WWIII Has it began or is it about to start?

[FINintheMOON]

So many posts and threads elude to the fact that there is a war going on. We have SO MANY countries involved in wars and conflicts. We have genicide, rape, murder, theft and conspiracy going on in most of the world today. But many define a world war as several countries doing battle against a common enemy, on a common battlefield.

Well, IMHO, we are experiencing the same thing today as we have in the past. The only difference is the country that we are fighting...

It is no longer a country, but a religion. This religion is operating on many fronts and in many countries. For those of you that do not believe that the events of war and conflict are not based on this religious opression, you need to pay more attention to the news and the daily activities around the world...

Germany and Japan was the enemy of WWII. They were identifiable targets and we dealt with them on their own ground. Today, we have no common ground to fight on... Our presence in IRAQ is not much more than trainers and policing activities. The world is at war with the same enemy that we are battling in IRAQ and PAKISTAN. Spain, France, Germany, Russia, IRAN, Syria, etc have felt the effects of this warrior breed in one way or another...

So I ask you now... Are we invloved in a WORLD WAR or not?

[Slappy8800]

i thought many considered the cold war WWIII?

[ckb2001]

There is less war (per year) since 1992 than before it, and there was less war in 2006 than in previous years. If anything, we are moving toward a more peaceful planet. The big difference for Americans is that suddenly we are involved in a few.

[footballer]

cbk2201.. we are involved in many conflicts, and have been since the early 90's....
onto the origin of the thread...

i think you are correct in your opinion of these wars... your thread has a very strong regilious backing, as in refernce to the religon wars, and unspecified enemies leading to the writing in Revelations....

but I cant quite annouce that it IS a world war (being#3) ... i acknowledge that is indeed going to evolve into something much greater, and more destructve than the general public would like to imagine... well, that's my pestimistic view anyway... an optimistic way of seein git would be to accept it for its current state, and foolishly believe things wont get progressivly worse, until one side ceases to exsist...

but I believe its in its
infancy state at this point......

sorry for the circles...

[PrepDogg]

I agree that many countries like us are involved in this "war" of sorts against Islamic Extremists. But it's not a war per se as Finthemoon said but more like a constant struggle where there will probably never be a clear cut winner or loser. I agree with the notion that it will get worse before it gets better and we probably will get hit hard again alas 9-11. But the struggle will continue for a long time.

[ckb2001]

cbk2201.. we are involved in many conflicts, and have been since the early 90's....

First of all, to undercut potential "rebuttals" before they occur, let's get some stats in here:

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QUOTES:
" * The number of armed conflicts has declined by more than 40% since 1992. The deadliest conflicts (those with 1000 or more battle-deaths) dropped even more dramatically––by 80%.

* The number of international crises, often harbingers of war, fell by more than 70% between 1981 and 2001.

* Wars between countries are more rare than in previous eras and now constitute less than 5% of all armed conflicts.

* The number of military coups and attempted coups has declined by some 60% since 1963. In 1963, there were 25 coups or attempted coups; in 2004, there were 10. All failed.

* Most armed conflicts now take place in the poorest countries in the world, but as incomes rise the risk of war declines.

* The period since the end of World War II is the longest interval without wars between the major powers in hundreds of years.

* The UK and France, followed by the US and Russia/USSR have fought most international wars since 1946.

* Burma and India have suffered the greatest number of ‘conflict-years’ since 1946. (If a country fights two separate wars in one calendar year this counts as two ‘conflict-years’.) In 2003, India suffered more ‘conflict-years’ than any other country in the world.

* Most of the world’s conflicts are now concentrated in Africa. But even here there are signs of hope. A new dataset compiled for the Human Security Report finds that between 2002 and 2003 (the last year for which there is data) the number of armed conflicts in Africa dropped from 41 to 35.

* The drop in armed conflicts in the 1990s was associated with a worldwide decline in arms transfers, military spending and troop numbers.

* Wars have become dramatically less deadly over the past five decades. The average number of people reported killed per conflict per year in 1950 was 38,000; in 2002 it was just 600––a decline of 98%.

* In the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s by far the highest battle––death tolls in the world were in the wars in East and Southeast Asia. In the 1970s and 1980s, most of the killing took place in the Middle East, Central and South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. By the end of the 1990s, more people were being killed in sub-Saharan Africa’s wars than the rest of the world put together.

* The new dataset created for the Report finds that between 2002 and 2003 the number of reported deaths from all forms of political violence fell by 62% in the Americas, 32% in Europe, 35% in Asia and 24 % in Africa.

