By the time the war in Iran began on Feb. 28, the world was already fighting. The past two years brought more war — both within and between countries — than in any years since the end of World War II. A new normal of rising conflict had arrived.
Now, as the war in Ukraine drags on and the American and Israeli war against Iran is paused under a fragile cease-fire, we are watching another unwelcome phenomenon return to the global stage: the world war. Two large conflicts on different continents have become theaters for strategic competition between major powers. Each war’s dynamics have had a direct impact on the other’s, and both have dragged ancillary states into the fray. And while the combined scale and intensity of the conflicts falls far short of the two devastating world wars fought last century, they have arisen from the same dangerous reflex: competing nations fully embracing military force as the first and primary means of exerting power.
Russia and the United States went to war for different reasons. President Vladimir Putin of Russia sought to expand his territorial reach and regain land that — in his mind — belongs in the Russian sphere. The stated objectives for the United States in going to war against Iran varied, but President Trump has consistently said that Iran can’t be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon. (Israel, America’s partner in the war, shares that objective, but has political aims of its own, a reality that could scuttle the cease-fire altogether.) Still, both Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump believed success would be easy and that their goal justified virtually any level of violence — even if it broke the bounds of international law.
In a few short weeks, the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran became expressions of the great power competition underway. In both theaters, Russia and the United States have backed each other’s adversaries. The United States continues to provide arms, intelligence and planning to Ukraine in its fight against Russia, and Russia was reported to be doing the same for Iran by providing targeting information and mapping on U.S. military positions and sending drones to Tehran. While the United States and Russia aren’t directly firing on each other, the powers have essentially loaded and pointed the guns being fired by others.
Each war has affected the other. The shock to global oil prices induced by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has become a financial windfall for Russia, both in higher prices for its own oil and through the easing of sanctions on that oil by a Trump administration desperate to lower global prices. As attention and resources are diverted to Iran, Russia has launched a spring offensive aimed at consolidating and expanding its territorial gains in Ukraine. Ukraine, meanwhile, has offered the expertise in drone defense it has acquired in its fight against Russia to the United States and the Arab nations being targeted by Iran.
Both conflicts have pulled in other countries. In Ukraine, Russia’s war effort has long been enabled by the economic and technical support of China, the direct manpower contributions of North Korea and drones from Iran. European allies have played an increasingly important role in helping arm Ukraine, even taking the lead in that effort over the past year. And while NATO countries have not answered Mr. Trump’s call to help keep the Strait of Hormuz open, last month NATO-run missile defense systems shot down Iranian missiles directed toward Turkey. Iranian missiles aimed at several Gulf states have dragged those nations into the fight, while Israel has attacked Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen have launched missiles at Israel.
The First and Second World Wars involved millions of soldiers from great powers directly fighting one another, resulting in millions of deaths. But not all world wars will look like those two cataclysmic conflicts. Indeed, those events were not even the first or second world wars. The Seven Years’ War of the mid-18th century and the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th century were also global fights, comprising separate wars occurring on different continents involving major powers that were either directly fighting or coordinating between the conflicts.
The Seven Years’ War of 1756 to 1763 is instructive for understanding the meaning of world war as it’s playing out today. The war was primarily fought in Europe, with Britain and Prussia on one side and France and Austria on the other. With Britain and France in possession of global empires, the battles extended across multiple continents. This, too, was a time when countries were embracing the use of military force to assert their national power.
Some argue that the Cold War was a world war. It is certainly true that the notion that the Cold War was cold is a misnomer: It was a period of intense conflict touching many parts of the globe. But Cold War conflicts lacked the interconnectedness and simultaneity on display in Europe and the Middle East. And, importantly, the superpowers during this time exercised caution about using military force that constrained their actions, in no small part because of the nuclear arsenals they were amassing. Today, both Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump display a more cavalier approach to using the military to achieve their goals — and a greater indifference to the consequences, both economic and social.
Why is it important to see the wars in Iran and Ukraine as part of a global event, rather than two conflicts unfolding in parallel?
Looking at how the wars are connected shows the necessity for our leaders to think globally in an emerging multipolar world where powers vie for control of regions or spheres of influence. A conflict in one region almost certainly will spill over into another. Resources allocated to one fight may mean fewer resources for another, undermining efforts to deter a threat or assist an ally in need. Failing to recognize the global span of security issues is exactly how states can stumble from a limited war of choice into a world war they did not intend.
Last year was 80 years since the end of the Second World War. That conflict’s devastation remains unmatched, and we should hope that remains the case. Even if we never endure another global conflict of that scale, we are nevertheless once again witnessing a return to an era of a world war.
Paul Poast is an associate professor of political science at the University of Chicago and a senior nonresident fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
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