If you ever thought about the best countries to escape World War III, maybe you put Australia among the safest bets. That is wrong, and that assumption could cost you everything.
If a global conflict breaks out, Australia won’t be a sanctuary for you — it will be a target. And the real number one doomsday fortress is hiding in plain sight.
Most countries are one bad harvest away from food shortages — and one trade disruption away from running out of fuel. In a war between major powers, both happen at the same time. While many worry about the blast radius, they ignore the real villain: hunger. Current models show a nuclear winter could trigger an 80% drop in global food production.
What Actually Makes a Country Safe During World War III?
It’s not having the biggest military — in fact, a powerful military just paints a massive target on your back.
To find the true survivors, we built a scoring model based on what we call the Trinity of Survival: Food Security. Energy Independence. And Distance from any major conflict zone.
Five countries scored high enough to make this list. They grow their own food, power themselves with domestic energy, and are far from active conflicts. Each country gets scored across 3 categories, up to 10 points each, for a total of 30 points.
First: food security. This means producing more calories than your population needs. If the ships stop coming, the food still grows.
Second: energy security. A country can have all the farmland needed, but if its tractors run on imported diesel, the farmland loses yield.
Third: distance from major conflicts. The Northern Hemisphere holds about 100% of the world’s nuclear weapons. The planet’s prevailing wind currents don’t cross the equator — something that protects the Southern Hemisphere from most radiation fallout. Southern Hemisphere nations start with a built-in advantage before we factor in anything else.
Why Australia Is NOT in the Top 5
Australia is a giant island that feeds way more people than actually live there. It has mineral wealth, energy resources, and a stable government. On paper, it looks like the perfect place to wait out a war. But things change when you look at what Australia actually is in 2026, not what it looks like on a map.
Australia is not a quiet, neutral country. It’s the dominant military power in the Southern Pacific, and that status comes with a price. If a conflict breaks out between major powers in the South China Sea, Australia can’t sit it out. Its own trade routes depend on controlling those waters, so it gets pulled in. Any power trying to win the Pacific has to neutralize Australia first — that’s just military logic.
And the military entanglement goes much deeper than most people realize. Through the AUKUS pact with the US and UK, Australia is actively acquiring nuclear-powered submarines. It hosts rotational deployments of US nuclear-capable B-52 bombers on its northern airbases. But the single most dangerous asset on Australian soil is Pine Gap — a joint US-Australian satellite facility in the Northern Territory that feeds directly into American early warning and nuclear targeting systems. Defense analysts widely consider Pine Gap a primary target for a preemptive strike in any total war scenario.
But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Australia avoids a direct strike. It still faces a problem that no military can fully solve: people. Indonesia has over 280 million of them — almost the same as the entire US — and the Philippines has over 115 million, and most of those nations import large portions of their food. When global shipping stops, those populations look south for refuge.
Australia’s habitable zones are concentrated along the coasts, its freshwater supply is already fragile, and El Niño droughts hit it hard in good times. An uncontrolled wave of maritime refugees arriving on the northern and western coasts can break the entire system. So Australia gets a four out of ten on distance from conflict.
5th Place: Chile
Chile is a 4,300-kilometer strip of land squeezed between the Andes and the Pacific, with Antarctica below and open ocean to the west for thousands of miles.
On distance from major conflicts, Chile receives a perfect ten. There are no foreign military bases on Chilean soil, no defense treaties that pull it into a great-power war, and no resources that the US, China, or Russia are actively competing to control. Its western coastline faces open Pacific for so long that it’s practically invisible to anyone planning a war in the Northern Hemisphere.
Food security comes in at a seven. Chile’s Central Valley produces a real surplus of fruits, wine, and salmon, and the agricultural base is genuinely productive. However, Chile imports more than 50% of the wheat and maize it consumes. The export crops are what they are, but you can’t survive a trade collapse on wine and salmon alone. A seven is fair — and in a prolonged shipping disruption, that gap turns into a rationing problem within months.
Energy sits at a five, and that’s where Chile’s weaknesses concentrate. Over 60% of its electricity now comes from renewables — mostly solar from the Atacama Desert, which gets more direct sunlight per square meter than almost anywhere on earth. That’s a real improvement for grid stability. But electricity and liquid fuel are two completely separate problems, and Chile produces virtually no domestic oil or natural gas.
