THREATS TO AMERICA: SYDNEY WILLIAMS
“The extraordinary thing was the way in which everyone took it for granted that this oozy, bulging
wealth of the English upper and upper-middle classes would last forever, and was part of the order of things.”
George Orwell (1903-1950)
The differences between today and the years preceding World War I are far greater than any similarities. Nevertheless, I worry that the collapse of the Soviet Union 1991, and the concomitant elevation of the United States to global hegemon, has caused complacency toward persistent external threats – a complacency not unlike that which existed in Europe in the first decade and a half of the 20th Century, before the Great War provided reality in its horr
The West has enemies, those to whom liberal democracies represent a threat. The autocrats in China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are fearful of what free speech would do to their positions of power. Democracy is an anathema to ideological authoritarians, be they on the Left or the Right, which is why the United States is portrayed as the “Great Satan” by the zealot Ali Khamenei and his followers, and why it is challenged by all four authoritarian states. Nothing is more fearful to a tyrant than freedom.
Yet other threats consume the media, particularly so-called “threats to democracy,” by which Progressives mean the re-election of Donald Trump to serve a second term; the flood of undocumented immigrants; abortion; and the threat of climate change. Largely ignored, as well as enemies abroad, is the imminent threat of financial default because of unending federal budget deficits that have grown our debt, as a percent of GDP, from 33% in 2000 to 121% in 2023. It is a trend that was aggravated by the long period of extraordinary low interest rates following the 2008 credit crisis. Nevertheless, all threats should be taken seriously. Democracy is fragile. It can fall to enemies from within or without. Allowing possible terrorists into our country, along with known criminals has consequences for our citizens. Abortion, in my opinion, was best described by President Clinton – it should be “safe, legal, and rare.” As for climate, Earth and the solar system are not eternal. At some point they will cease to exist. Will man be the cause? I don’t know, but I suspect not. The best way to improve the environment is to promote economic growth. And reckless government spending will negatively impact our standards of living.
However, it is the threat of another major war, one that sets the U.S., Europe and the West against elements of totalitarianism – Russia, China, Iran and North Korea – that is the subject of this essay. In that regard, understanding some of the causes of the First World War are instructional. Apart from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and today’s war in Ukraine, Europe has gone for almost eighty years without a continent-wide conflagration, a situation with some similarities to Europe during the ninety-nine years following the end of the Napoleonic wars, wars in which an estimated five to six million people died. Like today, Europe was not entirely free of war following Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815 – the Crimean War of 1853-1856 and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 together caused less than a million deaths. Nevertheless, one asks: Does absence of war mitigate its horrors, thereby rendering it more likely?
Just as Britain and France were not prepared for war in 1914 (this despite Britain, with their Empire encompassing over 20% of the world’s population, being the hegemon of that era), the United States is not prepared today. The idea of war seemed impossible in 1914. “…nothing really mattered: not them, or the world, or even herself” is the way Robert Harris puts it in his new novel, Precipice. Close ties of heads-of -state combined with diplomacy and negotiation made the prospect for war seem unlikely then, just as victory over the Soviet Union brought us Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” in 1991. In 1985, as Reagan was prosecuting Soviet Communism, U.S. defense spending, as a percent of GDP, was 6.6%. In 2023, at 3.4%, it is just over half that level. The real purpose of a strong defense is to prevent wars by limiting what enemies might do. Ironic as it might sound today, the sign at the entrance to Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (a SAC base at the time) in the early 1960s read: “Peace is Our Profession.”
It has been reading Precipice, mentioned above, which has me thinking of this issue. The novel, which begins in early July 1914 and goes through May 1915, is largely based on the author’s access to letters written by Britain’s Prime Minister H. H. (Herbert Henry) Asquith to his paramour, the socialite Beatrice Venetia Stanley, a woman less than half his age. Christopher Clark’s 2011 book The Sleepwalkers is a history of events and alliances leading up to August 1914. That first decade of the 20th Century was characterized by strong industrial growth in Europe, abetted by trade and raw materials from their Empires. Peace and prosperity were the rule, as displayed in characters from P.G. Wodehouse’s novels. Like today’s tech billionaires, the wealth of European aristocrats in that first decade was expected to last forever. While democracy and individual freedom were not up to today’s standards, and royalty still reigned in most European countries, progress toward liberalism had been made.
Today, two allies of liberal democracy are fighting existential wars of survival. Israel is at war against two of Iran-funded proxies – Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. As well, a third Iran-funded proxy, the Houthis in Yemen who have attacked more than 80 merchant ships in the Red Sea. (Last week’s U.S. led B-2 attack on some of their fortifications was a welcome, albeit belated, response.) That Israel fights an existential threat does not appear to be appreciated by those who encourage her retaliations to be “proportional,” whatever that means. If we were attacked as Israel was we would strive to annihilate our enemy. The loss of the one democratic state in the middle East would have a cataclysmic, destabilizing effect on the Middle East and for Western-style liberal democracy in other parts of the world. While we can sympathize with innocent Palestinians in Gaza, the terrorists who represent them must be destroyed, as their goal is the total eradication of the State of Israel. And that is why mullahs who govern Iran must not be allowed to get a nuclear weapon.
The February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine is the second instance where the United States must be firm in its support. Does anyone really believe that Mr. Putin would be satisfied with a few eastern provinces when its fertile western plains, or steppes, are considered the world’s “breadbasket?” Yet, the Biden Administration has been slow in giving them the kind of offensive weapons they need to win, and former President Trump seems only interested in reaching an unexplained settlement.
Neither political party puts foreign policy near the top of their lists of concern. The Biden-Harris team has made some massive blunders: the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the abandonment of the Bagram Airbase; restarting negotiations with Iran, which has allowed them to come within weeks of a nuclear weapon; the release of $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets; a failure to deter Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2021 and then, in June 2021, suspending $100 million military aid package to Ukraine after Russia assured Washington it would halt aggressive troop movements near Ukraine’s border; allowing Russia’s Nord Steam 2 to continue to operate, thereby allowing them to fund their fight for Ukraine; failing to fully support Israel, our closest Middle East ally, in their existential fight against Iranian-backed terrorist organizations, Hamas and Hezbollah; side-lining the Abraham Accords agreed to by the Trump Administration; permitting a China spy balloon to transverse the United States.
There is no assurance a Trump-Pence team would have done better, except that Mr. Putin, after seizing the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 when Barack Obama was President, waited until Mr. Biden became President before attacking eastern and northern Ukraine. And most foreign policy experts agree that the Trump-initiated Abraham Accords showed promise for Middle East peace.
However, both political parties bear responsibility for the state of today’s sorry global situation. While Democrats and Republicans have been spinning tales (fables, really) of their opponents beliefs and behavior, our enemies have been weaving the fabric that has cloaked their desire for world domination. The media, in siding with one political faction or the other, has served to keep the American people ignorant and divided, thereby preventing rational, intelligent debate.
On the afternoon of August 3, 1914, with Germany about to invade Belgium, British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey observed: “The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.” For twenty million people his words proved prophetic. Their lives were extinguished. Britain and France were not prepared for war in 1914. Today we live in another frightening time, yet we have let our defense budget lag. The United States is not interested in expanding its territory, nor does it wish to impose its way of life on others. It does, though, have a mandate to protect its people. Remember, the first purpose of a strong military is to prevent war, and only second to prosecute war if it comes.
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