Lessons from Churchill: Military Strategy and America's Future

Could the lessons of Churchill's Britain illuminate the path for America's future military and political strategy? Our latest episode delves into the delicate dance between military might and the principles of pacifism. With reference to William Manchester's detailed biography of Winston Churchill, we explore the critical decisions that shaped Britain's fate in the 1930s and parallel them with the contemporary discourse in American politics. From the echoes of historical isolationism to the imperative of a robust defense mechanism, we dissect the consequences of underestimating military power and the vital need to learn from the past in order to protect our future.

The fabric of American society is under scrutiny as we navigate the complexities of internal strife and ideological divides. It's a conversation that exposes the vulnerabilities of our nation, much like a virus attacking the immune system, as we confront the challenge of staying true to our foundational principles. Drawing motivation from the dedication of sports icons Kobe Bryant and J.J. Watt, we underscore the invaluable impact of concerted efforts towards collective goals. We wrap up the episode with a sobering contemplation on America's potential for resurgence or collapse, extending hope, blessings, and a pledge to continue these penetrating discussions, inviting listeners to join us on this vital journey of reflection and insight.

Chapters

• 0:03 Military Preparedness and Historical Parallels
• 9:09 Internal Threat
• 20:16 Impending Collapse of America

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Hi folks, this is Jesse Cope, back with another episode of the American Soul Podcast. Hope you all are doing well, wherever you all are, whatever part of the day you're in. I sure do appreciate you all joining me, giving me a little bit of your time and energy efforts. For those of you all that continue to share the podcast and tell others about it, thank you so much. I'm incredibly grateful for that, grateful that y'all keep coming back. I'm sure y'all don't agree with absolutely everything I say here, but must agree with a little bit or at least be entertained.

Speaker 1: 0:47

Thank you, not a lot on the homestead today. The guineas have been not abnormally active, but they're just kind of all over the place this morning Today I guess it really has been a good chunk of the day. Started to do a little work in the garden, trying to get it back under control, put one of my children's back to work back out there. I think that's about it, father. Thank you for today. Thank you for you, father, and your son, jesus Christ. Thank you for the Holy Spirit. Thank you for the time to record this podcast and the people that listened to it. God, I'm blessing. Protect us, lord, from evil. Draw us close to you and draw us home to you whenever you're ready for us to come home. Strengthen our faith. Please, father, give us assurance. Forgive us our sins, help us to overcome them. Thank you again for your son, jesus Christ, being willing to come and die for our sins so we don't have to Guide our steps, light our path, guide our leaders, from the President, vice President on down Senators, representatives, admirals and Generals. Be with our law enforcement, firefighters, our military. Give them wisdom and courage. Give us the courage to make difficult decisions, father. Show us what those are and watch over those who are hurting, lord, who are alone, who are scared, who feel abandoned when we look at the things that come, keep them safe, but even if not, bring them home to you whenever you're ready, and guide my words here. Look your son's name. We pray Amen. We're going to spend one more day, at least part of a day, on this Churchill biography. Again, william Manchester alone. It's the second volume on Churchill in the Last Line trilogy published by Little Brown. There's just some great things in here, folks, we'll go ahead and get started.

Speaker 1: 3:44

One of the things in the early to mid 1930s that you really notice again and again. It was a huge point so the author talks about it frequently, rightfully so Is the difference in armament and the pace of arming between Germany and really any of the European powers, but also, but particularly, britain. And, as I said, there's just a ton in this book about it, but that's. The overall trend is that Germany, even before Hitler was in power, even when it was still the Weimar Republic, they had started re-arming and they were spending more than the British on everything from small arms, anti-gas artillery, and it quickly became, year after year, more on tanks, ships and planes. In particular, the British. Instead of spending more, they were making cuts. They weren't building new ships that much. They were reducing replacement of ships that needed to be replaced. They were stopping work on overseas bases the Singapore base is one the author talks about in particular and they knew that this was the case and they knew it was a bad thing, but they kept doing it again we talked about this in a previous podcast out of this illusion, this false hope that if they pacified as if that was possible Hitler and Mussolini and these dictators and really stalling, you could throw in there.

