Historical Events and the Growing Threat of Global Conflict

The Iron Cross: an historical symbol of the German Military 

On the fourth of August, 1914, the Imperial German Army belligerently crossed the Belgian border with three-quarters of a million soldiers.

The invasion that followed—which has since become known as the "Rape of Belgium"—took the lives of 30,000 Belgian soldiers. Along the way, thousands of Belgian civilians also lost their lives as collateral damage in the violent and destructive rampage that desolated the Belgian homeland.

Germany's subsequent invasion of France was similarly bloody and destructive. Penetrating deep into the heart of Northern France, the Germans progressed to within 25 miles of Paris before finally being halted by French and British troops at the Battle of the Marne in September 1914. 

Aerial view of World War 1 trench systems

The ensuing stalemate led to the construction of 500 miles of intricate trench networks that began at the English Channel in the north and extended southward all the way to the Swiss Border. The violence and death that would follow on the Western Front and beyond would prove unprecedented in the annals of human history. Sadly, this "War to End All Wars" proved to be anything but, and instead planted the seeds of an even greater conflict to come a mere quarter century later.    

Thus, in an eerie repeat of history, Germany's Adolf Hitler ordered upwards of two million soldiers across the German border into Poland before dawn on Friday, September 1, 1939, commencing one of the largest military invasions in human history. Less than two years later, Hitler gave the same order to nearly FOUR (4) million Wermacht soldiers, directing them to invade the largest nation on Earth (the Soviet Union) in the most expansive invasion in world history. No military campaign has ever been waged on the scale of Operation Barbarossa—before or since.

In addition to Poland and the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany also invaded Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia, and Greece. Few others in history (i.e. Alexander the Great, the Romans, and Napoleon Bonaparte) had undertaken such an ambitious conquest of Continental Europe. And no preceding conquerer had ever proceeded with such an evil aim of genocide roiling in his heart, mind, and soul.   

 

The threat of a a major land invasion once again looms large in Europe.

The prolonged series of cascading calamities that accompanied these invasions was unprecedented and has been well chronicled along the historical timeline of World War II—the deadliest armed conflict in humanity's long and colorful history.

In consideration of the fateful events of 8/4/14 and 9/1/39—and others like them throughout history—any thoughtful observer of history is understandably alarmed by current events transpiring along the Ukrainian border in Eastern Europe and off the coast of Taiwan in the South China Sea. 

It is no secret that history tends to repeat itself, at least generally speaking. And while individual historical events rarely presage future occurrences precisely, the foremost purpose of studying history is unquestionably to inform current issues and infuse them with wisdom to avert future disasters. Sadly, this recurring harvest of collateral wisdom is too often ignored by power brokers in the present, thus leading the human race into calamity-after-calamity that could and ought to have been avoided. Indeed, it seems as thought the temptation for a dictator to think he is "different" or "special" compared to conquered conquerers of the past is all-too-often too great to resist. 

Queen Victoria of Great Britain
Grandmother of King George V
and Kaiser Wilhelm II.

In 1914, the power brokers were Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of England, and Tsar Nicholas of Russia. Amazingly, all three of these monarchs were first cousins, with the former two being grandsons of Queen Victoria (1819-1901) of Great Britain. The ensuing calamity brought on (in part) by the strained relations of these three cousins resulted in the Great War (World War I), which claimed the lives of 10 million soldiers, another 10 million civilians, and wounded another 20 million combined (40 million total casualties).  

In 1939, the aggressors were Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Emperor Hirohito of Germany, Italy, and Japan, respectively. To a lesser extent, Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union was also an aggressor when he invaded Poland from the east, thereby carving up the country after Hitler invaded from the west. However, Stalin later joined the Allies after Hitler predictably reneged on their alliance and invaded the Soviet Union.

The Allies were led by Winston Churchill and King George VI of Great Britain, and Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower of the United States. The ensuing calamity was twice as costly as the First World War in terms of human deaths, to say nothing of the unprecedented material destruction.

In 2022, the power brokers on the aggressor side are Vladimir Putin of Russia, Xi Xinping of China, and the tyrannical regimes in Iran and North Korea. Those defending democracy and freedom include a quasi-united front of Western Allies spanning the balance of the globe from the Ukrainian border all the way to Australia in the South Pacific and Southern Indian Oceans. 

Have we not seen this story and sung this song before... more than once?

          Will the third chapter/verse of this story and song be different than the first and second?

                    Is World War III imminent? 

The answer to the first question is unquestionably "YES."

The Winter Olympics may be the last thing standing in the
way of Vladimir Putin's well-chronicled imperial ambitions.

