In English, the use of "the X scare" means something X that people were afraid would happen but didn't, often because it was never really going to happen. It c

In English, the use of "the X scare" means something X that people were afraid would happen but didn't, often because it was never really going to happen. It can also mean being scared of something that people think has happened, but hasn't, such as Orson Welles' War of the World scare. It doesn't mean something that has happened and that scares people - nobody would call the invasion of Ukraine by Russia "a scare".