Map of participants in World War II for Wikipedia “World War” under licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

(18) WORLD WAR

World wars are a recurring theme in history beyond the wars designated as such, the First and Second World Wars – which might also be considered as a continuation of the same world war with Germany. To the extent that I like to quip about world wars from World War Zero to World War X, while ranking my top 10 entries on the scale of world war.

On the World War X-side of the equation, the Third World War loomed – and still looms – large in popular imagination, indeed larger than it did in history. Of course, in popular imagination, the Third World War evokes or is synonymous with the omnipresent (and omnicidal) threat of worldwide nuclear destruction that underlay the Cold War (and beyond). Although some argue that the Cold War WAS the Third World War, aptly enough as its actual fighting was in the Third World, with the War on Terror as the Fourth World War.

Other wars with the world war label have included the First and Second Congo Wars, particularly the latter, which has been described as Africa’s world war – for the scale of casualties and number of African nations drawn into it.

The World War Zero side of the equation – involving at least proto-world wars – is even more persuasive. I’ve read one historian argue persuasively that the Napoleonic Wars were more global than WW1, while no less than Winston Churchill claimed the Seven Years War as the first world war. I like to observe that the American Revolutionary War was in effect a world war against Britain.

Really, any war involving one or more European states from the Spanish Conquest of the Americas onwards might be labelled a world war, once those European states acquired substantial maritime empire and power in continents beyond Europe.

However, it becomes a little trickier prior to the emergence of European maritime power or empires beyond Europe. An archaeologist has controversially dubbed the Late Bronze Age Collapse as World War Zero, but this seems a little bombastic – the Muslim or Mongol conquests seem better claimants.

Indeed, the casualties of the Mongol conquests exceed those of the First World War and come close to the Second in absolute terms, while substantially exceeding even the latter in relative terms of percentage of world population.

But yes – there are no world wars to rival the wars that are officially known as such, particularly the Second, which was more destructive, extensive and pervasive than the First, despite largely being a continuation of it.

RATING: 4 STARS****

X-TIER (WILD TIER)