from the ashes of the Eugenics Wars of the mid-1990s, the era of World War III was a period of global conflict on Earth that eventually escalated into a nuclear cataclysm and genocidal war over issues including genetic manipulation and Human genome enhancement. World War III itself ultimately lasted from 2026 through 2053, and resulted in the death of some 600 million Humans. By that time, many of the planet's major cities and governments had been destroyed. (ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II"; Star Trek: First Contact; VOY: "In the Flesh")
Prior to the war, in 1968, when a time-displaced Captain James T. Kirk was trying to reason on whether or not he should trust Gary Seven to stop a nuclear weapon, Seven warned Kirk that if he didn't allow Seven to stop the weapon, World War III would commence then. (TOS: "Assignment: Earth") The Eugenics Wars themselves were also, at times, referred to as World War III. (TOS: "Space Seed")
History
World War III was fought in an era where various factions were known to control their military with narcotics. (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint") Among the parties involved was the Eastern Coalition (also referred to as "the ECON"), whose direct attacks included those against the United States of America. (Star Trek: First Contact) In 2026, at the start of the war, Colonel Phillip Green led a faction of eco-terrorists that was responsible for the loss of thirty-seven million lives. (TOS: "Bread and Circuses", "The Savage Curtain"; ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II")
<Some of this information, such as when the war started and its basic causes, comes from an historical archive screen in "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II". The initial death toll matches the "despotic" deaths mentioned by Spock in "Bread and Circuses" as being from WWIII. See the Eugenics Wars for a discussion of Spock's comment on the "last so-called world war" from "Space Seed."
Colonel Green's activities during the war were often cited as "genocidal" and treacherous. He and his troops personally killed hundreds of thousands of individuals affected with radiation sickness and other "impurities," using as a rationale that it was necessary in order to prevent their passing on such traits to later generations. (ENT: "Demons", "Terra Prime") He was notorious into the 23rd century for striking at his enemies in the midst of negotiating with them. (TOS: "The Savage Curtain")
Despite an escalating and ongoing global conflict, manned space exploration continued at least into the 2030s, e.g., the Ares IV mission to Mars in 2032 and the launch of the Charybdis in 2037, Humanity's first mission to leave the Sol system. (TNG: "The Royale"; VOY: "One Small Step") The New United Nations was also founded during these early years of World War III, and was among the first attempts to rebuild humanity during this era; for instance, by 2036, it had declared that no Human being would be held accountable "for the crimes of their race or forebearers." But not everyone heeded or respected this decree and some parts of the world later "abolished all United Earth nonsense." (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint")
Humanity eventually turned over a new leaf when a few courageous people began to realize they could make a difference. (ENT: "Judgment") The war culminated circa 2053, when several of Earth's governments met in San Francisco to declare a cease-fire, effectively ending the war. (ENT: "Demons") As a result of this world war, like the two before it, whole generations were nearly wiped out. (ENT: "Judgment") The use of nuclear weapons engulfed Earth with an immense dust cloud, resulting in numerous nuclear winters. (TNG: "A Matter of Time") When it was over, Earth's atmosphere was irradiated with a detectably heightened amount of radioactive isotopes. (Star Trek: First Contact) Although they were aware of it, the Vulcans did not intervene during the course of World War III, as they perceived it as a local problem they should not get entangled with. (ENT: "Terra Prime")
Three years later, Colonel Green gave an impassioned speech, asking for the impure to once again be purged from society. (ENT: "Demons")
In 2063, a short time after Earth emerged from this global war, First Contact was made with the Vulcans, leading to increased recovery from the war for parts of the world. (Star Trek: First Contact) Recovery from the war was ongoing for the following decade, and was impeded by the 2069 onset of the first of the Earth-Kzin Wars, prompted when a sublight Kzinti invasion force arrived in the Sol system. The war was fought with what sublight ships were available, as major construction of warp-capable starships had barely begun, and ended when the first starships were dispatched to the Kzinti homeworld.
