Biden’s FDR redux.

Biden’s state of the union address had its most important line as the first. From that line we can see a trajectory that doesn’t bode well for the world. I can imagine that this year there will be a second speech marking a second “Day That Will Live in Infamy.”

Biden’s opening remark of the State of the Union was as follows.

“In January 1941, Franklin Roosevelt came to this chamber to speak to the nation. And he said, “I address you at a moment unprecedented in the history of the Union”. Hitler was on the march. War was raging in Europe.

President Roosevelt’s purpose was to wake up Congress and alert the American people that this was no ordinary time. Freedom and democracy were under assault in the world.

Tonight, I come to the same chamber to address the nation. Now it’s we who face an unprecedented moment in the history of the Union.”

The FDR speech referenced is The Four Freedoms. The speech basically states that the US is entering into a war economy of which it had already begun in the years preceding. The parallels between the two speeches are many. I highly recommend people read the speech in its entirety.

Less than a year later came FDR’s speech called a “Day That Will Live in Infamy.”

On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the next day FDR gave a speech. In it he says the following famous words, “Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

In an earlier draft FDR had written in then later crossed out the words “without warning.” Of course, there was plenty of warning. The US had been preparing to enter the war for years and had frozen Japanese assets and blocked oil sales the previous August. There is some evidence to suggest that the US knew of Japan’s impending attack, with some suggesting that was why none of the aircraft carriers were in port that day.

Then on December 11, 1941, the US declared war on Japan and Germany.

So how does this compare to today?

The long march to WW3.

The direction of travel towards world war, with the US as aggressor, has been apparent to myself for many many years. I’ve laid out much of this in previous writing and social media posts of why I think the US is marching steadfastly towards WW3. The circumstantial evidence is plentiful, broad and robust. There have always been forces in the power elite that clamor for the US to expand it’s imperial reach but in recent decades they’ve been dominant just behind the scenes. The nature of expansive wars involve much in planning and preparation, yet for the public it is often seen as a sudden decision based on an eminent crisis. As I’ve shown above, the US government had been planning and preparing in earnest for WW2 before Pearl Harbor was attacked. In the same way today we can clearly see that the US government is again planning and preparing.

I usually find it important to harken back to the breaking up of the USSR when the US became the world unipolar hegemonic superpower, at least in its own eyes. Rather than heralding an era of peace, disbanding NATO for instance as it was no longer relevant, the neocons in the 1990s pursued a different plan. They went after every nation that formally associated with the USSR in color revolutions, destabilizing sanctions or direct military attacks. Also targeting those of the “Unaligned Nations” towards bullying the world towards accepting US global hegemony.

The US has weakened the UN as well. Preferring to form “coalitions of the willing” and eventually settling on the need to support the “rules based order” which is difficult to exactly understand what they actually mean by that. Basically, we can interpret that as the international rules that protect neoliberalism, western finance and western corporations.

From the neoconservatives came the Project for the New American Century, which basically put forward that the US needed to keep its hegemony by militarism because it was losing ground in manufacturing, economic might and moral values. This lead to the wars since 9-11.

In 2018, the US Defense Department’s National Security Strategy, the US shifted towards planning for great power competition. For the ability to fight Russia and/or China rather than being geared for terrorism. Of course this wouldn’t be the beginning of the shift. US think tanks and the Pentagon do planning over decades.

If you pay attention to what all these people and organizations are actually saying, they basically point out their plans. They don’t spell it out, but they need to guide the public towards their agenda, preparing them on which enemies to hate. It’s not hard to connect the dots. This is a generalized overview that people who follow geopolitics are familiar with even if few string it together predictively.

Predicting the year or two or three ahead.

Prediction is something that few do publicly. Then they would be held responsible to their predictions and the nature of predictions is often they are wrong.

Which brings us to Ukraine. We’ve been hearing a lot of rhetoric from western think tanks and politicians that for Ukraine, this year will be a year on defense. They claim that in 2025 there will be more ammo, weapons, training and support that can enable offensive actions. We hear Macron talking about the French having boots on the ground perhaps to protect Odessa. We hear of a defensive triangle. We hear of Nuland talking about coming surprises. The US isn’t going to get involved ahead of France, England and Poland leading the charge. The US might push these countries to enter the conflict, but they would need them to go first. They would also need a new Pearl Harbor.

Then there is China. The US has about till 2027 to start any war with China before the idea of winning such a war is lost before it begins. We had a General speaking of the US going to war with China next year. “I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me will fight in 2025,” said Gen. Mike Minihan in a memo sent to the officers he commands and obtained by NBC News. One of the initial actions will be stopping oil from going from the Middle East to China. This is what the US did to Japan before WW2.

Which brings up the Middle East. It seems to me that the US is there to win back dominance of Saudi Arabia. It doesn’t seem like they’re succeeding at that but it doesn’t seem like they’re succeeding at much of anything right now. More on that soon. But we have the Israeli situation that may see a shift from their destruction of Gaza to a fight with Lebanon. For that to truly happen they may tolerate this US built peer, not technically boots on the ground but potentially a toe in.

Admiral James Stavridis said a week or so ago on Bloomberg Surveillance that Israel will keep blowing up Gaza for another 2-3 months before an International Peace Keeping Force is brought in. Seems a reasonable prediction. This US announced peer might facilitate such an action. If it is combined with a US backing of a two state solution then maybe Saudi Arabia might call it good enough.

Let’s also imagine that maybe Israel’s nukes come into play with Saudi Arabia getting the green light for its own nukes.

Speaking of nukes, what might be overlooked is North Korea in the geopolitical struggle as the low hanging fruit for the introduction of tactical nukes into the modern world. The US has been stationing nuclear capable jets and subs in South Korea. If a nuke went off, and could be blamed on North Korea, the US could justify a nuclear response. The thought being neither Russia nor China would go to nuclear war over the destruction of North Korea. Russia would be indicated as having provided NK with some key weapons technology which allowed it.

Then it’s a scramble for nukes. Saudi Arabia accepts abandoning their independent foreign policy because the US grants them nuclear weapons. Israel perhaps launching nukes at Iran then becomes foreseeable with the propaganda being that Russia was helping them get nuclear weapons.

All this is crazy seeming. Except why? For the US, many in the dark circles of power are calculating quite coldly. What many don’t realize is that for them it isn’t a race for power, it’s defense of power. They would find it hard to compete with China so why bother? While there is an advantage, use it. To take away their capabilities. Bomb them to the stone age. Hit first and hard. As for Russia, make them watch in horror, then build a fortress in the western half of Ukraine.

I really think people are giving the US too much credit for goodness that is undeserved. A declining empire is a dangerous beast. As Putin said, the decline in the Roman empire took 500 years, but in modern times it’s much faster. However, the empire will use its full power to resist its downfall. And that’s very dangerous.