Have We Started World War 3?

If you wanted to start a world war, history suggests that the proper procedure would be: institute tariffs; stir up nationalistic fervor; insult world leaders who don’t agree with you; find an economic cataclysm (unaffordable housing would do nicely)…and perform a high-level assassination. Kevin and Bill discuss America’s historic decision to assassinate a foreign leader — and what it means for the world we live in.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to Generations. Folks, this is Kevin Swanson with more history for you. A history lesson from the last 24 hours, or at least from the last week. The Iran War is off and running. Let's review 25 years of presidents operating the International Police Force scoreboard for U.S. presidents. In terms of military interventions, George Bush the Younger, five nations. Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. Joe Biden and the Autopen, scoreboard five nations. Barack Obama went for seven military interventions. Donald Trump gets the award thus far, ten nations. Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen. That's ten for ten thus far. He's been at this for like a year, I think. I guess you have to do something with your 845 military bases stationed in 90 countries around the world today. It's a fair amount of policing on the part of the Empire. Keep in mind Iran's cruise missiles are capable of hitting Egypt and Bulgaria, a twelve hundred mile radius from Tehran. Very dangerous. Now, we have an obligation to protect American borders, that's for sure. So let's stay on it, guys. Here's another first in American history as well. American presidents have ordered the knocking off of a foreign leader of state. Now, this is the first time that's happened. The deliberate assassination of a nation's leader. I believe you'll never find another one in modern history. We have entered a new territory in the age of strongmen politics and warcraft. Throughout history, you find the lives of kings often spared as the armies of the respective nations went after each other. In biblical record, the kings are often spared in the conflicts. They may be put to attacks as coming under control of the dominant nation, but the lives of kings were often spared. Agag was an exception. God required total annihilation of the Amalekites by divine dictate. Now, why spare the lives of kings? The answer I think is obvious. Cutting off the heads of kings risks everybody's head. Cutting off the heads of kings risks revolution and civil unrest that could go on for a century or more. Cutting off the head of a king doesn't mark the end of a war. It marks the beginning of a war that will never end, at least for the foreseeable future. If the world begins the habit of knocking off presidents and prime ministers, there's no end to the kind of chaos that could lead to. Nobody's safe. Paranoia, fear increases. Some assassinations occur by a national player who's not happy with the government for one reason or another. This can produce some level of instability for a nation. For example, when Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981, Egypt entered prolonged emergency rule. And when Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995, that would reshape Israeli politics for decades. But assassinations ordered by a foreign country, it's a whole new game. Trust between nations is compromised, the rules change, the diplomacy has less import. Now I'm not one to call the shots and state issues. I may question the wisdom of some policy or other, but it's not for me to Monday morning quarterback every decision made in Washington. The first proposition every Christian needs, though, is to subscribe to this. God is sovereign. God raises up kings and presidents and brings them down. God makes desolations of wars on the earth and he breaks the spear and sunder and casts the chariot in the fire. But right now, humans play a role here as well. So if in the hypothetical sense I wanted to start a world war, what would I do? Chat GPT that. Or better, just study history. You've got to knock over the first domino. So how would we do this? Okay, first. I would start with something like the Smut Hollett Tariff Act that seemed to work for World War II. Tariffs. It's always a good idea. Now, second, a high-level assassination. Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, kicked off World War I. Then here's one more thing. Insult every war leader who doesn't agree with you. And create an extreme level of nationalistic fervor. Build up armies, rattle your nuclear armaments, and get a race going. And then finally, you need to get a catalyst operating. That's an economic cataclysm. Always an economic cataclysm. Gotta have an economic cataclysm. A Great Depression helps. Not sure how to pull this one off. But you'd have to get government debt to GDP ratios as high as possible and run the derivative markets as high as you can possibly run it. Like$850 trillion up from$10 trillion in 1990, that's like an 85-fold increase on derivatives. That will help to create some instability. Housing now