World War III? World War IV, NOT WW III ! 7/30/2006 7:43:07 AM
Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House (1994-1999) was a recent guest on CNN's Larry King Live. (FYI -- Gingrich was the 1st Republican Speaker of the House since 1954). The topic came up if we were in a World War III. I found this question very interesting and provocative. Since I feel that we already had a WW III, the question should have been “Are we in World War IV (NOT III)?
In my opinion World War III began in 1948 when the Russians blocked the United States access into Berlin (Berlin use to be capital of Germany and during this time the Russians controlled all of East Germany).
Berlin was a divided city (Russian, French, British and Americans). We had access to Berlin by one designated road which was part of the “autobahn” (Germany’s major highway system), which ran from Berlin to West Germany. What happened in 1948 was that the Russians wanted to get the Americans out of Berlin so they blocked the road. America then flew in supplies and kept the city alive for 6 months until the Russians let us access again.
This is what I feel was the beginning of World War III (Americans against the Russians). There were other multi-national conflicts of the Cold War -- Korean War (1950-1953) construction of the "Berlin Wall," 1961 (more info: http://userpage.chemie.fu-berlin.de/BIW/wall.html).
Also the Vietnam War (1st American casualty was in 1961 and the last was in 1975), etc. This was when America began aggressively building our military and defense, etc. In 1989 the wall fell down and the Soviet Union fell apart on New Years day 1991. In my opinion this was when World War III ended.
This is why I feel that we are in World War IV which began with the 911 (World Trade Center suicide bombings). And now many countries including the US are in wars against Islamic fundamentalists and terrorist leaders (e.g., Al Qaeda’s Bin Laden, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, North Korea’s Kim Jong-il, Hezbollah’s Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, etc.). They only way to end a world war is to WIN it FAST.