Chile makes this list because its geographic isolation scores as well as any country on earth, and its food production base is real enough to matter. Chile also has many other benefits — from some of the planet’s best weather to world-class private healthcare.
4th Place: New Zealand
New Zealand feeds roughly forty million people with a population of just over five million. That ratio is one of the best on this entire list, and the production is quite diverse: dairy, lamb, beef, kiwifruit — all produced at a scale that a small island nation has no business pulling off. Food security earns an eight out of ten.
The two-point deduction comes from a structural problem: the dairy sector runs on imported phosphate and urea fertilizers, and the country imports wheat for basic human consumption because the land prioritizes export crops over staple calories. If global trade stops, yields drop and the system has to reorganize fast.
Now, the electricity grid is genuinely strong. Over 85% of New Zealand’s power comes from domestic renewables — mostly hydroelectric dams on the South Island and geothermal plants on the North Island. That means the lights stay on no matter what happens to global energy markets.
But New Zealand has a critical fuel dependency. In 2022, the country closed its only oil refinery, Marsden Point, so by 2026 it imports 100% of its pre-refined petrol, diesel, and aviation fuel, shipped in from Asia and the Middle East. Strategic reserves cover a few weeks. After that, the trucks that move food from farms stop running, and the tractors that harvest crops stop too. Energy security drops to a six, and that refinery decision is the reason.
On distance from major conflicts, New Zealand hits a nine. It’s located over 1,500 kilometers east of Australia, thousands of kilometers from any active conflict theater, and it has no foreign military bases on its soil, no nuclear weapons — nothing that a hostile power needs to destroy in the first wave.
Geography alone would push that score higher, but New Zealand is a full Five Eyes member, sharing intelligence infrastructure with the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. New Zealand’s role is less operationally critical than Australia’s, but in a conflict where the US is a primary belligerent, that alliance membership creates real exposure. Cyberattacks on intelligence infrastructure, naval blockades, pressure to participate directly — none of that goes to zero just because the geography is clean.
If you’re looking at New Zealand specifically, areas like Otago and Marlborough on the South Island give you strong local food production at a lower cost than Auckland, which runs expensive by any regional comparison.
3rd Place: Paraguay
Some people hear “Paraguay” and draw a complete blank. No famous coastline, no globally recognized city, no tourism brand. It’s landlocked, relatively low income by regional standards, and invisible in international news. And that invisibility is one of the most underrated strategic assets on this entire list.
Let’s start with energy, because Paraguay’s numbers here are genuinely hard to believe. The country co-owns two of the largest hydroelectric dams in the world: Itaipu, shared with Brazil, and Yacyretá, shared with Argentina. Together, those two dams generate so much electricity that Paraguay exports the majority of what it produces, because domestic demand can’t absorb it all. Energy security grabs a nine out of ten.
Food security takes a nine as well. Paraguay is a top-ten global exporter of both soybeans and beef, and its population is only around seven million people. Even if agrochemical imports stopped and yields dropped, the population could live on domestic corn, soy, cassava, and beef without running short.
Distance from major conflicts sits at an eight. Being landlocked is an advantage here: no naval blockade can touch Paraguay. There are no foreign military bases on its soil, no defense alliances with great powers, and no resources the US, China, or Russia are competing to control.
And there’s a factor that doesn’t show up in the scoring but matters as much as any of it: water. Paraguay sits above the Guaraní Aquifer, one of the largest freshwater reserves on earth. In a world where conflict and climate disruption hit at the same time, that’s not a secondary asset.
Asunción is one of the most affordable capitals in the Western Hemisphere, property prices run a fraction of what you’d pay in Uruguay or Buenos Aires, and Paraguay’s territorial tax system means foreign income isn’t taxed locally. The trade-off is infrastructure: roads outside Asunción are inconsistent, and healthcare outside the capital requires real planning.
2nd Place: Uruguay
Uruguay has 3.4 million people and produces enough food to feed thirty million. The Pampas plains run cattle at a ratio of four cows per person, and most of that beef is grass-fed, so the production system doesn’t depend on imported grain or fertilizer to keep running.
