World war: Difference between revisions

This article is about the term. For other uses, see World war (disambiguation).

A world war is a war involving many or most of the world's most powerful and populous countries. World wars span multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in multiple theatres.

The term is applied to the two major international conflicts that occurred during the 20th century:

• World War I, or the First World War (1914–1918)
• World War II, or the Second World War (1939–1945)

In terms of human technological history, the scale of these wars was enabled by the technological advances of the Second Industrial Revolution and resulting globalization that allowed global power projection and mass production of military hardware, but wars on such a scale have not been repeated due to the onset of the Atomic Age and the resulting danger of mutual assured destruction.

Origins of the term "world war"

The term "World War" was coined speculatively in the early 20th century, some years before the First World War broke out, probably as a literal translation of the German word Weltkrieg. German writer August Wilhelm Otto Niemann had used the word in the title of his anti-British novel Der Weltkrieg: Deutsche Träume ("The World War: German Dreams") as early as 1904, published in English as The coming conquest of England. Also, the term was used as early as 1850 by Karl Marx in The Class Struggles in France, as well as his associate Friedrich Engels. Rasmus B. Anderson in 1889 describes an episode in Teutonic mythology as a world war (Swedish världskrig), justifying this description by a line in an Old Norse epic poem, Völuspá: folcvig fyrst i heimi (the first great war in the world). The Oxford English Dictionary cites the first known usage in the English language to a Scottish newspaper, the People's Journal in 1848: "A war amongst the great powers is now necessarily a world-war."

It was recognized that the complex system of opposing alliances–the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire vs. the French Third Republic, the Russian Empire, and the British Empire was likely to lead to a worldwide conflict in the event of war breaking out. Due to this fact, a very minute conflict between two countries had the potential to set off a domino effect of alliances, causing mass war. The fact that the powers involved had large overseas empires virtually guaranteed that a war would be worldwide, as the colonies' resources would be a crucial strategic factor. The same strategic considerations also ensured that the combatants would strike at each other's colonies, thus spreading the fighting far more widely than in the pre-colonial era.

Other languages have also adopted the "World War" terminology. For instance, in French, "World War" is translated as "Guerre Mondiale"; in German, "Weltkrieg", which, prior to the war, had been used in the more abstract meaning of a global conflict; in Italian, "World War" is translated as "Guerra Mondiale"; in Spanish and Portuguese, "Guerra Mundial", in Danish, "Verdenskrig" and in Russian, "Мировая война" (Mirovaya Voyna).

Speculative fiction authors were noting the concept of a Second World War at least as early as 1919 and 1920, when Milo Hastings wrote his dystopian novel City of Endless Night. In English, the term "First World War" was used by Charles à Court Repington as a title for his memoirs, published in 1920, having originally discussed the matter with a Major Johnstone of Harvard University in September 1918. The term "World War I" was coined by Time magazine in its issue of June 12, 1939. In that same article, the term "World War II" was first used speculatively to describe the upcoming war. The first use for the actual war came in its issue of September 11, 1939. One week earlier, the Danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad used the term on its front page, saying "The second World War broke out yesterday at 11 a.m."

Large-scale wars throughout history (in chronological order)

See also: List of wars by death toll

There have been numerous wars with battles spanning two or more continents throughout history, including:

Estimated death tolls. Log. mean calculated using simple power law.

