Amid wars between Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Hamas, fears about the prospect of another world war are growing.
Not long ago, some Americans feared that an inexperienced and mercurial President Donald Trump would start World War III. Now he is building his bid for a return to office in order to avoid it.
In a recent fundraising email, Trump lamented: “It truly pains me to watch 'Crooked Joe' – the weakest and most incompetent president in history – destroy our country, pushing America to the brink of World War III.” During the election campaign, he boasted that he was “the only one who can prevent World War III.”
TSN.ua offers you an adaptation of the Time material, where the author analyzes why world politicians are talking about the approaching Third World War and how likely such a scenario is.
Rhetoric of global war
Amid long wars between Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Hamas, fears about the prospect of another world war are growing, and Trump is just one of the political figures using such dire rhetoric. On the left, the right, and even in the White House, the specter of a global conflict that hasn't happened in nearly 80 years is proving a useful rhetorical tool, even if the comparison is, according to historians, inappropriate for the current moment.
“I think this is rhetoric that goes beyond the ability of reality to support it,” says Jay Winter, a 20th-century military historian and professor emeritus at Yale University.
A poll conducted by the American Psychological Association shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year found that nearly 7 in 10 Americans fear we are in the early stages of World War III, a sentiment encouraged by allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The organization has not asked this question since then, but the outbreak of war in the Middle East appears to be raising these concerns again; In an interview with The Hill this month, Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said, “I had to answer people's questions that I've never had to answer in 30 years of public life, which is: Could this be World War III? “
Arguments and Facts
Trump is not the only one playing on these fears. Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican rival closest to the former president, held a “Stop World War III” rally in Miami this month. A day later, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also mentioned World War II at the state's third debate.
“Let's remember the last time we turned our backs on the shooting war in Europe. That only gave us a few years,” he said from the stage. “And then 500,000 Americans were killed in Europe to defeat Hitler.”
This argument is not limited to Republicans. Various left-wing figures recall fears of a third world war while criticizing Israel's bombing of Gaza. When TIME magazine asked Dr. Cornel West, who has launched an independent presidential campaign, last month whether Biden's second term was better than Trump's, he responded, “Is World War III better than Civil War II?”
Biden himself has a long-standing habit of invoking the specter of another world war. Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine last year, the president allegedly told aides, “We're trying to avoid World War III,” according to a report in The New York Times last year. He and his aides have repeated that point publicly since then, although less often than his rivals in recent months.
John Herbst, a former ambassador to Ukraine and now senior director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center, suggested the Biden administration be careful in its choice of words.
“There's nothing wrong with saying in closed government consultations, 'We obviously don't want World War III,'” he said. “But at the same time we should be saying, 'We have vital interests in this. war, and we must ensure that these vital interests are protected.”
Skepticism of experts
Few experts believe that hand-wringing over World War III means we are on the brink of such a crisis. While there is disagreement about what a world war is, it typically involves two large power blocs of countries vying for dominance, with numerous countries on each side taking up arms against each other in more than one theater. military actions.
In September 1939, TIME magazine may have been the first to call the conflict that began that month “World War II,” but others speculated that it might break out. In 2015, P.V. Singer and August Cole, two writers with national security experience, speculated in an essay for TIME on what World War III might look like, suggesting that Russia's “grabbing of land in Ukraine” and rising tensions with China could lead to even more one global battle that will unfold in outer space and cyberspace.
Experts say it doesn't look like the current battles are rising to the level of a new world war.
“I don't yet see enough of a correlation between crises and conflicts to raise that concern,” says Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and director of foreign policy studies.
War between NATO and Russia?
Winter notes that because nuclear weapons are strongly associated with World War II, many people may be making this connection in relation to players in the Russian-Ukrainian and Israeli-Hamas conflicts. Russia has nuclear weapons, Israel is believed to have nuclear weapons, and Iran, which backs groups that have fought US forces in recent weeks, has its own nuclear program.
However, even such an international reaction, which could result from a nuclear attack, will not necessarily lead to world war, experts say. In their view, war between NATO and Russia is more likely, but all the people TIME spoke to were hesitant to call even this potential conflict a world war.
Why does the West have concerns?
Yet in the months following Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year, Kremlin allies often speculated that World War III had already begun. Since then they have periodically warned that world war is inevitable.
“This is a Kremlin communications strategy to highlight the risks of war to the West and try to use this as a way to reduce support for Ukraine,” says Brian Frederick, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. He adds that Ukraine also sometimes reacts by bringing up the term, and President Volodymyr Zelensky is trying to rally allies by warning that if Russia doesn't stop here, it will keep going, leading to World War III.
In America, some of those expressing concern about another world war may be expressing legitimate concerns about being drawn too deeply into a conflict abroad. But the sensationalism of the term can cloud this sensitive debate.
“There are certainly people who are genuinely concerned about the risks of escalation and the potential to involve the United States in it, even if they also support Ukraine,” Frederick says. But he argues that most of these people do not use the term “World War III.”
“What I mean is that 'World War III' is an evocative term but not clearly defined,” he says.
Most users are trying to get voters' attention by causing a strong reaction, and in some cases not entirely negative, Winter says.
“If you see the emotional appeal of the term 'World War' as bringing back a generation of grandfathers… the best parts, but also the worst evils, then I think you'll understand its appeal,” says Winter.
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