Coming conflict ‘has the potential to dwarf in destruction’ the 20th century wars
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[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]
By Francis P. Sempa
Real Clear Wire
The United States, led by President Joe Biden (who a few weeks ago recalled recently speaking to two foreign leaders who had been dead for many years and confusing the names of the current Egyptian and Mexican presidents), Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (who recently disappeared for a significant medical procedure without telling anyone), is once again engaged in an ideological crusade on the side of “democracy” in a global struggle with “autocracy.” “Democracy,” we are told, is under assault by a new “axis” of autocratic powers that seek to replace the “liberal world order’ (sometimes called the “rules-based international order”) with an autocratic order. The champions of this crusade tell us that China, Russia, and Iran are coordinating their foreign policies to attack U.S. interests in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, though they supply little, if any, evidence of such coordination. Our 21st century crusaders want to pour more American resources into proxy wars we are helping to wage in Ukraine and the Middle East, while simultaneously aiding Taiwan and building-up our military forces in the western Pacific, even as we suffer at home from skyrocketing deficits and an invasion on our southern border. We are slouching towards a global conflict that has the potential to dwarf in destruction the two world wars of the twentieth century.
Biden, Blinken and Sullivan are the policy architects of the current crusade, but they are supported by the neoconservative intelligentsia, much of the foreign policy establishment, the mainstream media, and what President Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex.” The current crusade is fueled by neo-Wilsonianism on steroids. President Woodrow Wilson said we fought the First World War to make the world safe for democracy. Wilson’s disciple Franklin Roosevelt told Americans that we waged World War II to establish the principles of the Atlantic Charter throughout the world. FDR’s successor Harry Truman pledged to “support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” President John F. Kennedy pledged to “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” George W. Bush waged a “Global War on Terror” to promote democracy throughout the world. These crusading presidents are the forerunners of the Biden administration’s crusade against “autocracy.”
All of the previous crusades failed. Wilson’s foreign policy crusade set the stage for the rise of totalitarianism and the Second World War. FDR’s crusade ended in a divided Europe and a costly Cold War. Truman’s crusade crashed on the shores of the Korean peninsula, even as his policies failed to prevent Mao’s communists from seizing power in China. Kennedy’s crusade led to a series of crises that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war and began the path to the debacle of Vietnam. Bush’s crusade spilled American blood and spent American treasure in the endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Biden’s crusade threatens to get the United States deeply involved in three wars against at least two, and possibly three, nuclear-armed powers. How did we get here?