Speaker 1: 5:59

He just happened to be on the winning side of World War II because he knew that communism and fascism couldn't stand side by side, not because he was fighting for good. Really, that's a whole different. That's a long, that's a series of podcasts right there. But this idea that has sprouted up in places today that Stalin and the communists then were some kind of heroes on an individual basis you had none. That were heroes in individual battles, but the ideology was not. At any rate, the British knew that they were in trouble but they didn't do anything about it because they wanted to go along, to get along.

Speaker 1: 6:53

There's a quote that the author put in here when one of Churchill's constituents asked the question don't you think at high time that the British line showed its teeth and Churchill's response was it must go to the dentist first. They weren't, they weren't in any place to show their teeth, helfen us to stand, you know, doesn't that sound familiar today? Don't we see, haven't we seen this trend really for decades now, this back and forth where you see this desire to weaken the military. And it's really kind of dangerous today because you have a lot of this isolationist mentality poking its head up with people that claim could be conservative and and a lot of them hide it really well under the guise of not getting into what they call useless wars, and I'm not a proponent especially having been across a couple times of war at all as some kind of romantic, wonderful event. But I'm also not simple enough to look back at history and and see any instances where we have tried to shut ourselves off as a nation completely, and that's worked out well and so it is a balancing act. But weakening the military is not the answer. You want a strong military so that you're prepared when you have to go to war, and we're not doing a very good job of that today. And so you see this, this parallel again between 1930s Britain and Germany and the divide today in America between the left and the right, and what you know upset on the podcast multiple times.

Speaker 1: 9:09

The greatest threat today is not China or Iran or North Korea or Russia or any external threat. Like Lincoln said, the greatest threat is internal. The greatest threat are our fellow citizens on the left who continue to vote for and courage, support evil. But what does that do? Well, it opens the door to places like China and Iran, because as they're building their military and we're weakening ours, then those threats become more and more serious, even though the main threat right, it's like symptoms with cancer. You can have a lot of health problems caused by by cancer. Maybe AIDS is a better example. You know you, you don't die of the virus, although we are dying of, of the virus of the left today, but it's the other sicknesses that are allowed to come in and kill you because the virus has killed your immune system and so you die of something like the common cold. You can look at America like that today. If we get weak enough, then sure there's a chance that China or even some little crazy place like North Korea or Iran could come in and, if not, destroy us, do some major damage. But the problem, the real problem, isn't them, it's the virus, it's the left, it's the rejection of God, it's the rejection of Jesus Christ, it's the rejection of our founding faith and principles and all the things that come with that. This is just kind of a little side note, but I thought it was interesting. In your life, whatever point you're at, whatever profession you have, whether it's outside the home or inside the home, this is a good lesson.

Speaker 1: 11:17

Churchill in the early 30s was a nobody in the sense that he had been completely ostracized from political power. He had no real power except his oratory skills, which were phenomenal in his writing and newspapers where he could get to the public and try and sway public opinion. But he wasn't getting to make any decisions in the early mid 30s and really into the late 30s. But the author here talks about how many people he knew that Germany was the main threat and so he started talking to everybody. The author here. He's talking about engineers, foreign correspondents, bankers, salesmen, tourists, professors, british officers who had traveled to Germany, diplomats from neutral countries, refugees from the Reich. And if these people had, you know like, for example, if they really had a deep science background, then he would pass them on to one of the guys that he worked pretty close with, apparently called the prof looking at radar, missiles, aircraft design, high explosives, and so he had all this and he got to put all the pieces together and the point was that he didn't disdain any of these people because they weren't seen by the world as important. They were bringing him little bits of information and he paid attention to everything.

Speaker 1: 12:58

So often in our lives today we don't want to pay attention to things that aren't glorified, that aren't extremely important. We don't want to pay attention to people. We don't want to do the hard work that goes in long, long before greatness ever appears. If it does and it doesn't always, you know and it just it's.

