A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
Callously, when the survivors look back and decide to call it one. As far as I know there isn’t an agreed upon definition.
WW1 was originally called the War to End All Wars, I think, by many at the time. WW2 eclipsed it by taking place on at least 3 continents and across every ocean. Both are also known by other names that depend on the region. The US Civil War eclipsed both in the number of casualties. The Ukraine war isn’t likely to break records like that.
Ohhh, that's what they meant. Thanks for clearing that up, I was really confused by that unexpected US defaultism.
The US Civil War eclipsed both in the number of casualties.
Uhh what? Wikipedia says ~1.6 million casualties (including wounded, ~650k dead) in the civil war, while WW2 has 24 million military deaths alone.
Major powers in direct conflict with each other.
For instance, the Spanish Civil War is seen as a precursor to World War II, but it isn't considered a part of World War II because different sides supported different belligerents, including direct military action, the conflict remained in Spain.
This is part of the reason why NATO nations have not provided direct military action to support Ukraine, as it would lead to a likely escalation to World War III.
All or most of the "powerful" countries being involved, usually directly. Basically take a look at the top military powers, if majority are active boots on ground, running military strategies, fighting and taking a wartime position domestically, you've got a world war.
Really though it's a new-ish term, and highly subjective. WW1 was the Great War until it popped off again. For a modern thought experiment - could the war on terror be considered a world war? Much of the world's fighting power was dragged into it to some degree, but most people would say no.
Long story short, it's a 'world war' when historians decide it was.
What?
They didn't call World War One World War One during World War One?
Fuckin retcons, right? Like when The Star Wars suddenly became "Episode 4" pssshh.
I’d say world wars involve multiple major powers in full total war economy. We haven’t seen any major power do that since WW2 to my knowledge. Involvement of multiple nations does not make it a world war IMO, otherwise the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan count, among many others in history. There’s also not side conflicts occurring in all the colonial possessions like in the other world wars.
When the Swiss pick a side.
Okay i laughed