World War IV

World War IV is the name for a would-be global war following World War III. The name arises from the view that future wars would follow the pattern set by World War I and World War II — far-reaching multi-national conflicts.

It is said that World War V would follow this war.

Associating World Wars III and IV with world events

There is some debate about whether any conflicts since 1945 deserve the names World War III or World War IV.

"World War III" as a future conflict

The most prevalent view is that neither World War III nor World War IV have yet occurred. Proponents of this interpretation point to the fact that there has not been any global-scale total war since the conclusion of World War II. Both the first two World Wars each involved more than 35 nations, 70 million conscripts, and 70 million casualties-- figures unmatched by any conflict since 1945.

Adherents of this view therefore hold that "World War III" refers to a future major global war- usually one that must be avoided at all costs. This usage of the term is by far the most common.

"World War III" as a past Soviet-American conflict

Some feel that the term "World War" may be used to refer to a potential war which never occurred. Similarly, others feel that a "World War" can be any major conflict in between groups of nations, rather than only referring to a literal event of active violence like a traditional war.

Proponents of these views generally regard a 20th century conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States as entailing a Third World War. Some may feel that "World War III" should refer to a large scale active war between the two superpowers which simply never occurred. Similarly, others feel that "World War III" should refer to the entire Cold War, which ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In either case, such views hold that the name "World War III" should be reserved for a past Soviet-American conflict and the next major conflict should therefore be termed "World War IV".

"World War IV" as the "War on Terrorism"

The Project for the New American Century and some other analysts who hold that "World War III" refers to a past Soviet-American conflict also use the term "World War IV" to refer to a on-going conflict that is presently occurring in the form of the "War on Terrorism".

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 [1] 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.

Four days before Cohen's words were published, 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, 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."

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.'"

"World War III" as the Korean war, or the Iraq war

During the Korean War, Gallup polls in the United States showed that a majority of Americans believed that World War III had already begun. The Korean War shared an important feature of previous World Wars, namely the conflict between two coalitions of opposed nations. However, hostilities were restricted to a relatively small geographical area, and loss of life, while high, did not compare to the earlier World Wars. In retrospect, no historians consider the Korean War to have been a "World War."

The 1991 Gulf war involved a coalition of 30 countries led by the United States against Iraq. Most people dismiss the notion that this qualified as WWIII because one side had only one nation in it whereas both World Wars were fought between large alliances.

Hypothetical or fictional usage of WWIII or WWIV

In a letter to President Harry S. Truman, Albert Einstein famously wrote "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."[2]

The 1984 movie Strange Brew opens with a science fiction movie created by the characters Bob and Doug McKenzie, which takes place "ten years after World War IV, eh?" The war involved a nuclear holocaust which resulted in fleshy-headed mutants and the destruction of monuments like the Statue of Liberty. There is also a shortage of beer.

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