World War IV is a name for what is commonly called the War on terrorism and is occasionally used in United States political and policy debates that continue in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
It 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." The core of 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 R. 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 if 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 Walesa and Vaclav 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 chemicals 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.'"
Alternative views
During the Cold War, it was widely thought that World War III would consist of a nuclear exchange between the superpowers. When asked what kind of weapons World War III would be fought with, Albert Einstein replied:
- "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
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Last updated: 05-13-2005 07:56:04
