Courtesy of the New York Times

At the end of the first week in January, the world seems eerily drifting once again towards the brink of international war, and likely so in more than one region.  It’s all redolent of the year 1938, when predatory dictatorships in Germany, Italy, Japan, and Soviet Russia were all either maneuvering diplomatically, warring militarily, or engaging clandestinely in infiltration into governments with the goal of territorial expansion.   By that year’s end, the Nazis had absorbed all of Czechoslovakia and annexed Austria, Mussolini’s fascisti had earlier subdued Abyssinia (the old Ethiopia), Tojo’s imperialist military was brutally subjugating Manchuria (China), and Russia’s Comintern agents were clandestinely fomenting discontent, diffidence, and appeasement elsewhere in Europe, not to mention in Great Britain and America.  

Today, the Red Chinese are saber-rattling against Taiwan, the North Koreans are acting with provocation against their free national counterpart to the south, the Russians are readying manpower and materiel on their border with Ukraine, and Iran’s ayatollahs are moving inexorably to develop an offensive nuclear weapons capability, presumably with Israel and Saudi Arabia in their immediate strategic target sights.   Irredentism, a state’s drive to reclaim lands once held by a former national regime or its religion — whether as factual history or some fancy ideological mandate – is making a comeback across the globe. 

Just as in the 1930s, this comeback is being enabled by the appearance and reality of a complex of weak resolve in leadership, fading allegiance by elites to democratic values, dwindling economic and fiscal health, and fraying military readiness and strength in the nations of the West in general, and America in particular.  In a signal distinction from yesteryear, however, the United States as superpower is now the sole tentpole of the Free World, and without its unparalleled excellence in all of these dimensions, the history of the mid-twentieth century is about to repeat itself.  The appeasement mindset, and actions and policies of accommodation that flow from it, being demonstrated by America’s current rulers constitute surefire catnip to aggressors everywhere.

It appears to be just a matter of time now before “the balloon goes up” and the shooting starts.  Several years ago, Russia, China, and Iran created the Shanghai Cooperative Organization, aiming to coordinate military exercises at the very least, and presumably for the purpose of strategizing about how best to undermine and upset American global power in pursuit of their own foreign-policy objectives.  This appears to have gained impetus since Joseph R. Biden became president in 2021.  If ever there were any doubt as to the incompetency of the O’Biden regime or — what’s more likely — its insidious globalist agenda to emasculate America on the world stage, “desovereigntize” the nation, and deconstruct its republican form of government from within, the debacle of our withdrawal from Afghanistan last August and the unrelenting federal efforts since February to facilitate a rank invasion by foreign migrants into the homeland has dispelled it forever.   With increasing divisions and polarization amongst the American populace now the order of the day partly as a result (by design, no doubt), the advent of open civil strife appears very likely to occur in our near future. 

If such a scenario does come to pass – and even if it doesn’t result in widespread civil violence – the enemies of America will certainly be quick to capitalize on the distractions that it will create for the nation as a whole and its civilian and military leadership circles in particular.   Coordinated, concurrent military campaigns by America’s main adversaries, and perhaps others, against their strategic targets could easily overwhelm this nation’s ability to respond in any efficacious way, diplomatically, economically, or militarily.  The geopolitical order of the world could well be transformed virtually overnight, with a desperate resort to nuclear weapons by our leaders being the only cognizable way of addressing all of the seismic assaults decisively.  But what sane person would advocate for such a Wagnerian Götterdämmerung?   Even dedicated conservative patriots have to wince hard at the prospect of such a holocaust. 

The only rational way to avert such a global catastrophe is to organize Americans to face the threat posed by weak leaders in the administration and their plans for appeasement abroad and deconstruction at home, and to act civilly and lawfully in political advocacy and, as necessary, lawfare to oust Democrats from control of the Congress in the elections to be held this year.   And then to work to impeach this president and his ideologically aligned successors and key cabinet officers as soon thereafter as practicable.  If dedicated patriots succeed in their efforts, this   nation and its great republic can likely be preserved.   And millions of Taiwanese, Ukrainians, Israelis, Saudis, and South Koreans will sleep the night and breathe a whole lot easier.   And just perhaps, they will be joined by many more millions of other Europeans, Asians, and Arabs.   It’s well worth working for, for sure — and praying for, mightily.