five times the median income, up from three times the median income 25 years ago. So the bubbles help as well. The buffet indicator is running twice what it was during the dot-com crisis, about 200% the risk as to what we were looking at 25 years ago. So tick, tick, tick. What's the ticking noise? Step one, step two, step three, step four, step five, working on it. How do you get a world war going? These things don't happen overnight. So keep in mind, first and foremost, God is in control of all of this. And Jesus is over all things to the church. It's hard to imagine this, perhaps, but this will help the church in one way or another. All of these desolations in the earth are helpful to the church, whether it's in Iran or around the world, the desolations, the shake in the world, it really does help so that that which cannot be shaken may remain. But wisdom is at a premium here, especially when it comes to government. Okay. A few things to watch out for in the geopolitical scene. One, if a nuclear state feels regime survival is threatened, deterrence thresholds will lower. Also, the fog of war can cause a mystery to radar signals and retaliatory doctrines, which might increase risks for future warfare. Also, leaders sometimes escalate externally to stabilize internal legitimacy. So that plays in as well. In some regimes, retaliation becomes symbolically mandatory in order to retain honor. And don't forget the fadwas. The religious motive still lurks, especially in the Islamic republics. We also uh pay attention to the security dilemma spiral, which works out like this. State A eliminates a leader to increase security. State B feels existentially threatened, State B mobilizes or retaliates, State A interprets mobilization as preparation for war, escalation then accelerates, and this dynamic has typically led to major wars. Also, FYI, keep this in mind, the Doomsday Clock, which we have been monitoring for the last 20 years or so of this ministry. The Doomsday Clock is now registering 85 seconds as of January 2026. That's down from 17 minutes in 1992 and five minutes in 2012. Recent estimates put China's spending on its nuclear arsenal at 12.5 to 14 billion dollars for 2024 and 2025. That's on the increase. The communist country is now outspending every nation except the U.S. Recent news reports also point to Russia's development of a nuclear weapon to be detonated in space. It's supposed to do something for shutting down electronics. And just yesterday, France's president Emmanuel Macron announced plans to increase the size of their nuclear arsenal as the second nuclear arms race progresses in the twenty-first century. Psalm 46 instructs us as well. But now, as Americans, here's the most important thing to watch. Not necessarily the geopolitics or how the state is working out. What we really need to focus on is this. When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. And the question remains: has this nation repented? Why are abortion rates still in the increase? Why do the Republicans remove the pro-life language from the national platform? And nothing is slowing down about the sexual perversion issue in this country today. Addressing the problem of transgender 12-year-olds is big on the list of conservatives. But that's only a perfunctor, superficial, meaningless, symbolic kind of move. That's not going to move the dial from the divine perspective. Will we delay God's judgment on this nation? It's hard to imagine this point. But let's prepare for the reshuffling of the cards. Let's prepare our children. Let's root and ground them in the fear of God and a biblical worldview for the future. That's why my new book, Under God, a battle plan for reforming civil governments. Okay, so today, Assassinations, Interventions, and the Second Nuclear Arms Race on Generations with Bill Jack in studio. Bill, I have to say that as I was watching it on Saturday, and it it turns out that, you know, some of these wars are kicked off on Saturdays, which is convenient for me because then I can take a little extra time and revisit what's going on. So I hate to say it, but I'm something of a spectator. I think many of us are. Now, I might have a you know 60% probability that it's not in my mind, but I'm not going to make a call on it. I mean, if if you're a Monday morning quarterback, at least you have access to watching the game. You don't really have access to all the intel that's happening.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Nor do you have access to the playbook. Yeah, exactly. Uh Monday morning quarterbacks usually study the game. So um they've they've had either experience as a player in the game, right? And or they've studied it and they they've coached. But in this instance, uh I'm not I'm not qualified to do that.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Yeah, you're not a money quarterback either on on these state issues. And yet, can Christians still say that our government has a Romans 13 responsibility to defend the nation. We can say that, right? And that's obvious.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

