Rick Hampson, National Reporter, May 2, 2017<\/p>\n
Ever since the second one ended in explosions bright as the sun, we have feared\u00a0the 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\u2019t know with what weapons it would be fought, but that World War IV would be settled with sticks and stones.<\/p>\n
Now, America is butting heads in Syria with Russia, the other great nuclear power. We are\u00a0watching the range of North Korean nuclear missiles stretch inexorably toward Seattle. And people again are thinking about the unthinkable: an attack of which there is no warning, for which there is no defense, and from which there is no escape.<\/p>\n
At 92, Annamarie Choo has lived through it all \u2014 Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis. Now, she says, \u201cIn the top of my mind, I think about war. I don\u2019t know how to say this, other than Russia and America, there are communication problems, a big gap. They don\u2019t really understand each other.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
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 feels likewise.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy greatest fear, I think, is a third world war,\u2019\u2019 says Jeremie Clifford. \u201cWe\u2019re letting the leader of North Korea get away with more, or just as much as, what we let Saddam Hussein get away with.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Visit Curtis Ingram\u2019s barbershop in Mauldin, S.C., and you\u2019ll hear more of the same: \u201cI believe we\u2019ll wind up in another war,\u2019\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorld War III\u2019\u2019 became the most frequent Google search term last month. Trump had ordered a missile attack on a Syrian airbase<\/a> to retaliate for Syria\u2019s use of chemical weapons on civilians. Tensions with North Korea had ratcheted up over that nation\u2019s rocket tests; the U.S. said it would dispatch an aircraft carrier, and North Korea said it could sink such a ship.\u00a0According to a Public Policy Polling survey taken last month, 39% of all voters (and two thirds of Clinton voters) think Trump will get the U.S. into World War III during his presidency.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to know how hard to worry. This week, Trump said he\u2019d be honored to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un \u2014 only with certain preconditions, the White House hastened to add \u2014 and had a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n But last week Trump said a “major, major conflict” with North Korea was possible. Asked on CBS\u2019\u00a0Face the Nation<\/em>\u00a0whether the U.S. might use force to stop North Korea\u2019s program, he said only, “We\u2019ll see.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n