Dr Paul Miller, who served on the US’s National Security Council (NSC) under former presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama, believes if another world war was to break out it would be in the Baltic states. 

According to the former White House staffer, he predicted Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 two years before it happened and he now warns that Vladimir Putin plans to claim more territories in eastern Europe.

Dr Miller first unveiled his forecast for the Baltics in 2016 and despite recent provocations from North Korea he still believes eastern Europe is more at risk of escalating into World War 3. 

The expert told the Express.co.uk: “I was in Latvia for the Riga Conference in October. From my interaction with European policymakers and scholars, my fears are widely shared – at various levels of intensity.

“A war with North Korea would likely be a regional, not world, war. Even if China were to intervene, I still think it’d stay fairly contained within the region.”

In an article titled ‘How World War 3 could begin in Latvia’ Dr Miller detailed when and where the conflict would first escalate.

Writing for Foreign Policy, he said: “Four years ago, I predicted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Here’s my next prediction, which by now will strike many people as obvious: The Baltics are next, and will pose one of President Donald Trump’s first and greatest tests.

“Putin will instigate an ambiguous militarised crisis using deniable proxies, probably in the next two years. 

“Perhaps Russian-speaking Latvians or Estonians – a quarter of Latvians and Estonians are ethnically Russian – will begin rioting, protesting for their rights, claiming to be persecuted, asking for ‘international protection’. 

“A suspiciously well armed and well trained ‘Popular Front for the Liberation of the Russian Baltics’ will appear. A few high-profile assassinations and bond bombings bring the Baltics to the edge of civil war. A low-grade insurgency may emerge.”

Dr Miller added that Putin and other Russians who see the world through the lens of Russian religious nationalism believe the West is inherently a threat because of its “degeneracy and globalism”.

He continued: “Putin’s grand strategy requires breaking NATO.”

Adding to his earlier warning and revealing his predictions for 2018, Dr Miller told the Express.co.uk: “The Cold War was just the continuation of normal great power rivalry and suspicion under the unique conditions of bipolarity and stark ideological rivalry. 

“Today there are more great powers, so we have a multipolar rather than bipolar competition. The ideological rivalry has shifted from communism against capitalism to a new contest between authoritarian capitalism against liberal democratic capitalism. 

“There is far more trade between and among the great powers than there was during the Cold War, making all powers more hesitant to risk economically catastrophic conflict. But it also means we are less able to ignore one another or isolate ourselves from one another. 

“A war or limited military strike of some kind on the Korean Peninsula is more likely than not. War with Russia is unlikely in the short term."