From the onset of the Cold War, it was a staple of Soviet propaganda meant to cast the United States as the aggressor and the Soviet Union as the bulwark of global “peace.”Īs the Soviet Union lowered its Iron Curtain across Central and Eastern Europe in the ashes of World War II, Moscow castigated opposition to its moves as risking World War III. But as Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum explained back in 2016, when Trump initially used this line of attack against Clinton, the threat of World War III erupting over Syria could be sourced back to Russian propaganda, which painted the former secretary of state as a deranged “warmonger.” The specter of Western democracies plunging humanity into world war, though, claims a pedigree much older than the most recent American presidential election. The claim that increased American military activity in Syria-whether in the form of a no-fly zone to protect civilians or the sort of precision airstrike carried out last week-would precipitate world war is one made by noninterventionists across the political spectrum. In the United Kingdom, the Telegraph ran a headline asking, “could Britain be drawn into World War Three?” and the Daily Express ran one declaring “World War 3 ALERT: The ‘REAL reasons’ Trump is going to war in Syria.” Germany’s widely read Der Spiegel blared (in a headline since changed), “‘Get Ready Russia’: Donald Trump Risks a World War in Syria.” In the United States, Salon ran with the headline, “Trump and allies approach World War III in Syria, on literally no evidence.” Russian state television encouraged citizens to stock up on water and emergency supplies. Nonetheless, in the days leading up to the strike, critics resorted to an apocalyptic framing of the conflict. This was unsurprising, and transparent, as Russia-which plays a non-trivial role in perpetuating the Syria conflict-has little desire to pick an actual fight with the world’s most powerful military over a limited airstrike meant to punish specific war crimes, not overthrow the Assad regime. We warned that such actions will not be left without consequences.Īll responsibility for them rests with Washington, London and Paris. Statement by the Ambassador Antonov on the strikes on #Syria:Ī pre-designed scenario is being implemented. Russia vigorously protested the action against its client state-one in which it has an air and a naval base-but retaliation was entirely verbal, consisting of the usual diplomatic double talk at the United Nations, after this initial statement by Russia’s ambassador to the United States: “Russia is a nuclear country, but a country where the nukes work as opposed to other countries that talk.”īut after a recent chemical weapons attack against civilians reportedly perpetrated by the Assad regime, Trump ordered airstrikes against three Syrian government targets in concert with allies Britain and France and, noticeably, a world war didn’t start.īefore missiles were launched, the Pentagon warned Moscow through already established “deconfliction” channels that strikes were imminent, and subsequently, no Russian assets were hit. “You’re not fighting Syria anymore, you’re fighting Syria, Russia and Iran, all right?” Trump explained. On the campaign trail, Trump said Clinton’s suggestion of establishing a no-fly zone to protect civilians would risk confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia, which had sent men and materiel to abet Bashar al-Assad’s murderous regime. If Trump had listened to his former self, he’d have abdicated an opportunity to enforce the global prohibition against use of chemical weapons. Dire predictions about foreign intervention leading to “World War III” aren’t merely the most predictable and laziest form of anti-interventionist “logic.” They’re also an insidious echo of Soviet propaganda, routinely deployed to undercut the West’s defense of democracy and important international norms.
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