The Winds of War
The year I graduated from high school, 1971, Herman Wouk published his second novel about WWII. His first novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize, was The Caine Mutiny which was made into that great movie staring Humphrey Bogart with Captain Queeg rolling ball bearings in his trembling hand during a court martial trial of his First Mate. Wouk was clearly a great storyteller, but he was also a great fictional historian who had lived through WWII and was particularly taken with the fact that there had been so many signs about the impending world war between 1939 and 1941, that it was worthy of a book dedicated just to the story of how the world tried to go about its business ignoring the obvious signs of the coming conflagration. Starting with Hitler’s invasion of Poland and ending with the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Imperial Navy, Wouk weaves a story of a world with its head in the sand, trying hard to pretend that war was not coming. Wouk titled his second great novel The Winds of War.
Instead of Hitler’s invasion of Poland from the west, we now have a clear parallel with Putin’s invasion of the same territory (more or less) with his invasion of Ukraine, first in 2014 and then again last year in 2022 through the present. Putin states openly that he wants to restore the glory of the Soviet Union of his youth wherein Ukraine was a crown jewel with its vast tracts of fertile farmland and Black Sea ports In fact, many suspect that the next country in Putin’s sights may well be Poland, giving mother Russia more reach into the Baltic, and wouldn’t that be prophetic? Meanwhile, we have Putin’s eastern pal, Xi Jinping in China (the PRC), playing out his authoritarian hand in Asia while helping resupply Putin as needed. We all know that China has a manifest destiny over much of Asia and especially wants to reclaim what they consider to be theirs in the island of Formosa, now called Taiwan (the Republic of China or ROC). That island of Chiang Kai-shek’s choosing in 1949 was a part of China for 25,000 years, so its not so hard to understand why they (meaning the People’s Republic of China) think they should own it. Everyone seems to realize that sooner of later, the PRC will make its move on Taiwan and they prove that point every day with naval activities in the South China Sea, pretending to be having boundary disputes with the Philippines. The Philippines, as you will remember, was also the monkey in the middle when Japan was flirting with its own Asian manifest destiny program in 1941. Nobody really wants the Philippines, but it is sort of in the way if you have your eye on the other natural resources of places like Indonesia or the money of Singapore and Brunei. We even spent most of the 1960’s fighting off China’s threatened expansion into Southeast Asia as you will recall (that would be the old domino theory), in a little place called Vietnam.
And not unlike the Axis powers of the last Century, Russia and China have lined up a middle-ground partner in crime in Middle Persia that we know as Iran. Ever since 1978, Iran has been crosswise with the United States and much of the free world as it pursued its fundamentalist Islamic path. It is logical that Iran would partner with Russia and China for many reasons. To begin with, China has poured $400 billion into Iran to buy its oil, which sanctions do not allow the rest of the free world to buy. That position as a highly sanctioned international player, logically throws Iran into Russia’s arms as Russian sanctions have put this other oil-rich country in a tight economic spot. Ironically enough, it is now more an issue of Iranian arms rather than mother Russian’s arms that seem to motivate the alliance as Iran is supplying the Russian military as it empties itself onto Ukraine.
It may or may not be stretching the analogy to compare Iran to Italy as the mid-tier Axis partner since Mussolini was in power for about 20 years before WWII began and may have given Hitler his motivation just as a series of Ayatollahs in Iran have been in power there for almost 45 years, long before either Putin or Xi came on the scene. And of course, the tentacles from these three new-age Axis powers reach out into the various terrorist cells around the world (which are largely Islamic-based), while China has its acolytes like North Korea and 27 other allied countries spread mostly though Southeast Asia and Middle Asia. Some of those 27, like Malaysia and Kazakhstan are trying hard to play Switzerland and stay friendly with everyone, but that is a narrow road that is getting harder and harder to walk.
I read recently that Elon Musk has turned very pessimistic about the world order and feels that the kluge of Russia, China and Iran are teeing up for a major war with the U.S. and Europe. As previously discussed, the Strauss-Howe generational cycle or Saeculum that lasts about 80-100 years or four generational turnings, is clearly coming into its moment. We are seeing a growing number of societal similarities with the rise of authoritarianism and increasing incidents of racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia driving societal movements. The lure of cultural and racial dominance is too powerful and pervasive to ignore. Peace-loving ways pursued by war-torn generations that knew way too much hardship and craved peaceful prosperity and equality have given way to hate-mongering and nationalistic and racially-centric sentiments that insist that the path to a better life lies in harkening back to simpler and more ethnocentric times.
Here in the United States, there seems to be a confused view of this new Axis of power. There is quite strong right-leaning vocal opposition to China and Iran as being our enemies at a very visceral level, and yet the political right wants to embrace the white Christian supremacy views of Orban’s Hungary, and thus, by extension, the strongman of Putin’s Russia. The likes of Trump and Tucker Carlson are quite outspoken in their support for these two while still raising deep concerns about the threats posed by China and Iran. It is as though they want to pretend that there is not a clear alignment of interests between the two groups even though the signals are right out in the open that they have forged an alliance against the interests of the U.S. and Western Europe.
There is the old saying that when the elephants are dancing, the monkeys should stay in the trees. That is where I place the bulk of the world outside the three Axis members and the 36 or so members of NATO/SEATO. That means that there are over 150 monkeys in the trees and probably a few more that are wondering why in hell they declared allegiances at all as they watch the elephants start to stomp around. The world seems to have several specific battlegrounds where most of the conflagrations of note happen. There is the Eastern European Theater which is now fully engaged via the Ukrainian conflict with Russia pumping in weapons from China, Iran and even North Korea against Ukrainian deployed armaments from the U.S., Western Europe and other Anglo partners. There is the Middle East writ large which is burning bright at the Israel/Gaza/Hamas border, but which is clearly on high alert at the Israeli/Lebanese/Hezbollah border and already leaking into attacks on U.S. positions in Iraq and Syria. The only thing separating the two conflict zones is Turkey and with strongman Erdogan at the helm, it is hard to know where this key NATO member will shake out. And of course, everyone has their eyes on the South China Sea and the airspace between North Korea and South Korea, wondering when China will decide that the time is right to do what Japan did in December, 1941.
Even for an eternal optimist like me, it is hard to ignore the cyclical rhythms of the world and the building winds of war that seem to be blowing in the trees.