Whoever wins must stop sleepwalking through World War III

Eighty-four years ago, on Nov. 5, 1940, a U.S. presidential election was held in the shadow of a growing global war in Europe.

By then, Poland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands had already fallen to Nazi Germany. London, against all odds, had survived the Battle of Britain. Paris had gone dark, and Lady Liberty’s torch was not yet brightly shining.

FDR won that election, and yet still, America largely slept.

More than a year later, on Dec. 7, 1941, the nation woke up to simultaneous Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, Guam, Wake Island and the Philippines. Finally, the American people fully understood that their nation was once again at war.

Oceans and distance afforded time and protection then. Now, in a world of intercontinental ballistic missiles, space-based weapons and nuclear submarines, months have become days and days have become minutes.

Next Tuesday, yet another U.S. election will be held in the shadow of an ever-growing global war. Unlike in 1940, the nation cannot afford to keep sleeping. We have neither the time nor space to safeguard our homeland and way of life.

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does remind us that we are not fully in control of our future. Nations can pick and choose battles, but the same rarely holds true when it comes to wars. As at Pearl Harbor, war often preys on the unwilling. Weakness fuels its appetite, and indifference is its deadly bite.

The polls suggest that the hotly contested election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is a toss-up going into this final weekend. What’s not a toss-up is that whoever wins will be tasked with guiding America through devolution into a third world war.

Neither candidate appears to fully grasp what lies ahead. Harris, for now following President Biden’s lead, is arguing for more of the same: defending U.S. national interests and our allies into perpetuity.

Trump fails to understand that the U.S. is already in a global war of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s making. The Kremlin opened that Pandora’s Box. Despite Trump’s bravado to the contrary, there is no closing it.

Both candidates tend to view ongoing global national security threats as separate and distinct from each other. And this area of agreement is not a good thing. In truth, Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are coalescing as a new and emerging axis like that of the Second World War. Washington cannot pivot from one threat to the other. They are all interrelated, as evinced by North Korea’s growing involvement in Ukraine.

Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, U.S. Army (ret.) has rightly argued against “the fallacy of ‘pivoting’ away from Europe and the Middle East,” since the Russian- and Chinese-led Axis is “coalescing and the competition real.” Whichever candidate wins on Tuesday will need to understand the connectivity of the threats emanating from Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang.

It is equally vital that Washington no longer stay the course in Ukraine and the Middle East. Defending is no longer an option. The only way to win this World War III is by enabling Ukraine and Israel to defeat the enemies that started wars against them.

That necessitates rewriting the National Security Strategy in the first 100 days of the next presidency. Biden’s current woefully inadequate strategy is at best designed to fight 1.5 wars at the same time.

Yet, the Pentagon is already facing three major conflicts across the globe: Ukraine, Iran’s seven-front war against Israel, and China’s intent to invade Taiwan and dominate the Indo-Pacific. Plus, the Pentagon is stretched thin trying to contain Russia’s paramilitary wars across the Sahel in Africa and in Central and South America.

Ditto the growing weaponization of space. And Putin and Xi’s intent to militarize the Arctic and Northern Sea Route.

Future historians will judge Biden’s overall presidency. However, in the here and now it is clear from an objective apolitical standpoint that U.S. national security is not better off than it was four years ago. Biden’s permissive environment has undermined U.S. national security for the foreseeable future.

Biden and his national security team led by Jake Sullivan are responsible for setting the conditions for the forever wars now unfolding in Ukraine and the Middle East. Winning has never been the goal. Defending has. And yet, in fearing escalation Biden’s White House has failed to grasp that they are enabling the very Russian and Chinese escalation they aim to avoid.

And alarmingly, the Biden administration’s national security failings run deeper than that. The country’s vaunted military-industrial complex remains largely idled and untapped nearly three years into Putin’s war against the West.

Ukraine is faced with critical artillery munitions shortages every day as Russia is outfires them, by some expert estimates, by a ten-to-one ratio. The U.S. is now also faced with a growing air-defense missile shortage. Both needs were easily foreseeable on the day Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Not only are weapons and munitions shortages threatening our allies presently at war, they are also leaving exposed our allies in the Indo-Pacific in the face of an increasingly militaristic China.

Biden has also failed the nation in his war messaging. Frequently, we come across comments or tweets stating that Ukraine or Israel is "not our war." History teaches us otherwise.

FDR began bridging a similar gap by holding a series of radio broadcasts that became known as fireside chats. He held 31 chats, none more important than the one after his reelection on December 29, 1940. In that history-making chat, he argued for why the U.S. must become the “Arsenal of Democracy.”

He began by saying, “This is not a fireside chat on war. It is a talk on national security.” Roosevelt knew he had to begin preparing the country for a war it did not want. He also leveled with what was ahead, declaring, “Frankly and definitely there is danger ahead — danger against which we must prepare.”

Americans will make their presidential choice on Tuesday. Whoever wins then will be faced with their own choice. Will they resolve to win World War III and give a fireside chat of their own ahead of Thanksgiving? Or will they too continue blindly sleepwalking through this ever-growing global conflagration?

Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as an Army intelligence officer.