Speaker 1: 13:23

I'm reminded of two sports-ish episodes right here and then in the quote by John Quincy Adams. You know, one is an interview I saw with Kobe Bryant and he was talking about these young kids. Today they want to work really hard for a week or two and see this huge improvement. And he said it doesn't work like that. He said you work really hard for a long time, you make little improvements all along the way and then all of a sudden you look up two or three years down the road and you look back at where you started and then you see this huge improvement. But he said but it doesn't happen all at once, right, and the other is a kind of it's definitely slang, but it's still a great quote by Watts, who is a NFL player, and he said you know, everybody wants to be a beast, meaning everybody wants to be great, they want to be the best Until it's time to do he says what beasts have to do, but until it's time to do what you have to do in order to be great, and then people aren't so interested. They don't want to do the mundane, they don't want to do the little things day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. They don't want to give it the perseverance to get there.

Speaker 1: 14:39

And then, of course, the quote by John Quincy Adams, our president, who was a representative who really helped defeat, or start to defeat, slavery. Duty is ours, results are God's. You get up each day and you do the best you can. You do it for Jesus Christ. You move on with life. You know, so often I'm not grateful for the fact that I have food on the table and clothes to wear and clean, water to drink and a roof over my head. I mean those, those things right there alone. Shouldn't I be grateful for that? Shouldn't I be satisfied with that? To a certain extent Doesn't mean that I don't still work really hard, but I ought to be grateful for those things instead of doing whatever in the hope for glory, fame, fortune, achievement, whatever it is.

Speaker 1: 15:33

Anyway, interesting little side note there in this biography the difference, one of the differences today in America that we see really in this divide between left and right, is you don't necessarily see the military, although you can make some arguments about the left's control of our law enforcement and what they're doing to the military to gain control there mentally, psychologically, but legally you can easily see the parallels between the left. You look at the number of district attorneys across the nation who are very left-leaning. You look at the number of judges, justices, that are left-leaning. You look at the number of, especially in larger cities, like police chiefs or city board members my brain just went away mayors, and you can see that there is absolutely a militaristic attitude via the legal side of things on the left and the way you see it is the fact that people that go against it are punished.

Speaker 1: 17:03

You look at schools today. If you walked into a school and started to teach from the Bible, you wouldn't work there very long. Not if that was your, your primary textbook. It wouldn't happen, even in the communities that think they're isolated. It wouldn't happen for very long before somebody started to complain about it. You know you come into a school and you talk openly about our founding faith and principles. It's not going to go over very well not for long, not when you're teaching kids that somebody's going to start to complain and then the choice is whether the school board and the administrators. You know what are they going to do. And then how involved is the state depends on what states you're in, but you look across in a lot of places. Look at the professional athletes and their relationship with the left and Black Lives Matter. Look at all the stirrup over the last few weeks with the Super Bowl and I don't even want to say their names, the athlete and the singer that have been in the news so much and so across culture.

Speaker 1: 18:18

You see through the legal side, really, these attacks, whereas in Germany you saw the militarization, the buildup, but it's going to turn into that, folks, it always does. That's the end is it turns militaristic, not just from a legal point of view. You know Hitler used the law up until the point where he didn't need the law anymore, and that's the same path we're on the left is using. They're abusing it. Hitler abused it. They're abusing it. They're twisting it to mean and they have been, it goes all the way back to 1947, that separation of church and state. They took that line out of a letter by Thomas Jefferson, who wasn't even at the constitutional convention, to twist it to mean something that Jefferson didn't mean, to use it to make the First Amendment mean something it never meant. So you're seeing the same abusive. This is just a much longer game than Germany in the 30s but the results going to be so much more catastrophic. It really will be folks going back into the dark ages if America falls internally.

Speaker 1: 19:35

There's a quote real quick here by a few. It's by a British Lieutenant Colonel. He said I dined with four young Nazi students a week ago. They had been sent over to tell England what the Hitler movement was doing to the youth of Germany. It all sounded very unpleasant, though they seemed to like it. They made no secret of their belief that within three or four years Germany would be at war. Another quote earlier up here everywhere and at all times of the day and night, there were troops marching, drilling, singing. You see these same attacks on our children, the same focus on our kids today, and it's been for decades.

Speaker 1: 20:16

Folks, we're getting to the same point. It's just taken a lot longer to get there and the result is going to be so much worse Because you won't have any America to stand against our own fall. There won't be anybody to come to save the day, and we may be at that point, god may say you know what y'all had your moment. God bless y'all. God bless your families. God bless your marriages. God bless America. We'll talk to y'all again real soon. Folks Looking forward to it.