This morning on Meet the Press, Newt Gingrich argued we have entered World War III and that the United States ought to engage the effort by “helping the Lebanese government have the strength to eliminate Hezbollah as a military force.” Watch it:

Nobody apparently bothered to tell Newt that WWIII is a euphenism for the end of the world.

Regardless, I don't believe it is a particularly useful moniker here.  All conflicts involving large military powers are, by definition, global conflicts.  The case could easily be made that the Soviet/U.S. conflict was a world war in terms of the two fighting 'hot' proxy wars in tangential locales.

What would be the benifit of calling this a world war?  Would it amend our strategy of engagement?  Would it highlight a path towards reconciliation?  All it would seem to accomplish is to inflame already violent conflicts and provide rhetorical fodder for those zealots who wish to see the fruition of their own partisan crusades.

I think a more useful analysis would be to characterize this global conflict as our first test of military relevance in a post-globalized society.  Is and can armed conflict continue to provide the best (or even a viable) path towards conflict management?  Or has our technological reach grown so advanced that we are no longer able to engage in a localized conflict without it spilling over into the rest of the planet.

This is not WWIII, it is a lesson to be learned or it is the end of the state-centric international totalitarianism of the U.N. security council.  But it cannot be both.