Event	Lowest estimate	Log. mean estimate	Highest est.	Location	From	To	Duration (years)
Greco-Persian Wars				Mainland Greece, Thrace, Aegean Islands, Asia Minor, Cyprus and Egypt	499 BCE	449 BCE	50 years
Peloponnesian War				Mainland Greece, Asia Minor, Sicily	431 BCE	404 BCE	27 years
Wars of Alexander the Great				Thrace, Illyria, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Babylonia, Persia, Sogdiana, India	335 BCE	323 BCE	12 years
Wars of the Diadochi				Macedon, Greece, Thrace, Anatolia, the Levant, Egypt, Babylonia and Persia	322 BCE	275 BCE	47 years
First Punic War	285,000+	285,000+	285,000+	Mediterranean Sea, Sicily, Sardinia, North Africa	264 BCE	241 BCE	23 years
Second Punic War	616,000+	616,000+	616,000+	Italia, Sicily, Hispania, Cisalpine Gaul, Transalpine Gaul, North Africa, Greece	218 BCE	201 BCE	17 years
Roman–Seleucid War				Greece and Asia Minor	192 BCE	188 BCE	4 years
Roman–Persian Wars				Mesopotamia, Syria, Southern Levant, Egypt, Transcaucasus, Atropatene, Asia Minor, Balkans	92 BCE	629 CE	721 years
First Mithridatic War				Asia Minor, Achaea and the Aegean Sea.	89 BCE	85 BCE	4 years
Great Roman Civil War				Hispania, Italia, Graecia, Illyria, Aegyptus, Africa	49 BCE	45 BCE	4 years
Byzantine–Sassanid wars				Caucasus, Asia Minor, Egypt, Levant, Mesopotamia	502 CE	628 CE	126 years
Muslim conquests				Mesopotamia, Caucasus, Persia, Levant, North Africa, Anatolia, Iberia, Gaul and Greater Khorasan	622 CE	1258 CE	636 years
Arab–Byzantine wars				Levant, Syria, Egypt, North Africa, Anatolia, Crete, Sicily, Southern Italy	629 CE	1050s CE	~421 years
Crusades	1,000,000	1,700,000	3,000,000	Iberia, Near East (Anatolia, Levant, Palestine), Egypt, Holy Land	1095 CE	1291 CE	197 years
Mongol conquests	30,000,000	35,000,000	40,000,000	Eurasia	1206 CE	1324 CE	118 years
Byzantine–Ottoman Wars				Asia Minor, Balkans	1265 CE	1479 CE	214 years
European colonization of the Americas	2,000,000	14,000,000	100,000,000	Americas	1492 CE	1900 CE	408 years
Ottoman–Habsburg wars				Hungary, Mediterranean, Balkans, North Africa and Malta	1526 CE	1791 CE	265 years
Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604)				Atlantic Ocean, English Channel, Low Countries, Spain, Spanish Main, Portugal, Cornwall, Ireland, Americas, Azores and Canary islands	1585 CE	1604 CE	19 years
Dutch–Portuguese War				Atlantic Ocean: Brazil, West Africa, Southern Africa; Indian Ocean: India, East Indies, Indochina; China	1602 CE	1663 CE	61 years
Anglo-Spanish War (1654–60)				Caribbean, Spain, Canary Islands and Spanish Netherlands.	1654 CE	1660 CE	6 years
Nine Years' War				Mainland Europe, Ireland, Scotland, North America, South America, Asia	1688 CE	1697 CE	9 years
War of the Spanish Succession				Europe, North America, South America	1701 CE	1714 CE	13 years
War of the Quadruple Alliance				Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, North America	1718 CE	1720 CE	2 years
Anglo-Spanish War (1727–29)				Spain and Panama	1727 CE	1729 CE	2 years
War of the Austrian Succession				Europe, North America and India	1740 CE	1748 CE	8 years
American Revolutionary War				Eastern North America, Gibraltar, Balearic Islands, the Indian subcontinent, parts of Africa, Caribbean Sea, Atlantic and Indian Oceans	1775 CE	1784 CE	8 years
Seven Years' War				Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Asia	1754 CE	1763 CE	9 years
French Revolutionary Wars				Europe, Egypt, Middle East, Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean, Indian Ocean	1792 CE	1802 CE	9 years
Napoleonic Wars	3,500,000	4,900,000	7,000,000	Europe, Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, North Sea, Río de la Plata, French Guiana, West Indies, Indian Ocean, North America, South Caucasus	1803 CE	1815 CE	13 years
Crimean War				Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, North America	1853 CE	1856 CE	3 years
World War I	15,000,000	31,000,000	65,000,000	Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Pacific Islands, China and off the coast of South and North America	1914 CE	1918 CE	4 years, 3 months, 1 week
World War II	40,000,000	58,000,000	85,000,000	Europe, Pacific, Atlantic, South-East Asia, China, Middle East, Mediterranean, North Africa and Horn of Africa, briefly North and South America	1939 CE	1945 CE	6 years and 1 day
Cold War				Global	1947 CE	1991 CE	44 years
War on Terror	272,000	585,000	1,260,000	Global (esp. in the Greater Middle East)	2001 CE	present	14 years

Wars matching World War I by casualty count

There were a number of wars before the 20th century with as many or more casualties than the First World War (16,563,868 – 40,000,000), including:

Estimated death tolls. Log. mean calculated using simple power law.

Event	Lowest estimate	Log. mean estimate	Highest est.	Location	From	To	Duration (years)
Three Kingdoms	36,000,000	37,000,000	40,000,000	China	184 CE	280 CE	96 years
Mongol conquests	30,000,000	35,000,000	40,000,000	Eurasia	1206 CE	1324 CE	118 years
Qing dynasty conquest of the Ming dynasty	25,000,000	25,000,000	25,000,000	Manchuria, China proper	1616 CE	1662 CE	47 years
Taiping Rebellion	20,000,000	32,000,000	100,000,000	China	1851 CE	1864 CE	14 years
Conquests of Tamerlane	15,000,000	17,000,000	20,000,000	West Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, Russia	1369 CE	1405 CE	37 years
An Lushan Rebellion	13,000,000	21,000,000	36,000,000	China	755 CE	763 CE	9 years

Large-scale wars after 1945

Most wars listed are considered part of conflicts such as the Indochina Wars, the Conflict in Afghanistan, the Gulf Wars, the War on terror, and the Cold War.

Main articles: World War I and World War II

The World Wars of the 20th century involved almost every continent on Earth. Many of the states who fought in the First World War also fought in the Second, although not always on the same sides.

Among the causes of the World Wars most commonly are named technological progress and industrialization. The technology of communication and warfare allowed to project power world-wide, while industrialization allowed mass production of military technology. A recent research stresses a geopolitical factor of circumscription or global closure.

