In an Orwellian turn, the word is now being used by those who – wittingly or unwittingly – advocate a course of action that would hand control of the world to authoritarian states.
I would like to address something I am hearing more and more in relation to supporting Ukraine specifically and building up our military strength more broadly.
And that is the use of the term ‘warmonger.’
The term is increasingly thrown at those like myself who advocate for providing ongoing military aid to Ukraine and advocate for building up our crumbling military.
The Cambridge Dictionary describes a ‘warmonger’ as “a politician or other leader who is often encouraging a country to go to war.”
The Merriam-Webster dictionary describes a ‘warmonger’ as “one who urges or attempts to cause a war.”
With this in mind, let’s consider three key questions:
Is it accurate to call someone a warmonger for believing we should provide weapons to Ukraine?
Is it accurate to call someone a warmonger for believing we should build up our own military?
And who benefits from how the word ‘warmonger’ has been twisted?
Is it accurate to call someone a warmonger for believing we should provide weapons to Ukraine?
On the first point, describing supporters of aiding Ukraine as ‘warmongers’ is dishonest and inaccurate. Ukraine was invaded by Russia, not the other way around. Vladimir Putin & Russia are the warmongers in this scenario, not Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Ukraine.
In fact, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is about the most in-your-face ‘warmongering’ move the world has seen in a long time. Russia is attempting to outright annex portions of Ukraine. By contrast, the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were centred around removing a dictator/terrorist group from power. At no point did the U.S. seek to annex territory from those countries and create new U.S. states. If it’s warmongering for the U.S. to remove unelected regimes, then it’s certainly warmongering for Russia to outright steal territory from Ukraine.
Further to this, supporting Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself is the opposite of warmongering. By helping Ukraine survive, we deter further conflict by showing warmongers like Putin that there is a cost to launching aggressive wars of imperial conquest.
Thus, calling someone a ‘warmonger’ for supporting Ukraine is simply incorrect.
Is it accurate to call someone a warmonger for believing we should build up our own military?
Something else we are seeing is that the label of ‘warmonger’ is being applied to those who advocate for a military build-up in countries like Canada and our NATO allies.
The idea is that by building up for war we make war more likely.
But this is also incorrect.
The problem is that China and Russia have already built up for war.
North Korea is in a constant state of war preparation.
Iran has been pumping out drones and shipping weapons to terrorist groups for quite some time.
Russia spent years building up for the invasion of Ukraine and had spent many years before that inundating its populace with war propaganda. Even after suffering massive losses in Ukraine, Russia is sacrificing its prosperity to push more and more resources into war production.
China is currently engaged in the largest military build-up since World War Two.
Both China and Russia are acting like countries that are preparing for many years of large-scale war.
This means our choice is either to face that dangerous and uncertain future from a position of weakness, or a position of strength.
Ironically, the more prepared we are, the more we possess credible military power, the more China and Russia may be dissuaded from further war.
Peace through Strength requires tangible military assets. We need drones, tanks, fighter jets, submarines, ships, guns, missiles, missile defence systems, and rapidly expanding recruitment. If we and our allies can show we are taking our national defence and our alliances seriously, the world has a better chance at peace, because we will have raised the potential costs for aggressors.
Who benefits from how the word ‘warmonger’ has been twisted?
This brings us to the third and most important question:
Who benefits from the way in which the word ‘warmonger’ has been twisted?
Try looking at it this way:
What do Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping want from the Western world?
Weakness.
For Putin and Xi to achieve their imperial dreams, they need to ensure there is as little resistance as possible.
And while the Western world has been stunningly weak for quite some time, both Xi and Putin know that the potential strength of the free world is immense.
Canada alone has an economy nearly the size of Russia’s. The European Union dwarfs Russia economically and in overall population. Countries like Germany, France, and the United Kingdom have incredibly advanced arms industries that – if they got proper funding – could pump near-endless amounts of the most advanced tanks, fighter jets, ships, submarines, guns, drones, and missiles.
The United States already has a powerful military industry, and if the country can overcome some of it’s internal political division it could once again be the world’s arsenal of democracy.
So, the main imperative for Xi and Putin is to prevent this from happening.
They need the free world to remain divided, angry, demoralized, and hopeless. They need us to keep underinvesting in our national defence.
And what better way to do that than to convince our Citizens to denounce anyone who calls for an increase in military spending?
Russia and China (along with Iran, North Korea, and their terror proxy groups), are the ones who benefit from how the label of warmonger is now being applied in such an inaccurate manner.
And this is almost certainly no coincidence.
It just so happens that the most anti-Ukraine, pro-Russia voices online are also the ones who through the ‘warmonger’ label around constantly. They never apply the label to the actual warmonger (Putin), but instead blame everyone except Putin for the war Putin chose to launch against Ukraine.
Those same voices also push for the disillusion of NATO, which would give Putin a free hand to invade more European countries in his quest to rebuild the Soviet Union.
The implications of this are quite disturbing.
Whether wittingly or unwittingly, those throwing around the ‘warmonger’ label have become ‘useful idiots’ for hostile foreign regimes that want to break the free world. They are contributing to the weakening of their nations, and delaying the necessary military buildup that must take place in the West. By pushing for an end to aid for Ukraine, they are raising the odds of Russia winning that conflict, which would lead to Russia forcibly conscripting large numbers of Ukrainians and seizing Ukraine’s military industry, which would then lead to NATO being forced to confront a more powerful, more dangerous, and more emboldened Russia in the future. And remember, that more powerful Russia would be better able to help China, Iran, and North Korea, which is something North Korea is certainly banking on as they provide troops to assist Russia’s invasion.
For those who genuinely believe they are making peace more likely by denouncing others as ‘warmongers,’ there is something almost sad about this. They are helping to bring about exactly what they fear most: A world where authoritarian states launch massive wars of aggression against desperate and underpowered free countries.
I suspect that while many do genuinely believe this, there are others – particularly on the far left and far right – who have more sinister intentions. They share the desire of Russia and China to break the West, they want to see Ukraine destroyed, and they want to live in a world where a few dictators carve up the world and impose their will on others through force.
And of course, others are simply afraid and – rather than confronting the foreign dictators who are the source of their fear – choose to blame easier and ‘safer’ targets like those in the West who speak out about the imperative of ensuring we can defend ourselves if war comes.
That’s why those of us who believe in supporting Ukraine, who believe in supporting Israel, and who believe the free world must be able to deal with authoritarian states from a position of strength must push back against the misuse of the word ‘warmonger,’ and must expose how the misuse of that term risks handing the world to hostile foreign dictatorships.
Spencer Fernando
