The last two major global conflicts are rapidly slipping from memory. The last veterans of the Great War, from 1914 to 1918, are all gone. My grandfather was one of them, and so was a neighbor who had the next farmstead up the road from my parents' Fairbank, Iowa farm. The veterans of World War II, from 1939 to 1941, are now few and far between. I have it on good authority that our school systems no longer teach much about these conflicts, nor their causes.
We forget these things at our peril. Understanding the causes of the last two world wars may help us evade a third one. Here's the thing: World wars don't begin with world wars. They begin with regional wars. Both the Great War and World War II began thus, and escalated when the major players got drawn in.
An interesting article at RealClearDefense by Francis P. Sempa gives President Trump some credit in understanding and seeking to avoid this, and in the course of the article presents some great insights.
Donald Trump has done more than any other 21st century U.S. president to “pivot” to Asia and the western Pacific, yet recently his administration has been criticized for going “soft” on China. There is no question that the rhetoric of the second Trump administration is, in Undersecretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby’s words, “quiet and respectful . . . towards China,” but “quiet and respectful” are sound tactics of diplomacy. Building more warships, modernizing our nuclear forces, winning the AI race, using geoeconomic pressure, strengthening our alliances in the western Pacific—those are actions that speak louder than words. The goal in Cold War II with China, after all, is to counter China’s geopolitical ambitions without going to war. It is to avoid the “Guns of August” 2026.
The Guns of August refers to Barbara Tuchman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book by that title, in which she describes how the great military powers of the time failed to head off the coming conflict. None of those powers wanted that conflict. They tried to avoid it. But the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Italy and, in 1917, the United States, found themselves fighting the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and several smaller powers. This war started with regional tensions in the Balkans, and in time drew in the major powers on both sides. The result? As many as 22 million dead. (Estimates vary).
The American treasure Dr. Victor Davis Hanson describes the start of World War II, which began in much the same way: First, the Japanese invasion of China, then the German-Soviet attack on Poland, which officially kicked off the war by bringing in Britain and France. Then, Japan struck out against the United States and Britain, opening the Pacific theater. Then the sides were drawn up: Germany, Italy (until 1943, when they changed sides), and Japan against the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Great Britain, France, and much of the rest of the civilized world. That war lasted six years and caused between 60 and 75 million deaths. The property damage? Incalculable.
Thus we see the commonality: Regional wars that bring in the major powers, and expand globally.
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Here's where Mr. Sempa makes an interesting comparison:
Nixon’s diplomacy brilliantly exploited the growing Sino-Soviet rivalry in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his opening to China. But he also conducted “triangular diplomacy” that positioned the United States closer to China and Russia than they were to each other. He also ended the unpopular Vietnam War, while pursuing “hardheaded détente” with Soviet leaders. His Middle East policy helped to stabilize the region after the Yom Kippur War and reduced Soviet influence there for years to come. Nixon toned down the rhetoric with Soviet leaders because he knew that actions speak louder than words, and that quiet diplomacy can often accomplish more than overheated, antagonistic rhetoric. Nixon’s foreign policy was realism at its best.
What's more, he presents a modern analogue to Nixon: President Donald Trump.
Nixonian diplomacy may be just what is needed to prevent today’s regional wars and geopolitical conflicts from merging into the Third World War. Being respectful towards China while conducting quiet diplomacy and strengthening our alliances and deterrent capabilities in the western Pacific is foreign policy realism in the Nixonian tradition. A combination of patience, prudence, and quiet resolve is what is called for at the present moment. Saber rattling will only serve to increase tensions while potentially undermining diplomatic efforts. The Trump administration appears to understand this better than its critics on both the left and right.
Interesting, eh?
In this, though, I'm inclined to give much of the credit, not directly to President Trump, but to his amazingly effective Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. Secretary Rubio is without doubt the best SecState since Cordell Hull, and he has shown an uncanny ability to balance what sure looks like a staggering workload, including maintaining contacts in all the far-flung corners of the world. And the Trump administration's China policy does seem to include elements of distancing China from the primary players in today's analogue of the Great War's Central Powers and World War II's Axis powers: Russia and Iran.
But we shouldn't rule out the possibilities here, either. China is on the edge, perhaps, but they are still the United States' primary geopolitical adversary, and they have historically (since the late 1940s) been allied with the Soviet Union, and then Russia, and also with post-1979 Iran. Those are the battle lines. If the current regional wars, including the American/Israeli attacks on Iran and the Russo-Ukrainian War, do combine and do start a third world war, these are the lines along which it will be drawn: The United States, Israel, and perhaps some of the nations of Western Europe against Russia, China, and possibly Iran.
We were very lucky in the Cold War years, when the various brushfire conflicts, like Vietnam, ended with no escalation into what could have been a major disaster between nuclear-armed powers. But, as the old saying goes, history may not always repeat itself, but it often rhymes. The United States, as a nation and as the world's foremost military power, must stay prepared to hold that status at all costs.
I think the odds of a global war in the next few years are still slim. But they are not zero. If one is to start, it's more than likely to grow out of the two ongoing conflicts.
