War Always Works

Excite a war whenever a revolt is apprehended

President Biden’s State of the Union Address reminded me of James Madison’s reflections on war—and not in a good way.

Millions of people in the United States—especially of the working and middle classes—are now struggling against the combination punches of inflation and high interest rates. Apart from the privileged cohort that is highly insulated from reality and accurate information, most people instinctively sense there is something badly amiss in our Republic that is riven with daily drama and rancor.

In the midst of this atmosphere of dread, our purported Commander-in-Chief issued a battle cry in the House Chamber that produced glimmers of unification for our august lawgivers—namely, that battle cry to “send weapons to Ukraine” to fight the perfidious Putin. This, we were told, is the purpose and the mission of the American people.

When it comes to mesmerizing a nation—to distract its people from their own divided house and troubles at home—war always works. As Madison observed at the Constitutional Convention.

The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended.

About ten years later he wrote in a letter to a friend:

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

Make no mistake: the American people are being prepared for war with Russia. Our political class will continue to insist it’s just a matter of supplying weapons to Ukraine, but I have a strong hunch that supplying weapons and training will spill over into direct confrontations.

Just as our political class committed (as Dr. Peter McCullough put it) the Great Gamble of COVID-19 Vaccine Development in 2020—thereby gambling with the health of the entire population—this same political class will gamble that Russia will NOT use tactical or strategic nuclear weapons.

Already in the fall of 2020, I was pretty confident that the Great Vaccine Gamble would go the wrong way. I’m now equally concerned that the blundering gamble against Russia will also end badly. Like serial killers, getting away with the Great Vaccine Gamble has emboldened our psychopathic politicians to commit another terrible crime against the American people with even greater brazenness.

The American people should bear in mind that the United States has NOT won a war (in the sense of winning a favorable political outcome) since the defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945. We should also remember that Russia did the lion’s share of fighting against the Germans, and the United States only prevailed against Japan by bombing its civilians with incendiary and atomic weapons.

It seems to me that the spirit that pervaded that House Chamber last night was not that of reason and prudence, but of bellicose atavism. Not God, but the devil was presiding over that assembly and the horrible speech that was delivered to it.