Limits of Power

Appeasement never buys peace. Appeasement only buys time for a gathering threat to become fully fledged. Today's looming threats, Iran and North Korea have the will, are ruthless, and are developing the means to menace neighbors. Like Hitler, these mad regimes have the potential to be unbelievably destructive. Had Hitler's foes confronted him with the threat of serious military force when he militarized the Rhineland, conducted the Anschluss, or entered Sudetenland, World War II and its accompanying carnage likely could have been averted, but the lesson is lost on Obama. The "grand democracies" (the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and South Korea) still have vast military resources capable of extinguishing the threats, but lack the will to use them. Even in our somewhat weakened economic position and with Obama's cuts in defense budgets, the US still spends more on her military than the combined gross national products of Iran and North Korea. With a pacifist fantasist in charge who truly believes in nuclear disarmament, it is doubtful we will ever get our money's worth from massive American defense appropriations and instead of thwarting burgeoning fanatics and crazed neighborhood bullies, we will allow them to form their evil schemes to dominate the world, deferring our own security interests to worthless and useless multilateral bodies such as the UN and the IAEA. By craven inaction, America and her allies are going to cause, not prevent, a third world war.