"War on Terrorism" as a world war

"War on Terrorism" as a world war

The term "World War IV" is occasionally used in the United States political and policy debates that continue in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. As long ago as 1992, Count de Marenches, the former head of French intelligence, wrote a book[6] alleging that a "fourth world war", of terrorism versus civilization, was taking place. As a designation for the post-9/11 war on terrorism, its use was first proposed by Eliot A. Cohen in his opinion piece written for the Wall Street Journal opinion page on November 20, 2001 titled, "World War IV: Let's call this conflict what it is." A core quotation from his thesis is

The Cold War was World War III, which reminds us that not all global conflicts entail the movement of multimillion-man armies, or conventional front lines on a map. The analogy with the Cold War does, however, suggest some key features of that conflict: that it is, in fact, global; that it will involve a mixture of violent and nonviolent efforts; that it will require mobilization of skill, expertise and resources, if not of vast numbers of soldiers; that it may go on for a long time; and that it has ideological roots.

On November 16, 2002, James Woolsey, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, gave a speech at Restoration Weekend, sponsored by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, titled "World War IV",[2] in which he outlines the entire rationale for fighting World War IV. In the most provocative portion of his speech, he says

But, I would say this. Both to the terrorists and to the pathological predators such as Saddam Hussein and to the autocrats as well, the barbarics, the Saudi royal family. They have to realize that now for the fourth time in 100 years, we've been awakened and this country is on the march. We didn't choose this fight, but we're in it. And being on the march, there's only one way we're going to be able to win it. It's the way we won World War I fighting for Wilson's 14 points. The way we won World War II fighting for Churchill's and Roosevelt's Atlantic Charter and the way we won World War III fighting for the noble ideas I think best expressed by President Reagan, but also very importantly at the beginning by President Truman, that this was not a war of us against them. It was not a war of countries. It was a war of freedom against tyranny. We have to convince the people of the Middle East that we are on their side, as we convinced Lech Wałęsa and Václav Havel and Andrei Sakharov that we were on their side.

Cohen was one of the first publicly to single out Iraq as the second battlefield after Afghanistan in his version of World War IV. On December 23, 2001 he then wrote in the Wall Street Journal, "War with Iraq will have its perils. Some are likely to be illusory: the Arab 'street,' for example, which never quite rises as promised. Others may be quite real, to include the use of chemical and biological weapons. Should the U.S. fail to take the challenge, sooner or later it is sure to find Iraqi terror on its doorstep. It may have already. Should the U.S. rise to the occasion, however, it may begin a transformation of the Middle East that could provide many benefits to the populations of an unfree region. That will, in the end, make us infinitely more secure at home."[3]

Following Cohen's lead, Norman Podhoretz wrote an article for Commentary magazine titled, "How to win World War IV" (Norman Podhoretz) in February, 2002. Podhoretz was not as certain as Cohen about specific tactics: "Yet whether or not Iraq becomes the second front in the war against terrorism, one thing is certain: there can be no victory in this war if it ends with Saddam Hussein still in power." He agrees fully with Cohen's overall thesis, though: "In my opinion, by raising the possibility of a transformation of the Middle East, Cohen cuts to the heart of the matter. The real enemy in this war, Cohen argues -- as Daniel Pipes has also so persistently and authoritatively done at greater length -- is not the generalized abstraction 'terrorism,' but rather 'militant Islam.'"

A documentary film titled "World War IV" was released in 2007 by former Governor George Bush's Governor's Circle member, Don A Craven Jr. The film is a conservative critique of the strategic wisdom of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, and suggests that the war could escalate, and historically be viewed as the opening salvo of "World War IV", rather than stabliizing the region--a principal cassus belli justifying the invasion.

Another faction of conservatives, led by Newt Gingrich, do not consider the Cold War a world war, preferring to call the War on Terrorism the third world war rather than the fourth.

 

I get so tired of hearing this get called WW3 or WW4 (which I have never heard). It is hardly on the same scale or size as either of the first two world wars and most of the world is not involved because they do not support the American cause.

 

I agree with Forgive Darkness. The rest of the world is not directly involved like it was in the previous wars. Now if they were talking about the possibility of a "WWIII" that's a different story.

 

I don't think I've heard the mention of WW IV before this.

I'm not even sure why we'd call the Cold War WW III, although it obviously was a very significant and volatile time in history.

 

I agree. I mean the Cold War was mainly between the U.S. and the USSR, not to mention the fact that a lot of people don't actually consider it as being a "war".

 

I remember friends of mine talking about news articles and how a war seemed imminent back in the 70s and 80s.

Looking back it seems like we dodged a major bullet. The next few years will be interesting though.

 

I thought the cold war was clearly fought as a real war between 'east' and 'west' almost every time. The only difference from the other two world wars was that third world battlegrounds were nearly always used ?