A majority of respondents in Britain, Canada, France, and the United States told pollsters they believe World War III is more likely than not to happen within the next five years - a finding that a senior defense scholar says reflects a dangerous confusion between regional wars and global conflagrations.

Jo Inge Bekkevold, a senior China fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, addressed the poll in an analysis for Foreign Policy. As "Hvylya" reports, Bekkevold argued that the public anxiety has been fueled by prominent voices who conflate devastating regional conflicts with a global war between great powers.

The scholar pointed to John Mearsheimer, Tucker Carlson, and Elon Musk, all of whom warned in 2022 and 2023 that helping Ukraine fight Russia "would set off a global conflagration." More recently, British media debated whether allowing U.S. aircraft to use British air bases to bomb Iran could drag the country into World War III. Bekkevold argued this kind of rhetoric distorts public understanding of how wars actually escalate.

The core problem, according to Bekkevold, is that people fail to distinguish between different types of conflicts. "A world war has considerably more profound effects on great power politics, stability, economic growth, and the international system compared to regional wars, limited wars, or various forms of hybrid and asymmetric warfare," he wrote. By his four-part test for a world war - direct great-power confrontation, global military operations, total mobilization, and systemic effects - neither Ukraine nor the Middle East qualifies.

The fear is not entirely irrational: both conflicts are devastating, and their economic aftershocks reach far beyond the combat zones. But the gap between a regional war with global consequences and an actual world war remains vast. Bekkevold urged analysts and the public alike to maintain the distinction as "a prerequisite for sober policy choices - not to mention keeping our sanity."

Also read: Ferguson and Haass on Iran: A War That Must End in Weeks - or Become a Catastrophe.