User:Deadeye93
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Applied Social Studies Dewar Peterkin Period 5
Is the Global War on Terror (GWOT) becoming World War III? If we are ever to answer this frequently asked question we have to compare our current battle with the past two world wars. This informational essay will describe the criteria for a war to be officially called a world war and how all three wars fulfill them. It will also compare actions taken by leaders on both sides in all three wars, and the GWOT with the two world wars among other things.
To start, I would like to bring up the criteria for a World War. While there is no specific written criteria for being called a world war, looking at many sources I have pieced together terms that have applied to both world wars that are spoken of often when going over why they are called global wars. One term is that both World Wars have included the participation of the majority of the world’s countries. Another criteria matched by both world wars is operation is at least two continents. A third thing that applied to both world wars was involving most of the world’s superpowers. The final term fulfilled by both world wars is that the fighting went on in the air, on the sea, and on land.
Most of the criteria are already fulfilled in the first 6 years of the war with the rest on it well on its way. The participation of the majority of the world’s countries is already covered. One hundred eighty six out of the world’s one hundred ninety three countries are already involved. The operation in at least two continents is barely covered by operations in the northeast part of Africa and theatres of operation in parts of Asia ranging from Iraq to the Philippines. The involvement of the world’s superpowers is a criteria based on opinion. The countries commonly considered as superpowers are USA, Russia, China, Japan, Germany, The United Kingdom and Canada. All of these countries are involved in the war and even if you don’t consider one of these a superpower or if you think there is one more superpower, it is still the majority of the superpowers being involved so the term is fulfilled. The final term is that the war must be fought on land, air and sea. This is proven like so. The land is the primary field of battle for the African and Middle Eastern areas. The air is covered by air support for land troops, bombing missions, and dealing with other terrorist air forces. The sea theatre of operation is covered simply by the fact that we are operating in the Philippines. The enemy resistance is both air and water based that fulfills the final criteria.
The second part of this essay will entail how each war started. World War One started by the Serbian government arranging the assassination of an heir to the throne of Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. After the Serbs attack on a person of importance on Austro-Hungarian ground, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia and attacked them with various European nations following in on Austria-Hungary’s side.
The United States got involved in World War Two because the Japanese attacked us on our ground. When they bombed Pearl Harbor and other naval bases on December 7, we took offense to that and we joined the Allies in the fight against Nazi Germany and the rest of the Axis. The Global War on Terror was caused by the terrorist hijackings on the events of September 11, 2001. After that, the United States declared war on the various terrorist organizations. The comparison I am alluding to here is that each war had a beginning that followed a pattern. The pattern is; bad guys attack good guys on home soil, good guys declare war on bad guys and fight back.
In world war one, the only significant effect the leaders had was when the Serbian leader had the Austro-Hungarian prince assassinated. The comparison I will be focusing on in this segment is a comparison between George W. Bush, the current president of the United States, and Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazis during WWII. The first thing that both did was invade more and more countries. Hitler invaded all sorts of countries like Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Russia. He just kept on going until the very end. George W. Bush is acting relatively the same way. It started almost as retaliation towards Afghanistan after the events of September 11, 2001. After the relative success in invading and liberating Afghanistan, Bush seemed to feel as if it was now his job to rid the world of terrorism. This he soon later invaded Libya, Iraq, and other terrorism filled countries. The second topic was both leaders drive to put their invaded countries all under one government type. As Hitler invaded country after country, he attempted to spread the reach of his dictatorship’s powers. Bush is doing relatively the same thing, with different intentions, but it is still relatively the same thing. As he liberates each country, he has attempted to spread representative democracy to each country. It seems to him as the best government type and it probably appears to us the same way. In reality, we are barging in and expecting them to change their entire lifestyle so they can have what we think is a better government system. It’s not like the afghani people were just begging us to come and make them a democracy either. There’s as many people against the democracy as there are for it.