* The biggest death tolls do not come from the actual fighting, however, but from war-exacerbated disease and malnutrition. These ‘indirect’ deaths can account for as much as 90% of the total war-related death toll. Currently there are insufficient data to make even rough estimations of global or regional ‘indirect’ death toll trends.

* Not withstanding the horrors of Rwanda and Srebrenica, Bosnia, the number of genocides and other mass killings plummeted by 80% between the 1989 high point and 2001.

* International terrorism is the only form of political violence that appears to be getting worse. Some datasets have shown an overall decline in international terrorist incidents of all types since the early 1980s, but the most recent statistics suggest a dramatic increase in the number of high–casualty attacks since the September 11 attacks on the US in 2001. The annual death toll from international terrorist attacks is, however, only a tiny fraction of annual war death toll."
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Hopefully, you read through all those quotes. If not, then just look at the bolded stuff.

So, 1992 was chosen because that's the year quoted in a report I read (these guys are talking about that same report).

Second, the US had nothing since 1992 like the current Iraq conflict, and nothing that got into the minds of Americans like this conflict, so we are definitely far more aware of our military engagements and any American deaths as a result of that since the Iraq invasion.

So, stats tell us we are moving toward a more peaceful era, not one that is more violent. Again, Americans are simply more aware of this "violence" because we didn't intervene ala Iraq in those areas of conflict say in Africa or Colombia etc..

Finally, to call something WW3, you need people to agree on that label, and there really are no serious historians willing to call what's going on now WW3.

So, the evidence simply isn't there to call this WW3. If you want to say "in the future it will be", well first you need to demonstrate you can actually predict the future accurately.

[Rafiki]

So, the evidence simply isn't there to call this WW3. If you want to say "in the future it will be", well first you need to demonstrate you can actually predict the future accurately.

Good post. I also believe we have become less tolerant of any violence whatsoever. I've said many times, and I'll say it again: 50 years ago we used to carpet bomb cities, today people call an errant missile genocide.

[TexanPhinatic]

Good post. I also believe we have become less tolerant of any violence whatsoever. I've said many times, and I'll say it again: 50 years ago we used to carpet bomb cities, today people call an errant missile genocide.

Thank the media for that mostly.

[FINintheMOON]

First of all, to undercut potential "rebuttals" before they occur, let's get some stats in here:

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.

CK... Great job with the stats! While your stats support the time frame of 1992 through 2001 - 2002, I do feel that they come NO WHERE close to being accurate for the 2001 - 2006 era! And your stats concerning genocide not being accounted for in the equation, is further proof that sectarion and religious deaths are mounting annually.

WWIII is not about countries battling countries as they were defined in the past. This war is more on the lines of the Crusades and battles of such that lasted decades. This is a religious war that has engulfed the whole world! The battles, conflicts, suicide bombings and death tolls are a result of 1 religion that has declared war on the world in that if you do not support their beliefs or causes, you fall victim to their wrath...

This is definitely a WW, however it does not follow the old definition of such...

[ckb2001]

CK... Great job with the stats! While your stats support the time frame of 1992 through 2001 - 2002, I do feel that they come NO WHERE close to being accurate for the 2001 - 2006 era! And your stats concerning genocide not being accounted for in the equation, is further proof that sectarion and religious deaths are mounting annually.

WWIII is not about countries battling countries as they were defined in the past. This war is more on the lines of the Crusades and battles of such that lasted decades. This is a religious war that has engulfed the whole world! The battles, conflicts, suicide bombings and death tolls are a result of 1 religion that has declared war on the world in that if you do not support their beliefs or causes, you fall victim to their wrath...

This is definitely a WW, however it does not follow the old definition of such...

Those stats go up to October 2005, so the only question is 2006. 2006 actually showed LESS war than in previous years. The main reasons are fighting has died down or practically disappeared in places like Nepal, Chechnya, Congo, Indonesia, and Burundi.

It's a trend since the end of the Cold War that continues. So, it's even more peaceful since 2001 than it was before that. Again, Americans are simply more aware of "war" because we're actually in a few. But, globally, even with Iraq, there's less of it.

Finally, we have to look at definitions of "world war" to see why no serious historian calls the current crisis one:

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"world war - a war in which the major nations of the world are involved"

That's the definition!! You may say let's use another definition (one that supports your contention doesn't exist as far as I know), but using the term "world war" means you have to use the definition of that term. Which is why I bolded the "longest period of peace among major nations" part before. So, according to the definition, there is no world war nor has there been one since world war 2.