Beef, rice, soybeans, dairy: Uruguay exports all of them at scale, and the agricultural base functions without fragile import chains holding it together. If every port in South America closed tomorrow, Uruguay feeds itself without reorganizing anything.
Energy reaches an eight. Over 95% of Uruguay’s electricity comes from domestic renewables: wind farms, hydroelectric dams, biomass plants, and solar — a very diversified and resilient mix. The one real gap is liquid fuel. Uruguay has no domestic oil reserves, so it imports crude and processes it at the La Teja refinery in Montevideo. The refinery works, but the crude still arrives by ship, and in a prolonged global conflict, that supply line gets complicated fast.
Distance from major conflicts earns a nine. No foreign military bases, no defense treaties with great powers, no strategic assets that put Uruguay on anyone’s target list. The country has maintained a consistent policy of non-intervention for decades, and that political culture is now so entrenched that it’s practically an institution in itself.
Uruguay ranks as the most stable democracy in Latin America across every governance index that measures it: press freedom, rule of law, property rights, corruption levels. Montevideo runs more expensive than Asunción, and more expensive than most people expect for South America. But that cost buys you a functioning healthcare system, reliable infrastructure, and crime rates that are low by any regional comparison.
The expat communities in Montevideo, Punta del Este and Colonia del Sacramento are well-established, property ownership is straightforward for foreigners, and the residency process is one of the most transparent in the region.
1st Place: Argentina — The World’s Best Doomsday Fortress
Argentina produces enough food to feed around 400 million people. Its population is 46 million. The Pampas region covers around 600,000 square kilometers of some of the most productive farmland on earth, generating soybeans, corn, wheat, beef, and sunflower oil across multiple climate zones that don’t all fail at the same time. Argentina has kept its agricultural system running through currency collapses, debt defaults, and political chaos that would have broken most countries.
Energy nets a nine, and the reason is Vaca Muerta. That shale formation in the Neuquén Basin holds the second-largest shale gas reserve in the world and the fourth-largest shale oil reserve. By 2026, Argentina is projected to become a net exporter of both oil and natural gas, which means it can produce, refine, and distribute its own liquid fuels domestically without a single foreign tanker arriving.
On top of Vaca Muerta, Argentina operates multiple nuclear reactors, including Atucha I, Atucha II, and Embalse, giving it stable baseload electricity that doesn’t depend on weather. Add large hydroelectric dams and growing wind capacity in Patagonia, and you’ve got a grid that doesn’t have many points of failure.
Distance from major conflicts takes a nine. Argentina occupies the southern tip of South America, faces the South Atlantic, and has no foreign military bases on its soil, no NATO membership, no Five Eyes obligations, and no strategic assets that the US, China, or Russia need to neutralize. The Falklands dispute with the UK is a historical tension, but it’s a dormant one, and it doesn’t change Argentina’s position relative to any great-power conflict in 2026.
Now, the trade-offs. Argentina’s peso loses value constantly, inflation runs at rates that would trigger political crises in most countries, and the banking system requires careful navigation. But if you earn in dollars or euros, that economic dysfunction works in your favor. Your purchasing power stretches much further than the official numbers suggest, and the food — which is the whole point of this ranking — costs a fraction of what you’d pay in the US or Europe.
Its major cities have a cost of living well below comparable cities in Western Europe, with a serious cultural scene and beef prices that feel almost unreal if you’re used to American supermarket bills. Interior provinces like Mendoza and Patagonia offer land and agricultural self-sufficiency at lower costs, with an expat community in each that’s large enough to give you a real support network from day one.
A total tally of twenty-eight out of thirty gives Argentina the first place among the best countries to weather a global conflict in 2026.
Now you know the best countries in case of World War III. Some of these places in South America can run warm year-round — but there are plenty of idyllic, scenic mild-weather cities with a very low cost of living. We have covered the best mild-weather cities in South America in this article.
Levi Borba is the founder of expatriateconsultancy.com, creator of the YouTube channel The Expat, and a best-selling author. Some of the links in our articles may be affiliated links, meaning the author earns a small commission if you make a purchase.
