Question on the Graphic Novel Watchmen. Huge Spoiler so dont look if you havent read it

Question

What were Adrian Veidt's(Ozymandias) motives for destroying New York?

I read the book but dont quite understand what was the point.

Was it a "destroy a lot of people so that civilization can be rebuilt and cleansed" type deal or what.

And was WW3 actually going to happen or was that a ruse by Veidt too?

Answer 1

The world was indeed on the verge of WWIII. Veidt's motives were to scare the entire world into thinking that there was some potential threat to everyone out there, thus causing the world to unite. Note the news reports that said the Russians were withdrawing their troops (I don't remember where they were, Afghanistan? Turkey? I've got to re-read it) after the "alien" appeared, as a show of solidarity.

Answer 2

It's basically this: If humanity is faced with an alien invasion, it will unify the planet into mutual cooperation to face this new threat to humanity.  He wasn't trying to destroy everything, he just needed a bunch of people to be killed to convey the seriousness of the problem to the ignorant world leaders.  When Russia saw that the alien had killed MILLIONS of people, it started reconsidering it's own position and decided that more of these could come in, so they best be prepared.  So, as a way to protect there own hides, they decided to help America so they could be allies if it ever happened again.  Now that they were unified, that was when Veidt was going to lead them into a future utopia.  However, Dr. Manhattan's closing statements show that hostilities will always keep flaring up, and we could never be at true peace.

And yes, in the novel, WW3 was about to happen.  While the Russians invasion of Afghanistan really did happen, the Watchmen version really intensified the conflict, especially with Dr. Manhattan's presence.  The Russians were exceptionally desperate.  

Answer 3

He destroyed half of new york to save the planet, Russia had basically taken over afghanistan and because all countries had nuclear warheads and Dr. Manhattan had gone to mars, the war was inevitable, ozymandias had planned a massive attack that would shock the world into thinking that if it didn't band together to stop it, everyone would die.