Published at newt.org tonight.
Mr. Gingrich,
I read your essay this week at Opinion Journal. I think it is more proper to refer to the present conflict as World War IV. I side with James Woolsey, Norman Podhoretz and the other conservatives who assert that President Reagan won World War III against the Soviet Union and that we are now embroiled in World War IV against Islamofascism. The Wall Street Journal has featured writing by Eliot Cohen, Joseph Rago, Norman Podhoretz, Claudia Rosett, Peggy Noonan, and James Taranto, in which all have referred to the War on Terrorism as WW IV.
I would not try to assert that the labels "WW III" for the Cold War and "WW IV" for the War on Terrorism are canonical. (One cannot believe everything one reads at Wikipedia, after all.) However, I think that overlapping use of WW III by conservatives is weakening the cause to which we are all loyal: defeating Islamofascism.