By Marc Berman
Nations do not win wars merely with weapons. Even each side’s respective quantity of soldiers is not always determinative. Rather, it is the fighting spirit of the combatants that usually decides conflicts.
Is the fighting spirit of America now being subverted from within? There is ample reason to think so.
First, some relevant history. At the start of World War II, the French army was seemingly the best in the world. France was ahead of Germany in nearly every aspect of military power. The French boasted more tanks, artillery and troops than the Germans did.
Yet, when Germany invaded in the spring of 1940, French resistance soon wilted. France, which fought Germany so tenaciously 25 years earlier, surrendered to the Nazis after barely a month of fighting.
For too many French leaders, soldiers and citizens, preserving democracy and independence was not something worth dying for.
Which is not altogether surprising. The powerful French left of the 1930s often mocked patriotism and nationalism.
In contrast to French forces, Russia’s army was ill-equipped for a German invasion. The Soviet military had been devastated by Stalin’s purges of the ’30s. The paranoid dictator murdered numerous generals.
Moreover, in 1939, the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany. Thus, when the Nazis attacked in June 1941, Russia’s guard was down. Red Army troops were poorly equipped. A Russian soldier’s first weapon was often a wooden “gun.”
To make matters worse, Stalin did not just kill generals. His secret police slew hundreds of thousands of ordinary Soviet citizens. Therefore, when the Germans came, the Russian people had no appetite to protect Stalin’s regime.
Stalin knew that. So he shrewdly played down communist propaganda after the invasion – and played up defending “Mother Russia.”
You see, Russians were patriots and nationalists. Consequently, they heeded Stalin’s call. They fought to the death to preserve their independence. In the process, the Soviet Union stubbornly endured exponentially more casualties than France suffered in 1940.
In short, the Russians, even under the yoke of communism, possessed a fighting spirit the French lacked.
Likewise, the United States did not win victories at places like Normandy and Iwo Jima merely because of superior firepower. Rather, to win those battles, American troops had to be willing to charge machine-gun nests. Tens of thousands of young men were cut down by those guns, like reeds before a scythe.
Why did those soldiers and marines willingly forfeit their lives?
Surely because they believed that it was worth dying for the American idea of a constitutional republic of limited powers that guarantees individual liberty. Even if that idea has not always been implemented to perfection.
Today, the American left does not merely mock patriotism and nationalism. American lefties now delegitimize their own country.
For example, “moderate” Joe Biden says that America’s very soul is stained by ongoing systemic racism. Biden’s U.N. ambassador claims that white supremacy is weaved into our founding principles. Kamala Harris asserts that black women die in childbirth due to systemic racism.
What chutzpah! If America were “systemically” racist like the left claims, African Americans would be emigrating. That is what persecuted people always do, when not restrained.
Instead, black Africans have been immigrating to the United States by the millions. Are they nuts?
I doubt whether America’s youth in the 1940s, not a few of them African Americans who knew what true racism was, would have laid down their lives if they thought that America was the hellish monstrosity leftists have fabricated.
Because of the left’s propaganda efforts, and those of their allies in academia and the mainstream media, young Americans now widely believe the radicals’ lies. More ominously, the Biden administration now propagandizes members of the military with those smears.
Will America be prepared to defend herself under these circumstances in future wars? Who in his right mind would die for a nation based on systemic racism?
If the extremists remain in control, the onset of a defeatist mentality à la 1940s France is inevitable. Americans who love liberty must lead the charge to reverse course.
That means fighting, not only at the ballot box, but also by supporting alternative media. And by not patronizing “woke” businesses and schools that foster the leftist madness.
The sacrifices of prior generations of our military personnel should inspire us to defend America, too. They sacrificed their lives. We need to sacrifice far less, but we must do so now, before it is too late.
Marc Berman writes on politics, law and culture. He can be reached at [email protected].
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