Recent references to a potential World War III abound. They include those from a George F. Will Washington Post column headlined “Averting World War III starts with stopping Putin”. There was also Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.’s Wall Street Journal commentary implying the Biden administration has left the United States “on the doorstep of World War III” and the bipartisan Commission on the National Defense Strategy’s report warning that, in the words of chair and former U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), “we face threats greater than any time since World War II and more complex than the Cold War.”

But World War III is not around the corner. World War IV is.

The Cold War was World War III. Uncle Sam managed to prevail in that 1949 – 1989 struggle against Soviet communism with its global ambitions. America and its Western European allies did so by perseverance. Being in it “for the duration” enabled Washington to overcome stalemate and defeat in related hot conflicts, Korea and Vietnam, respectively.

Though each of the three previous global wars and subsidiary clashes possessed discrete causes and effects, identifying them correctly helps illuminate a........

© Townhall