I’ve been tuning out more often all the war stuff lately, but tune in to CNN (and I thought I saw a similar headline online) to see them talking about “World War Four”. WTF?
Did I miss a world war?
I think you would have noticed.
James Woolsey, a former CIA Director said we are now in the Fourth World War. He said that the Cold War was WWIII.
Uh, I didn’t get the memo.
I think that’s his interpretation. I’ve heard others say things along similar lines, with the Napolonic wars being the Real WW1.
So, what defines a World War? Doesn’t it involve the whole world going to war?
(What role did Asia and Africa play in WWI?)
Well, it’s been said that, in totality, the cold war lead to a few million deaths (cia operations, etc). So you might as well put it under the ‘sophisticated war’ label, i guess.
Well, Japan joined the allies, and grapped a couple on minor German possesions in the Pacific during WWI; also the European powers brought in troops from their African colonies.
Look, there is no WWIII or WWIV.
The Cold War was “The Cold War”. It involved a bunch of proxy wars like Afghanistan and Nam as well as a lot of political incidents but you can hardly compare it to the carnage of WWI or WWII.
the Napoleonic Wars were “The Napoleonic Wars”
why not call the French and Indian wars WW0 since that involved the two superpowers of the day.
Why not call the Persian Gulf War WWIII since it involved a coalition of 30 countries against Iraq?
Since we are not fighting with sticks and rocks like Einstein predicted, we must not be fighting WWIV and thus WWIII didn’t happen.
<Engage Historical Pedant Mode>
Let’s not forget when people talk about the Napoleonic Wars they’re actually talking about multiple wars.
The “Revoltionary wars” lasted from 1792 -1802 and were ended by the peace of Amiens.
War broke out again in 1803 lasting to 1814. This conflict is the actual “Napoleonic war”.
Then a year later Napolean escaped retook the French throne and launched the brief war known as “The 100 days”.
Which gives us several world wars there and then.
<Pedant mode off>
Plus let’s not forget the 7 years war (1756-63). A coalition war fought on both Land and Sea at in the America’ s, Europe , India and the Caribean.
Oh, and The War of the Spanish succesion is also sometimes claimed as the 1st true world war as well.
Thing is, its not one war but a long series of them and less “total” action against fascism and terrorism in predominantly Muslim nations.
Look, no on ever said naming was logical.
Or the Korean War (Korean conflict?), for that matter, which then-UN Secretary Dag Hammarskjold called “war against the United Nations.”
Sorry, Secretary General.
Hmmm… OK, World Wars are defined AFTER they start, by journalists, historians and the weight of public opinion. Since nobody called the Cold War WW3 while it was under way or in the first 10 years after it was over, I think the man from the CIA is being grandiose. Maybe he would have been closer to the mark (but still not totally straight on) if he thought of the current state of the world as Cold War II; a series of “proxy wars and political incidents” with ocassional localized “hot” wars involving some “Great Powers”, essentially over the hegemony or survival of an ideology or way-of-life (e.g. Western liberal global capitalism). As msmith357 mentions, refer to Cold War – much espionage, brinkmanship, political posturing, tedious treatises; bloody coups/countercoups/revolts (Guatemala, Hungary, Chile, Czechoslovakia); proxy wars (Nicaragua, Angola), terrorist campaigns (Brigatti Rossi) and a few limited Great-Power wars (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan 79-89). But it seems still early to really “call” it; and Cold Wars I and II would overlap in some places – for instance, the Afghan Mujahddin.
Thing is, CW1 had a defined adversary – Soviet-led expansion of leninist communism – and two strategic counterobjectives: an immediate of containment and limited rollback, and a long-term one of bringing the Soviet bloc “back” into the “western” fold. CW2 is still fuzzy to pin down.
IMO (and YMMV) the “World” wars, though it’s true that they were not the first wars in which virtually all Western Great Powers formed multigonal alliances that took the warfighting to more than one theatre around the world, were defined in that they happened with the technology (transoceanic telegraphy, motor transportation; later radio and aviation) to keep the governments and public opinion abreast of anything significant within at most one or two days, so it could be all seen as “one” war, as opposed to, say, three wars going on simultaneously among parallel groups of allies, about the outcome of which we find out months later; involved both European and non-European nations; AND had several of the Great Powers directly at active, shooting war with each other in multiple theatres in a way that involved a coordination of strategies among allies on each side, including strategically managed “neutralities” – which is why we don’t count WW2 from the Italian and Japanese invasions of Ethiopia and China, but we do count the 1940-41 period when it was the British Empire and a few “governments in exile” vs. the European Axis with the US and USSR ostensibly “neutral”.