World War 3?
I prefer to think of the Cold War as World War 3. A war with China might be World War 4.
And I think if behooves everybody to sort of make it a policy to call the Cold War 'WWIII'. Constantly. Keep on reinforcing that moniker.
You know we won WWIII. Ronald Reagan put us over the top on that one. You know who also won that war? The Russian. And the rest of the world, mostly. The Soviet System was the only real loser and, it was hoped, Marxism was mortally wounded, but that damn murderous idea keeps shambling about like a zed. Big losses of life occurred, but nothing on the order of the Second World War, no mistake. Perhaps the Vietnamese got the worst of it, but they don't seem to hold a grudge over it. If they don't, I won't. The Cambodian and certainly the Chinese had a rough go of it, but that could all be considered 'friendly fire'. They, and Karl Marx, did that to them.
But why the seeming sleight of hand with the labeling? Because it is precedent on how to fight WWIV. Do we want a war with China that throws back to WWII or a 'war' with them that throws back to the Cold War / WWIII?
"This is how you fight a modern war. Like this, not like this. This is the example to draw from, not that."
I, for one, would much rather repeat the conduct of WWIII, and hope the Chinese are of the same mind.
But hope in one hand and poop in tother and see which fills up quickest.
Quite a few commentators claim that we're in World War IV right now, and have been since 1979. I can't disagree with them.
ReplyDeleteOf course, our Carter-era enemies (Iran) are now our Obama-era buddies, so who knows?
Maybe we've turned into Italy, who never finished a war on the same side they started on, unless the war lasted long enough for them to change sides twice.