The answer to the second question is: We do not presently know for sure. If I were a betting man, I'd wager good money that Putin will not pull the trigger on any kind of major invasion or minor incursion into Ukraine until after the close of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. Any action against Ukraine before the closing ceremonies of the XXIV Olympiad would upstage Putin's ally, Xi, something that is not in either of the rulers' interest. Chances are, however, that Putin will give the order for his troops to move relatively soon after that.

Although I'm sincerely hopeful Putin will choose to pull back his troops and abandon his imperial aims and designs, history suggests that such an abandonment is unlikely. 

The answer to the third question is: hopefully not! 

Nevertheless, the threat of such a dire calamity remains, and citizens of nations everywhere should recognize the growing threat inherent in events transpiring along the frontiers of Eastern Europe and the shores of Southeast Asia.

Initially speaking, a Russian invasion of Ukraine will no more bring about World War than Germany's invasion of Poland. After all, it took 21 additional months before Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and 27 more months before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, turning a bi-regional conflict into a full-fledged, multi-fronted world war. Broader conflicts do not materialize overnight. They develop incrementally over time. That is why NOW is the time for Western Leaders everywhere to take clear, strong, wise, and united actions aimed at preventing present events from entering the slippery slope that leads treacherously and inevitably toward global conflict.  

There are different opinions about what Vladimir Putin will decide to do. Some say his troop buildups are a bluff intended to obtain leverage and other gains without having to invoke military action. Hopefully, such voices are right. Unfortunately, history is scant when it comes to stories of massive troop-buildups that all-of-a-sudden pull back and disregard their well-laid out dreams, plans, and hopes of conquest.

On the other hand, history is replete with examples of the foolhardiness of attempting to appease bullies without invoking clear and strong RED LINES and then inviolably defending them.

Perhaps the most famous historical example of appeasement involved Great Britain's Neville Chamberlain signing the infamous "Munich Agreement" with Hitler in 1938. Chamberlain flew back to Great Britain with the signed treaty and a smile, claiming he had secured "Peace for our Time." In reality, he merely handed over Czechoslovakia to Hitler while emboldening him to accelerate Nazi imperial ambitions by turning them towards the West, imperiling France... and then endangering Great Britain itself. 

Neville Chamberlain (forefront/center) with Adolf Hitler (far left).

After Chamberlain's return to England, Winston Churchill famously scolded him by saying: "You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war." 

Churchill was right.

Chamberlain's appeasement strategy was well-intentioned—Europeans were understandably loathe to incite a fight after enduring the horrors of the Great War just one generation earlier. Nevertheless, history has judged Chamberlain dishonorably and war indeed came to Europe... in a fashion twice as devastating as the previous world war he trying to avoid replicating.  

For this—and other historical instances like it—Freedom Focused recalls Winston Churchill's warnings of the 1930s and ECHO'S them clearly and distinctly to all Western Leaders in the 2020s. Appeasing Putin and Xi will only further imperil the very PEACE you are trying to protect.

This geopolitical caveat is not complicated. It is something even kindergartners must learn on the playground: if you don't stand up to bullies, bullies feel empowered to continue (and extend) their bullying.

That's just the way things are in this war-weary world of wayfaring woe.   

I learned this lesson myself in middle school, and my life forever took an empowered trajectory toward greater confidence and peace because I chose to stand up to my bully. Fortunately, I was able to solve things diplomatically (through my parents and school administrators). Obviously, diplomatic solutions should always be exhausted before resorting to brute force. But, if a bully will not respond to any other stimulus, force is (sadly) necessary to terminate the bullying and ensure the peace moving forward.  

Last Friday signaled the beginning of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, China. Sadly, the global harmony that has often marked Olympic Games in the past seems like a distant memory, as these games have been badly stained and soured not only by Russia's aggressive behavior against Ukraine, but also by a variety of human right's abuses coming out of mainland China; and that is to say nothing of the CCP's (China's Communist Party) ongoing military buildup in the South China Sea and the looming threat of a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan. Highlighting these ominous events was China's Xi Xinping and Russian's Vladimir Putin's much publicized meeting the day of the Opening Ceremonies, aimed at further solidifying their own alliance while amping up their united rhetoric against the West.

Make no mistake, Putin and Xi have their eyes and hearts set on commandeering their weaker neighbors just as surely as Adolf Hitler and Emporor Hirohito had their eyes and hearts set on Europe and Southeast Asia in the 1930s. Both are driven by historical legacies that affirm global hegemony for both the Russian and Chinese nations and peoples. After all, what did Vladimir Putin label "the worst geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th Century"? Answer: the Fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Ever since that famous fall from power, Putin's every thought, word, and action has been channeled toward one, focused objective: right that perceived wrong by re-establishing the lost legacy of Soviet dominance in the East—and beyond.  

