World War III: Americans are thinking about the unthinkable
Friction between world’s nuclear powers has citizens terrified that the end is near
Ever since the second World War ended in explosions bright as the sun, we have feared the start of the third. World War III would be the real war to end all wars — and maybe the human race. Einstein said he didn’t know what weapons would be used to fight World War III, but World War IV would be settled with sticks and stones.
America butts heads in Syria with Russia, the other great nuclear power. We watch the range of North Korean nuclear missiles stretch inexorably toward Seattle. People again are thinking about the unthinkable: an attack without warning, for which there is no defense and from which there is no escape.
In multiple interviews by USA TODAY, Americans expressed concern that the U.S. was edging closer to nuclear war.
At 92, Annamarie Choo has lived through Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Berlin Wall and the Cuban missile crisis. She says, “In the top of my mind, I think about war. I don’t know how to say this, other than Russia and America, there are communication problems, a big gap. They don’t really understand each other.’’
She lives in a retirement community on a mountain in western North Carolina and voted for Hillary Clinton.
In Malta, Ohio, a 45-year-old auto parts store manager who voted for Donald Trump says he feels likewise. “My greatest fear, I think, is a third world war,’’ Jeremie Clifford says. “We’re letting the leader of North Ko-
rea get away with more, or just as much as, what we let Saddam Hussein get away with.’’
Visit Curtis Ingram’s barbershop in Mauldin, S.C., and you’ll hear more of the same: “I believe we’ll wind up in another war,’’ he says.
“World War III’’ became the most frequent Google search term last month. Trump ordered a missile attack on a Syrian air base to retaliate for Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons on civilians. Tensions with North Korea ratcheted up over that nation’s rocket tests; the United States said it would dispatch an aircraft carrier, and North Korea said it could sink such a ship. According to a Public Policy Polling survey taken last month, 39% of all voters (and two-thirds of Clinton voters) say Trump will get the USA into World War III.
It’s hard to know how hard to worry. This week, Trump said he’d be honored to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — only under certain preconditions, the White House hastened to add — and had a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Last week Trump said a “major, major conflict” with North Korea was possible. Asked on CBS’ Face the Nation whether the United States might use force to stop North Korea’s program, he said only, “We’ll see.’’
The Doomsday Clock, created in 1947 by the Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists to reflect the proximity of nuclear war, is almost as close as it’s ever been to midnight, or Doomsday. This year, the clock (which actually hangs on a wall in the journal’s Chicago office) was moved 30 seconds forward, to two and a half minutes before midnight. That’s the nearest it’s been to Doomsday since 1953, after the United States and the Soviet Union tested their first hydrogen bombs.
David Wood, pastor of the United Church of Lincoln, Vt., was 5 when the clock debuted at seven minutes before midnight. He says he’s scared that Trump, who strikes him as “impetuous,” has control of the nation’s nuclear codes. He says the old worries about nuclear war have been revived “because of the fear that is being fostered today, not just in our country, but in other countries as well. Nationalism, this sense of fear, makes us more trigger-happy.”
Ed O’Connell, 48, a contractor in Allendale, N.J., says, “We’ve got to make sure that anyone who threatens us, they’ve got to think twice.’’ He says this means what Trump has proposed: “increasing our national security with putting more money into the military.” He’s among the 40% of voters who say they don’t think World War III is inevitable in the next four years.
Fears of World War III were raised in the presidential campaign — by Trump. In a speech in Orlando six days before the election, Trump accused Clinton of “wanting to start a shooting war in Syria, a conflict with a nucleararmed Russia that could very well lead to World War III.”