And we know what followed.
From a purely material view, there is no need for the Western world to be on the defensive.
The combined economic and technological power of the Western world – including Western-aligned nations like South Korea and Japan – dwarfs the New Axis of Russia, China, and Iran.
In fact, Canada alone has a GDP comparable to that of Russia – the same Russia that has much of Europe terrified and which has co-opted a significant portion of the United States.
Even militarily, despite years of underfunding, the West has a massive advantage in air power and naval power.
The West could easily destroy almost all of Russia’s military assets in Ukraine from the air.
The West could easily provide Ukraine with enough long-range missiles to decimate Russia’s military-industrial-complex.
The West could easily provide Ukraine with enough tanks and planes to ensure Ukraine can push Russia out of the country.
The West could also play the same nuclear brinksmanship games that Russia plays.
The only reason the Russian nuclear threat works is that people aren’t sure if Vladimir Putin would actually use nukes over Western intervention in Ukraine, and this uncertainty keeps people from taking action at all.
Yet, Russia has about as many nukes as the United States, and both the United Kingdom and France have a decent stockpile of nuclear weapons, as well as a wide variety of delivery systems for those weapons.
Russia could not ‘win’ by launching large-scale nuclear strikes, since the response would also destroy Russia – and the world. But Russia can ‘win’ if the fear of them using nuclear weapons stops the West from doing what we can to counter Russian aggression.
The power of fear
Sadly, Russia’s fear campaign is working.
With aid to Ukraine stalled in the United States, Germany still unwilling to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine, fighter jets still not delivered, and ammunition production ramping up at a snails pace in the West, Russia has regained the initiative in Ukraine, and is starting to slowly retake territory Ukraine itself took back last year.
Meanwhile, North Korea and Iran are sending tons of weapons to Russia. Just today, it was revealed that Iran delivered 400 ballistic missiles to Russia:
“Iran replenishes Russia’s arsenal: hundreds of ballistic missiles delivered
Reuters reports that Iran has delivered about 400 surface-to-surface ballistic missiles to Russia, including many from the Fateh-110 family, in a bid to deepen military cooperation. These missiles can hit targets between 300 and 700 km away. Deliveries began in early January after talks in Tehran and Moscow.
The US and EU are maintaining sanctions even though UN Security Council restrictions have expired. The US expressed concerns about the growth of Russian short-range ballistic missiles. Iran denies supplying drones for Ukraine conflict as supplies deepen ties between Iran and Russia.”
https://twitter.com/jurgen_nauditt/status/1760346760361169188
So, while Russia has the West timid and afraid of ‘escalation,’ Iran and North Korea feel completely free to give whatever they want to Russia.
This mismatch in confidence, and willpower is set to have devasting consequences.
We’re doing the 1930s again
Making all of this more disgraceful is that we should have learned this lesson by now. When an authoritarian dictator starts talking about territorial conquest, starts flooding their own population with propaganda designed to justify wars of conquest, ramps up military production, seeks useful idiots in the West to forestall and weaken resistence, and then launches a brutal war of outright territorial expansion and erasure of an entire culture or people, the last thing we should do is show weakness.
The correct response is to take massive immediate action to stop the dictator from making any gains whatsoever, and to ramp up our own military production to make it clear to the dictator that any broader war would be a horrific mistake on their part.
Had Germany been confronted in 1937, 1938, or even 1939 (France & the U.K. could have forced Germany into a two-front war had they invaded when Germany attacked Poland), everyone waited around out of a desire not to ‘provoke’ or ‘escalate tensions’ with the fascists.
This was taken as weakness, which led to more invasions, and meant that Germany was much stronger when it was finally confronted, which meant that the death toll was raised by many orders of magnitude. And the American isolationists – by slowing aid to Europe and giving Germany the confidence they could act without American intervention, greatly INCREASED the number of Americans who ended up dying to stop Germany.
We could have learned from this.
But it appears we learned nothing.
In fact, our response to Russian aggression, Iranian sponsorship of terrorism, and China’s aggressive posture towards Taiwan has been worse than in the 1930s.
Even under U.K. Prime Minister Chamberlain – Mr. “peace in our time” – the U.K. was rapidly rearming, as was France.
They at least built up military strength amid their outward weakness, whereas rearmament in much of the West isn’t happening at all – or is happening at a pathetically slow pace.
And – in another parallel with the 1930s – isolationists and outright supporters of Russia are seeking to stall aid to Ukraine, just as isolationists and supporters of fascist Germany managed to delay assistance to Europe until German aggression was nearly unstoppable. Just like today, the isolationists claim they are pushing for peace, but what they are really doing is ensuring that the cost of stopping the dictators is raised from tens of thousands of lives to potentially many millions of lives.
Let’s also not forget the massive rise in anti-Semitism, much of it indulged in or coddled by our own leaders. Just like in the 1930s, we seem unable to recognize the deeply dangerous rhetoric being used by those who seek to push Jewish People out of public life, and seek to do much worse if not confronted now.
Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China are watching all of this. They see our weakness. They see how easy we are to manipulate, and they see our endless desire to ‘compromise,’ ‘appease,’ and ‘avoid escalation.’
And so, they have the initiative. They are gaining power. They are stealing freedom from millions, and they are getting closer to shaping our world in their own nightmarish anti-freedom vision.
Just like the 1930s, our weakness has emboldened genocidal dictators.
And we know what followed the 1930s.
Years of brutal war, genocide, and horrific suffering.
That’s where we are headed, unless we wake up fast, rearm fast, raise support for Ukraine fast, and realize that we can only secure peace by showing strength and resolve.
Spencer Fernando
Photo – YouTube