When news of the Vulcan contact reached Vulcan, some Vulcans, including V'Lar, were fascinated by Humanity, but also worried, believing the idea that Humans had deemed themselves ready to join the interstellar community, so soon after the war, seemed premature. (ENT: "Fallen Hero") Indeed, for several years after first contact, various parts of Earth were still affected by what became known as the "post-atomic horror." In 2079, one such culture reverted to a state of near-barbarism that followed the credo "Kill all the lawyers," and "Guilty until proven innocent." (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint") Due to these and other factors, parts of Earth continued to be in – as Captain Jean-Luc Picard put it in 2365 – "chaos" well into the early 22nd century. (TNG: "Up The Long Ladder")
The post-atomic horror gave way to the stirrings of new attempts at establishing various unified world alliances, including the European Hegemony in 2123. (TNG: "Up The Long Ladder") These alliances were eventually instrumental in the establishment of the United Earth Government in 2150. (TNG: "Attached")
By the early 2100s – less than two generations after the post-atomic horror – Humanity was finally able to eliminate most if not all poverty, disease, war and hunger. Along with it, a lot of other things disappeared from Humanity, including hopelessness, despair, and cruelty. (TNG: "Time's Arrow, Part II"; Star Trek: First Contact; ENT: "Broken Bow", "Demons")
The legacy of the war was felt in many ways during the hundred years after its conclusion. It was the subject of many films during that time and, in 2153, one of these epics won a majority of awards. (ENT: "Home") In the early 22nd century, the philosophy of Neo-Transcendentalism was founded by Liam Dieghan; he advocated "a return to a simpler life" in response to the war's carnage. (TNG: "Up The Long Ladder") The war additionally influenced a powerful xenophobic movement of mid-22nd century Earth known as Terra Prime. Led by John Frederick Paxton, the organization drew inspiration from the war through adoption of Colonel Green's goals and teachings concerning a "pure" Human race. It also blamed the Vulcans for not stopping the war with their superior technology, and thereby saving the lives of hundreds of millions of people. This blame was then channeled into a general distrust of all non-Humans. (ENT: "Demons", "Terra Prime")
In 2372, Admiral Leyton described the threat of the Founders of the Dominion infiltrating Earth and its facilities as being "maybe the greatest danger it's faced since the last world war." (DS9: "Homefront")
Dr. Miranda Jones: I understand, Mr. Spock. The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity.
Mr. Spock: And the ways our differences combine, to create meaning and beauty.
The Man-Kzin Wars are incompatible with the Star Trek universe, however, because the kzinti are famed (some might say notorious) for never surrendering as such. In the Known Space stories, humans won the first war because the outsiders sold the mayor of We Made It the principle behind the hyperdrive shunt, giving humans the advantage of FTL travel. There were at least three major wars after that, aside from a number of skirmishes, each of which humans won only because kzinti have a tendency to attack before they're ready. Unless it's proposed that humans built a warp-drive ship during that war and used it to carpet-bomb the kzin homeworld until nothing lived, and followed this by destroying every kzin colony, there is no way the war could have ended as neatly as Memory Alpha proposes.
I know that for some reason they feel it necessary to try to fold every single silly thing in TAS into a single canon timeline - but that falls apart the first time a writer like Niven has his initial proposal for a story rejected, has to meet a deadline without inspiration, and adapts his own story from another universe to fit the immediate need.
Comments
Reality check: The Japanese government asked for peace talks several weeks before the nukes fell (Stalin declared war on Japan the same day as Nagasaki). They knew damn well they were beaten, they just didn't want to surrender without getting a few preconditions out of the Americans, who wanted unconditional surrender. (And didn't get it even then: the Japanese still insisted on retaining Emperor Hirohito as head of state, to which the Americans basically said, "oh, whatever, sign the bloody thing and let's get it over with", and then Truman flat-out lied that they'd surrendered unconditionally.) The nukes and Stalin's invasion weren't nearly as necessary as we're often led to think; neither was the aborted Operation Downfall that they supposedly spared everybody from.
