Character's hypothetical "How I Would Start WW3" college paper becomes blueprint for a terrorist organization's attacks?

A brilliant character (I'm pretty sure it was not the POV main character... may have been the love interest?) wrote a paper in university/grad school for some sort of international relations/political science class where the prompt was "How would you start World War 3?", asking them to be specific about which countries in which to cause economic upset/incidents that would lead to tension between specific powers.

It then becomes apparent that a real-life terrorist group (or something) is using his paper as a guide to starting WW3, as events begin to unfold exactly as prescribed in the paper, and then the MCs have to stop the plot.

...I think. I don't know why I can't remember what this is from. I suppose there's a decent chance it's not from a book at all. Could be a TV show, or a movie, or a non-MM romance book. (It certainly doesn't sound like a very romantic story? Goodness.)

Please help, this is driving me nuts! TYIA!