The circumscription theory says that when political expansion reaches the last frontier of a system, warfare increases until it leaves only one player standing with all others eliminated. In this aspect, the modern world repeated the same pattern passed by pre-modern circumscribed civilizations. The world was politically filled towards the Twentieth century leaving no sovereign void. As a result, warfare drastically increased and the world inexorably proceeded towards unipolarity.

Classical geopoliticians and many other scholars perceived the fact of "the end of space"; many expected it to result in world-wide wars. One of them, French sociologist George Vacher de Lapouge, envisaged in 1899: "We conclude thinking about human hecatombs which the future reserves. The struggle among the contenders for universal domination will be long and necessarily merciless."

To sum up, at the most expansive phase of world history, the space for expansion abruptly ended resulting for the first time in total closure. But this time the factor of circumscription, already stronger than in any previous civilization, was yet multiplied by the modern technology and industry. The Long Peace of La Belle Epoque was doomed, to be followed by World Wars, as one of the central figures vividly expressed:

And the first gust of wind swept across a Europe grown nervous… Let Heaven at last give free rain to the fate which could no longer be thwarted. And then the first mighty lightening flash struck the earth… and with the thunder of Heaven there mingled the roar of World War batteries… The fight for freedom has begun mightier than the earth has ever seen (Mein Kampf).

Another central figure contemplated after the First World War:

[Tne Great War] differed from all ancient wars in the immense power of the combatants and their fearful agencies of destruction, and from all modern wars in the utter ruthlessness with which it was fought. All the horrors of all the ages were brought together, and not only armies but whole populations were thrust into the midst of them."

The two World Wars of the 20th century indeed caused unprecedented casualties and destruction across the theaters of conflict, although there are at least three wars before the 20th century with as many or more casualties than the First World War. The numbers killed in both wars combined are estimated at between 60 and 100 million people. Non-combatants (mostly civilians) suffered as badly as or worse than combatants, and the distinction between combatants and non-combatants was often blurred as belligerents of both world wars mobilized for total war. Both world wars saw war crimes. Nazi Germany was responsible for multiple genocides during the Second World War, most notably the Holocaust. The Soviet Union, Canada, and United States deported and interned minority groups within their own borders, and largely due to this conflict later, many ethnic Germans were expelled in much of Eastern Europe. Imperial Japan during the Second World War was notorious for attacking neutral nations without a declaration of war, such as the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and its brutal treatment and killing of Allied prisoners of war and the inhabitants of Asia, most notably by using them for forced labor and the Rape of Nanking where 250,000 non-combatants in the city were brutally murdered by Japanese troops. The Ottoman Empire was responsible for the death of over one million Armenians during the First World War. Advances in technology were responsible for a large amount of casualties. The First World War saw major use of chemical weapons despite the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 outlawing the use of such weapons in warfare. The Second World War was also the first (and thus far, only) conflict in which nuclear weapons were used, devastating the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The outcome of the World Wars had a profound effect on the course of world history. The old European empires collapsed or were dismantled as a direct result of the wars' crushing costs and in some cases the defeat of imperial powers. The United States was firmly established as the dominant global power, along with its ideological foe, the Soviet Union, in close competition. These two superpowers exerted political influence over most of the world's other states for decades after the end of the Second World War (ending in the late 1980s in the Soviet Union). The modern international security, economic and diplomatic system was created in the aftermath of the wars. Institutions such as the United Nations were established to collectivize international affairs, with the explicit goal of preventing another outbreak of general war. The wars also greatly changed the course of daily life. Technologies developed during wartime had a profound effect on peacetime life as well–for instance, jet aircraft, penicillin, nuclear energy, and electronic computers. Since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War, there has been a widespread and prolonged fear of a Third World War between nuclear-armed powers.

Later world wars

See also: World War III

World War III is generally considered a hypothetical successor to World War II and is often suggested to be nuclear, devastating in nature and likely much more violent than both WWI and WWII combined. This war is anticipated and planned for by military and civil authorities, and explored in fiction in many countries. Concepts range from purely conventional scenarios or a limited use of nuclear weapons to the destruction of the planet.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Albert Einstein (1947)

Various former government officials, politicians and authors have attempted to apply the labels of WWIII, WWIV, and WWV to various military engagements and diplomatic stand-offs since the close of WWII, such as the Cold War or the War on Terror. Among these are former American and French government officials James Woolsey and Alexandre de Marenches, author Eliot Cohen and Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos. Despite their efforts, none of these wars are commonly deemed world wars.

The Second Congo War (1998–2003), which involved nine nations and led to ongoing low-level warfare despite an official peace and the first democratic elections in 2006, has often been referred to as "Africa's World War".

The Syrian Civil War and Iraqi Civil War as well as their spillovers worldwide are sometimes described as a proxy war waged between the U.S. and Russia, which led some commentators to characterize the situation as a "a proto-world war" with nearly a dozen countries embroiled in two overlapping conflicts".

See also

• The Great Game (1813–1907)
• List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll
• List of genocides by death toll
• List of largest empires
• List of pre-modern great powers
• First wave of European colonization
• New Imperialism
• Revolutionary wave
• Neocolonialism
• Mutual assured destruction
• Cold War II
• World War III

External links

• This is the Fourth World War, an interview with philosopher Jean Baudrillard