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Eighty years ago today, a Japanese delegation surrendered aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, officially ending World War II. Mainstream histories place the beginning of that conflict six years and one day prior: September 1, 1939, when German troops crossed into Poland. The Red Army joined the Nazis a couple of weeks later, attacking from the east.
That timeline is sort of arbitrary. By 1939, Germany had already gobbled up Czechoslovakia and Austria. Japan’s war of aggression in East Asia began even earlier with the invasion of Manchuria in 1931. In between, Italy annexed Ethiopia.
So the Second World War started well before September 1, 1939. In retrospect, that was just the date from which Axis expansionism became impossible for the democratic world to ignore. The later Tripartite Pact was merely a formality.
Today, a new Axis is coming together in plain sight.
Over the weekend, we were treated to images of Vladimir Putin rubbing elbows with Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi. In other words: the criminal waging Europe’s bloodiest war in eight decades chumming with the leaders of the world’s two largest countries, representing over a third of humanity.
Those scenes played out at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin, China. Nominally, the SCO is a loose coalition of developing countries that collaborate on security and economic issues. The group started back in the 1990s as the Shanghai Five: Russia, China, plus a handful of post-Soviet dictatorships in Central Asia.
The SCO has come a long way since those days. Its roster now includes global troublemaker Iran and paradoxically joins nuclear rivals Pakistan and India. The Tianjin summit also wasn’t restricted to current members: Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and leaders from Egypt to Indonesia were among the attendees who might formally sign on in the future.
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This past weekend’s gathering is a window into a future China-led global order where freedom is not a priority. Beijing hasn’t fully supplanted the United States yet, but it’s been on its way for some time.
Following the Cold War, Bill Clinton failed to present a compelling new direction that would have allowed the democratic, capitalist world to grow. After 9/11 George W. Bush allowed himself to be controlled by events; his response to the attacks was always tactical, missing a critical strategic component. Barack Obama’s “leading from behind” and Donald Trump’s “America First” are two sides of the same coin. In global politics as in physics, a true vacuum is impossible and China’s advance is matching America’s retreat.
In the leadup to World War II, the British, French, and Americans did not want to face the reality of the authoritarian Axis coalescing around them. We should celebrate their grand victory today, but also remember that their delay in acting led to millions of unnecessary deaths. Imagine if the Allies had proactively faced Germany, Italy, and Japan five or six years earlier rather than waiting until they were left with no choice.
Back in the present, anyone who raises the alarm about the new Axis or suggests taking the initiative—say, by giving Ukraine everything it needs to beat Russia—gets lectured about escalation and World War III.
Maybe World War III has already started and we simply haven’t accepted it yet. The question is whether we are going to let the global conflict between the illiberal and liberal coalitions rage out of control or if we can put the fire out now.
The problem, however, is that the leader of the United States, the world’s most powerful democracy, isn’t just desperate to avoid bloody confrontation, as UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his overly-cautious contemporaries were. Rather, the US president openly admires the despots on the other side and is mulling joining them.
It’s 1939 and we have Charles Lindbergh in the White House.
Leaders in other free countries can’t force the current occupant of the Oval Office to change who he is. For now, they will have to defend their eloquently-espoused belief in liberty on their own. Individually, none of the modern democracies in Europe or Asia can face down China, but collectively, they would stand a chance. If they stop Putin in Ukraine, they might even convince Xi to back down from some of his more ambitious plans. A little leadership now might save a lot of people later by nipping the global conflict in the bud before China and Russia grow too strong.
P.S. Whether you agree or disagree, let’s continue the discussion—in the comments, and on a Zoom call. Yes, Zoom! I’ve recently announced new Zoom calls for paid subscribers so that we can have a real conversation. Click here to upgrade and register for our first Zoom call.
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