Anyway, you're missing the point. If a given side is crazy enough that they either don't give a rat's TRIBBLE about collateral damage, or actively want to cause mass civilian casualties, nukes and bioweapons are going to be perfectly fine as far as they're concerned. The N*zis are a great example of this mentality: as the Allies moved in, they actually ramped up the Holocaust, diverting critical military resources to the SS so that even if they lost militarily, they still "won" by exterminating those they considered subhuman. I'd bet my car that Himmler would've tried to use nuclear weapons to finish the job if his ideology hadn't inadvertently strangled the German nuclear program in the cradle by driving Albert Einstein and his like into exile.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
WW3 would be most likely conventional tactics and armies with nukes and other non conventional weapons being used sparingly.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
ENT referred to it as a 20th century conflict several times. And the DS9 writers admitted that Admiral Ross' "two hundred years ago" line was a mistake on their part.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
No it dosn't. The main reference to WWIII or the EW in ENT is the line that Archers grandfather fought in the war. And though the DS9 line may have been a 'mistake' at the time, it isn't any more. Since TVH the Eugenics war couldn't have taken place in the 90s. Every other source past that point bears that out. Even early TNG ones like the chart of DY sleeper ships (like the Botany Bay) show the ships being launched in the 2100s, shortly after Conestoga leaves for Terra Nova or Friendship One is launched in the 2060s.
It's just a relic of TOS that has been ignored by later writers.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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Rising from the ashes of the Eugenics Wars of the mid-1990s, the era of World War III was a period of global conflict on Earth that eventually escalated into a nuclear cataclysm and genocidal war over issues including genetic manipulation and Human genome enhancement. World War III itself ultimately lasted from 2026 through 2053, and resulted in the death of some 600 million Humans. By that time, many of the planet's major cities and governments had been destroyed. (ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II"; Star Trek: First Contact; VOY: "In the Flesh")
Prior to the war, in 1968, when a time-displaced Captain James T. Kirk was trying to reason on whether or not he should trust Gary Seven to stop a nuclear weapon, Seven warned Kirk that if he didn't allow Seven to stop the weapon, World War III would commence then. (TOS: "Assignment: Earth") The Eugenics Wars themselves were also, at times, referred to as World War III. (TOS: "Space Seed")
History
World War III was fought in an era where various factions were known to control their military with narcotics. (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint") Among the parties involved was the Eastern Coalition (also referred to as "the ECON"), whose direct attacks included those against the United States of America. (Star Trek: First Contact) In 2026, at the start of the war, Colonel Phillip Green led a faction of eco-terrorists that was responsible for the loss of thirty-seven million lives. (TOS: "Bread and Circuses", "The Savage Curtain"; ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II")
<Some of this information, such as when the war started and its basic causes, comes from an historical archive screen in "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II". The initial death toll matches the "despotic" deaths mentioned by Spock in "Bread and Circuses" as being from WWIII. See the Eugenics Wars for a discussion of Spock's comment on the "last so-called world war" from "Space Seed."
