The following quote is a bit lengthy, but please read it through. It is a brilliant and tragic analysis:
“The History of Japan is an unfinished drama in which three acts have been played. The first, barring the primitive and legendary centuries, is classical Buddhist Japan (522-1603 A.D.), suddenly civilized by China and Korea, refined and softened by religion, and creating the historical masterpieces of Japanese literature and art. The second is the feudal and peaceful Japan of the Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1868), isolated and self-contained, seeking no alien territory and no external trade, content with agriculture, and wedded to art and philosophy. The third act is modern Japan, opened up in 1853 by an American fleet, forced by conditions within and without to trade and industry, seeking foreign materials and markets, fighting wars of irrepressible expansion, imitating the imperialistic ardor and methods of the West, and threatening both the ascendancy of the white race and the peace of the world. By every historical precedent, the next act will be war. The Japanese have studied our civilization carefully in order to absorb its values and surpass it. Perhaps we should be wise to study their civilization as patiently as they have studied ours, so that when a crisis comes that must issue either in war or understanding, we may be capable of understanding.” (Will Durant, “Our Oriental Heritage,” Chapter 28)
“By every historical precedent, the next act will be war...” The words above were written in 1935, six years before the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor and the beginning of World War II in the Pacific.
No, we didn’t “study their civilization...patiently,” we didn’t “understand” them, and we got into a terrible conflict as a result.
Perhaps, by 1935, it was too late to thwart the Japanese aggression. But the point is still well made. By our failure to study history, by our not seeking to understand a foreign and much-different people, when the “crisis” came, there was war and not peace. Now, please understand me. Japan is responsible for their aggression. They started a war, and they got what was coming to them. But...could it have been different if we had been a little better student of history?
“By every historical precedent, the next act will be war...”
As I have reiterated so many times in my columns on Townhall and elsewhere, an ignorance of history is an inexcusable tragedy for a nation. It is also what totalitarian, Leftist regimes, like the Democratic Party, want. Karl Marx: “Keep people from their history, and they are easily controlled.”
“Historical precedent” can often give us meaningful clues to the future; not absolute predictions, but pretty good hints. Wars are often clashes between two great world (or regional) powers or involve upstarts who want to be up there with the big guys. Babylon and Egypt, Babylon and Assyria, Greece and Persia, Rome and Carthage, England and France, England and Germany (twice), Japan and America. The world is simply not big enough for both King Kong and Godzilla. Somebody has to win; somebody has to lose. When there are two great powers, they will almost inevitably, eventually, go to war for dominance. America and the Soviet Union never directly confronted each other—except in a frightful, world-menacing “Cold War.” But the peripheries existed—Korea, Vietnam, and a hundred places where the USSR fought to the last Cuban and America couldn’t stay neutral. I’ve often said there are no absolutes in history, but war is about as close as one gets to it, especially when two muscle-men stand eye-to-eye and toe-to-toe. Somebody inevitably throws the first punch. Neither side backs down.
China. Is war between America and China inevitable? “By every historical precedent...” America, the great world power. China, the upstart, is seeking grander glory and self-aggrandizement. Who stands in the way of China? Only one nation. The United States. Are we going to give up our place in the world to somebody else? No nation in history has ever voluntarily done so. That IS a historical absolute.
War between America and China isn’t inevitable. Both could avoid it, though only by accident and/or weakness. Suppose Joe Biden and the Democrats continue along their current path of destroying America. In that case, all China needs to do is wait—America will self-destruct, and China will step into world dominance without a fight. On the other hand, China is a Marxist-based country. Such nations haven’t tended to last long. By all indications, China’s economy is currently struggling mightily. Is it cyclical, or is it structural? We waited, put pressure, and the USSR collapsed, mainly due to financial destabilization. It could happen to China. One of the two countries might implode, and a horrific war might be avoided. But there can be only one “King of the Hill.” And usually, historically, it takes a war to put that king there.
China is our threat. No, let me restate that. Joe Biden and the Uniparty is America’s greatest threat. They are wasting America’s resources and energy on Ukraine's absolutely unimportant (to America’s interests) conflict. Folks, the Ukrainian war is a flea on an elephant’s back. It is, as Ron DeSantis so accurately assessed, a “regional conflict.” It has nothing to do with us or the true menace to America’s position in the world. But—as kindly as I can say it—Joe Biden is an incredibly stupid man, and Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Nikki Haley, and those supporting that conflict are equally obtuse. There will be no war between Russia and America unless the Uniparty causes it. Russia isn’t the hazard; China is. Greece didn’t imperil Carthage; Rome did. The upstart Romans. “Carthago delenda est!” War resulted. And Carthage was indeed destroyed.
Wars are often bundled into via incompetent leadership. Sometimes, they are historically inevitable. We might be able to avoid war with China. But only—only—by knowing history and its solutions.
“Wisdom from Our Founders”—new oral podcast series (for paid subscribers only) on my substack, mklewis929.substack.com. Sign up for free. Read my Western novels, Whitewater, River Bend, Return to River Bend, and Allie’s Dilemma, all available on Amazon. Follow me on Twitter: @thailandmkl. And rumble: lewandcou
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