It is worth noting—and vital to remember—that the calamities of 1914 and 1939 did not begin in 1914 and 1939. The Great War's roots stemmed back nearly half-a century to France's defeat in the Franco Prussian War in 1870-71, and Germany's subsequent unification, advancement, and armament.

Nazi flag flies over Paris in 1940

Likewise, long before Adolf Hitler had any power or influence in Germany, the seeds of World War II were planted the moment the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918—in French General Ferdinand Foch's personal railway car. Less than 22 years later, Adolf Hitler would receive the surrendering French leaders in the exact same railway car following the fall of Paris to the Nazis. It was the perfect revenge for the former German Corporal who felt "stabbed in the back" by his own nation's leaders and was rancorously bitter about Germany's defeat in World War I. 

The roots of the current crisis go back to China's humiliation by Japan in World War II, and more recently, to the fall of the Soviet Union and the dismemberment of its 15 satellite nations, of which Ukraine is one, in the early 1990s.  

Anyone who follows geopolitics knows that China—and to a lesser extent, Russia—has been modernizing and strengthening their military for many years now (much like Germany in the final quarter of the nineteenth century and then Japan and Germany [again] throughout the 1930s). Moreover, Putin's incursions into Georgia and his outright annexation of Crimea in the last decade remain a fresh memory in the minds of the geopolitically-informed. 

As much as virtually everyone throughout Western Civilization would like to avoid another global military crisis on par with the First and Second World Wars, the indelible pages of history paint an ominous picture of unfolding events, which are so strikingly portentous of crises to come. 

In the SAL Textbook, I touch briefly on a subject known as the "Crisis of 2020," which is a term employed by generational scholars William Strauss and Neil Howe* to describe an impeding worldwide calamity that they predicted (back in the early 1990s) will occur in years surrounding the year 2020.

When the COVID-19 pandemic broke in March of 2020, it seemed evident that we now knew just what the "Crisis of 2020" would entail. But... is it possible the pandemic is really just a relatively mild precursor (a warm-up or opener of sorts) to the main act, which is still yet to play out in coming years as the buildup of Chinese and Russian power and aggression finally comes to a head?

We don't know the answer to this question... yet.

Like the original 13 Colonies in their fight against the British in the
18th Century, Western Nations must ally themselves together in the
fight against Communism & Tyranny in the 21st Century.

But this much we do know: if Western Civilization—and the principles and values of democracy it claims to cherish and champion—is to prevail in the face of this newest threat to individual liberty, personal freedom, and government of the people, by the people, and for the people,* then we better be prepared to abandon the divisiveness that has so cancerously cankered our politics in recent decades. We do not know for certain what the future will bring. But this much we do know: when confronted by any serious foe, be it internal or external, we must, in the words of Benjamin Franklin: all hang together, or many of us will undoubtedly hang separately.  

In 1860, a political outsider and prairie lawyer named Abraham Lincoln became his party's unlikely nominee and victor of the U.S. Presidency after building his campaign on the universal principle and premise that, "A House divided against itself cannot stand." Lincoln was right then, and his rightness (and righteousness) steered our nation through our greatest crisis, maintained our Union, and brought liberty to the captive souls of four million enslaved persons. We would do well now to embrace the same aphorism—which originates in none other than The Good Book—as a panacea to the divisions that have so deeply fractured our nation.  

Click HERE to buy a copy of Generations

According to Strauss and Howe:

"We project ... the Crisis of 2020 [will last] ... from 2020 to 2029. ... [It] will be a major turning point in American history and an adrenaline-filled moment of trial. At its climax, Americans will feel that the fate of posterity—for generations to come—hangs in the balance. ... Sacrifices will be asked, and given. America will be implacably resolved to do what needs doing, and fix what needs fixing." (1)

Why is it that Freedom Focused, and by extension, I personally, take so much interest in this subject known as the Crisis of 2020? 

Part of the reason stems from my personal passion for history, current events, and leadership. And part of the reason stems from the fact that I personally was born at the crossroads of two generations (GenX & Millennial) that Strauss and Howe predict will play consequential—and even pivotal—roles in the Crisis of 2020. 

