Wrold War 3 or 4?

I was wondering, since the korean war was technically a United Nations action, and there were soldiers from africa, eurpore, North america etc. etc... so, technically, that would be world war 3, because many of the worlds countries were involved. So if what im saying is correct, we may be on the verge of World War 4, not 3,

P.S. Technically, we are still at war with north Korea, keep that in mind

I have always thought of the Cold War as the Third World War, it killed millions around the world from roughly 1948-1991. The two primary parties could not go to war directly, as they would have destroyed one another.

So they fought proxy wars across the planet, taking sides in local conflicts and feeding them arms. The Korean War I would see as just one campaign in this war. It's arguable that no country on the planet escaped from the Cold War unaffected.

i personally believe that from the end of world war 2 upto now, and continuing, we've been in this thing called world war 3. it's a little different than the past 2, since it's been declared in silence, and is composed of many subsections (ie; cold war, rights movements, iraq war, etc). not just official soldiers are involved, it's right down to the everyday citizen, the earth, all it inhabitants, and it's visitors, that is if there are any.

Very excellent point. I agree, the Cold War was the third world war. However our next world war won't be number 4. It will be five. I count the "War on Terror" as the next silent war. We're not targeting any nation in particular, just an ideology, much like the cold war. So right now we are in the middle of World War IV. This being the second silent war.

The problem in giving names to "wars" like this is that after a certain point, you won't have real "wars" anymore.

In the last 20 years, we have seen the frontal combat - high intensity conflict type turning to low to medium intensity conflicts.

Then the problem is no longer to number the wars but to define the word "war" istelf... Do you define the riots in Togo these days as a War? No, because it doesn't involves peoples from other countries.

IMO, the modern conflicts are no longer real "wars" but long suits of low-intensity conflicts in different countries, and which get their roots in Economical, Political, Strategical and Social sectors...

So can we really talk about either the fourth or third WW?

[edit on 4-5-2005 by Element]