Colonel Green's activities during the war were often cited as "genocidal" and treacherous. He and his troops personally killed hundreds of thousands of individuals affected with radiation sickness and other "impurities," using as a rationale that it was necessary in order to prevent their passing on such traits to later generations. (ENT: "Demons", "Terra Prime") He was notorious into the 23rd century for striking at his enemies in the midst of negotiating with them. (TOS: "The Savage Curtain")
Despite an escalating and ongoing global conflict, manned space exploration continued at least into the 2030s, e.g., the Ares IV mission to Mars in 2032 and the launch of the Charybdis in 2037, Humanity's first mission to leave the Sol system. (TNG: "The Royale"; VOY: "One Small Step") The New United Nations was also founded during these early years of World War III, and was among the first attempts to rebuild humanity during this era; for instance, by 2036, it had declared that no Human being would be held accountable "for the crimes of their race or forebearers." But not everyone heeded or respected this decree and some parts of the world later "abolished all United Earth nonsense." (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint")
Humanity eventually turned over a new leaf when a few courageous people began to realize they could make a difference. (ENT: "Judgment") The war culminated circa 2053, when several of Earth's governments met in San Francisco to declare a cease-fire, effectively ending the war. (ENT: "Demons") As a result of this world war, like the two before it, whole generations were nearly wiped out. (ENT: "Judgment") The use of nuclear weapons engulfed Earth with an immense dust cloud, resulting in numerous nuclear winters. (TNG: "A Matter of Time") When it was over, Earth's atmosphere was irradiated with a detectably heightened amount of radioactive isotopes. (Star Trek: First Contact) Although they were aware of it, the Vulcans did not intervene during the course of World War III, as they perceived it as a local problem they should not get entangled with. (ENT: "Terra Prime")
Three years later, Colonel Green gave an impassioned speech, asking for the impure to once again be purged from society. (ENT: "Demons")
In 2063, a short time after Earth emerged from this global war, First Contact was made with the Vulcans, leading to increased recovery from the war for parts of the world. (Star Trek: First Contact) Recovery from the war was ongoing for the following decade, and was impeded by the 2069 onset of the first of the Earth-Kzin Wars, prompted when a sublight Kzinti invasion force arrived in the Sol system. The war was fought with what sublight ships were available, as major construction of warp-capable starships had barely begun, and ended when the first starships were dispatched to the Kzinti homeworld.
When news of the Vulcan contact reached Vulcan, some Vulcans, including V'Lar, were fascinated by Humanity, but also worried, believing the idea that Humans had deemed themselves ready to join the interstellar community, so soon after the war, seemed premature. (ENT: "Fallen Hero") Indeed, for several years after first contact, various parts of Earth were still affected by what became known as the "post-atomic horror." In 2079, one such culture reverted to a state of near-barbarism that followed the credo "Kill all the lawyers," and "Guilty until proven innocent." (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint") Due to these and other factors, parts of Earth continued to be in – as Captain Jean-Luc Picard put it in 2365 – "chaos" well into the early 22nd century. (TNG: "Up The Long Ladder")
The post-atomic horror gave way to the stirrings of new attempts at establishing various unified world alliances, including the European Hegemony in 2123. (TNG: "Up The Long Ladder") These alliances were eventually instrumental in the establishment of the United Earth Government in 2150. (TNG: "Attached")
By the early 2100s – less than two generations after the post-atomic horror – Humanity was finally able to eliminate most if not all poverty, disease, war and hunger. Along with it, a lot of other things disappeared from Humanity, including hopelessness, despair, and cruelty. (TNG: "Time's Arrow, Part II"; Star Trek: First Contact; ENT: "Broken Bow", "Demons")
The legacy of the war was felt in many ways during the hundred years after its conclusion. It was the subject of many films during that time and, in 2153, one of these epics won a majority of awards. (ENT: "Home") In the early 22nd century, the philosophy of Neo-Transcendentalism was founded by Liam Dieghan; he advocated "a return to a simpler life" in response to the war's carnage. (TNG: "Up The Long Ladder") The war additionally influenced a powerful xenophobic movement of mid-22nd century Earth known as Terra Prime. Led by John Frederick Paxton, the organization drew inspiration from the war through adoption of Colonel Green's goals and teachings concerning a "pure" Human race. It also blamed the Vulcans for not stopping the war with their superior technology, and thereby saving the lives of hundreds of millions of people. This blame was then channeled into a general distrust of all non-Humans. (ENT: "Demons", "Terra Prime")
In 2372, Admiral Leyton described the threat of the Founders of the Dominion infiltrating Earth and its facilities as being "maybe the greatest danger it's faced since the last world war." (DS9: "Homefront")
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/World_War_III
Mr. Spock: And the ways our differences combine, to create meaning and beauty.
-Star Trek: Is There in Truth No Beauty? (1968)
I know that for some reason they feel it necessary to try to fold every single silly thing in TAS into a single canon timeline - but that falls apart the first time a writer like Niven has his initial proposal for a story rejected, has to meet a deadline without inspiration, and adapts his own story from another universe to fit the immediate need.