On the one hand, I am one of the youngest members of Generation X (or 13ers, as Strauss and Howe refer to those born between 1961 and1981). According to Strauss and Howe, my generation "will see, and evaluate, the Crisis of 2020 with the sharpest eye of all living generations. [Moreover], by lifecycle position and peer personality, they will have the most capacity for maneuver and can be expected to produce the Crisis era's most colorful leaders and stigmatized traitors—reminiscent of... [Civil War] commanders ... [and] the managers of D-Day ... as well as isolationists and fascists." (2)

On the other hand, I am married to a Millennial (born 1982-2000), and am almost young enough to qualify as one of the eldest Millennials myself. Like the G.I. soldiers of World War II, the Millennial generation will serve as the primary generation combatting whatever horrific realities arise from the Crisis of 2020. Put the two together and those born in the late 1970s or early 1980s are—for better or for worse—destined to play prominent roles in the ensuing drama.

In addition, the Baby Boom generation (born 1943-1960) will assist Generation X as leaders, coaches, mentors, and other vital role-players throughout the crisis. Strauss and Howe underscore the unique contribution that Baby Boomers and Generation X-ers (13-ers) are destined to make, and provide counsel to both generations, as follows:

The West needs LEADERS like Washington & Lincoln for Crises ahead.

"Two generations have especially important roles in the drama ahead ... [as] the vortex of history is inexorably moving toward the Boom and 13th [GenX]. No less is riding on them than once rode on Franklin and Washington, Lincoln and Grant, or Roosevelt and Eisenhower. [In order to meet the challenges of this crisis] Americans must rely on aging Boomers to build a very unyuppielike ethic of community responsibility and principled self-sacrifice. Where[as] their G.I. parents were heroes young, history warns Boomers to expect their greatest test in old age. Similarly, future generations are counting on 13ers [GenX-ers] to graduate from Liar's Poker and mellow into midlife cautionaries, guardians of family life, and protectors against ... excess. ... Just as we are all heirs to ancestors we mostly admire, so too are we all ancestors to heirs whose admiration we should wish to earn ... [a reminder] of our sacred obligation to act as kindly toward the future as ancestral generations once did toward us." (3)

While Strauss and Howe acknowledge the reality that "any crisis with a bad ending could bring unprecedented tragedy" (4) they are ultimately optimistic about Western Civilization's capacity to triumph over whatever crucibles lie ahead. Freedom Focused concurs with this optimistic outlook.

Why?

Because we believe that in the end, goodness, rightness, and TRUTH—in which collective liberty, personal freedom, and existential growth are rooted—always win. Nevertheless, we shudder to think of the individual and collective prices that may have to be paid to claim the ultimate victory for posterity. 

Freedom & Democracy vs. Tyranny & Communism  

Make no mistake: What happens in coming days, months, and years in Ukraine and Taiwan—and beyond—will reverberate around the world for years and even decades to come. And regardless what shape and scope the fight ends up taking, it will pit tyranny against LIBERTY and dictatorships against DEMOCRACIES.

Let it be known here and now, far and wide, that Freedom Focused stands immovably, unshakably, and inviolably in solidarity with democracy and against all forms of tyranny.

As our name suggests, we are eternal supporters of LIBERTY & FREEDOM and forever pursuers of TRUTH... and if necessary, we will defend all three to the death.  

Freedom Focused holds no grudge against, nor do we bear any ill will towards, the Chinese and Russian people (or any of their allies' citizens). Indeed, we believe that most Russians and Chinese individuals are intelligent, industrious, and productive peoples who want to do the right thing. 

However, we stand definitively and unequivocally against any and all imperialistic policy aims fueled by the aggression of their misguided and power-hungry leaders.

We further oppose the communistic and dictatorial forms of government that grant such unbridled authority and power to the few or the one. While we will always remain non-partisan in our message and approach, we will never demure from our strong stance in support of democratic-republicanism and its ideological embrace of collective liberties, personal freedoms, and the supporting TRUTHS rooted in Universal Law that uphold them.    

Freedom Focused stands FOR liberty, freedom, truth, and democracy.

May God Bless the United States of America—and all of Western Civilization in this fight against totalitarianism, tyranny, and aggression, and for liberty, freedom, and truth.

May God further bless Freedom Focused to stand as a beacon of strength upon the defensive watchtower of righteousness and truth for however long said conflict(s) may last.

Lastly, may God bless each one of us to stand up for, speak out in support of, and defend unto the death those principles of Liberty, Freedom, and TRUTH upon which we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.   

—Dr. JJ

February 9, 2022

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA

Author's Note: This is the 251st Blog Post Published by Freedom Focused LLC since November 2013. 

Click HERE for a compete listing of the other 250 FF Blog Articles.  

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Notes:

* Final phrase of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

1. Strauss, W. & Howe, N. (1991). Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069. New York, NY: Perennial. Page 382. 

2). Ibid. Page 415.

3). Ibid. Page 427.

4). Ibid. Page 426.