America hits the global snooze button
“This is 1938," historian Timothy Snyder said at a weekend conference in Estonia. He warned that a Ukrainian defeat would shift the calendar to 1939. Many Americans still don’t fully grasp how serious the international situation has become.
Iran has set the Middle East ablaze, Russia is advancing in Ukraine, and China is pursuing pressure campaigns against Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. Even more challenging times lie ahead. While Washington and its allies try to calm things and return the world to something like normalcy, the revisionists are strengthening their cooperation and mobilizing their societies and economies for war.
Iran’s sputtering economy has powered its war machine for years. Neither U.S. sanctions nor the costs of supporting proxy militias across the Mideast have prevented Tehran from developing a nuclear program and a massive drone industry.
Russia and China are moving in the same direction. The war in Ukraine was a wake-up call for Russia. Once Kremlin hopes of an early victory disappeared, Moscow put Russia’s society and economy on a war footing for the long term.
Dissent is quashed, antiwar protesters are mercilessly pursued, and schools teach hatred of the West. Meanwhile, Mr. Putin appointed the man behind Russia’s recent gains in drones and microelectronics, Andrei Belousov, to modernize the military industrial base.
China’s war preparations are much more advanced than most Americans understand. A recent report by Mackenzie Eaglen of the American Enterprise Institute estimates that measured by purchasing power parity China is nearly matching America’s global defense spending. Although its civilian economy is suffering, Beijing is doubling down on the greatest military buildup in history.
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