And that's the point. I mean, we can take a 30,000-foot view. Yeah. And then we can work our way down into examining the particulars. But um I'm gonna take exception with with something that you said, if I if I heard you correctly, that the uh the killing or execution of a king usually begins a war rather than concludes a war. Um, because I was I was thinking of there's I'm gonna give five instances out of scripture. Uh Joshua 10, 16 through 27, the five Amorite kings. Okay. Uh Joshua led the Israelites in against a coalition of five Amorite kings who had attacked Gibeon, an ally of Israel. Okay. Kings fled, hid in a cave at Makeda, and he commanded the cave to be sealed up. They, after the victory, he ordered the kings brought out, and he uh had the commanders put their feet on it, their necks and off with their heads.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

So I totally agree that you know God's mandate to take the Canaan, the promised land, was absolutely uniquely established by God. In fact, he required, he required the obliteration of man, woman, and child and kings and all the adults, and all the kings, um, in order to uh bring his personal judgment upon the land of Canaan. But as I see that, that's an exception in history.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Well, I'm gonna go to Agag, king of the Amalekites. King Saul was commanded. Okay. You mentioned Agag.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

That was divinely required by God in that case, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

And then the kings of Midian in Numbers 31. Yeah, same issue, right? Kings of Midian, um, they were commanded by God to take vengeance on the Midianites for leading Israel into idolatry.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

I think modern warfare is different. I think it's more subject to Deuteronomy 20 than it is to Deuteronomy 26. It says that uh that that you ought to offer um before you slaughter this the city, offer opportunities for the st the city to come under the uh taxing authority of the dominant nation, which in that case would be Israel. Okay, so let's take a look.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Let's take a look at that one.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

There are exceptions, yes. Yeah there are exceptions, but I think uh generally speaking, I think what you'll find in history is it it it takes a bare a fair amount of wisdom to make a call as to whether you're gonna assassinate a king. How come uh there haven't been that many assassinations? You gotta say it has to be a wisdom call. It has to be a wisdom call. And so I'm not saying that this was completely unwise. Again, I'm not being a Monday morning quarterback, but I'm saying that these are the sorts of things that stimulate uh some real long-standing animosities between nations.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Well, uh there are several things I want to I want to address on that. And and that is there is a history of Iran, the current administration since the fall of the Shah back in 79. There are many instances where Iran has has been aggressive, has murdered American citizens, American military personnel, and we've we've slapped wrists. So it there's an there's an argument for this is a this is the straw that broke the camel's back, and it is retribution. Yeah. Uh let's go back to the two final instances of kings that were executed. Um Zedekiah, last king of Judah. Nebuchadnezzar, uh, despite the warnings from the prophets, prophet Jeremiah, uh, Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem. Zedekiah attempted to flee, was captured. He ordered the execution of Zedekiah's sons before his eyes, and then Zedekiah's eyes were put out. He was taken and changed to Babylon.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Okay, it's a it was because he was You have multiple instances in which Zedekiah, Manasseh's life were were both saved by the king of Babylon. It's really interesting to me that generally it's the exception for the slaughter of the king himself.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

And then the kings of Canaan. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

And you have these instances, you have instances in which that happened. But it's a question of wisdom. It's a question of wisdom, whether or not to do it.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

I don't think it starts wars necessarily. I mean, there are cases World War I was started by the assassination of the Archduke, you know. But for the most part, uh this and and here's another another thought, and that is that uh this these are not just political leaders, these were the religious leaders. Oh, I know. And they were they are enemies of Christianity.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Oh, I know they are.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

They are hostile to Christ. Oh, I know they are, and they make no bones about that. And so it is it is uh it's equivalent to the crusades in in some ways that this is not just a toppling of a regime that seems to be hostile and has committed atrocities against our nation, but this is a a moral and spiritual war. And that makes a lot of people nervous. Oh, I know it does.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Probably one of the most significant moves we have seen in a long time in terms of statecraft.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

And you're you're correct that this could trigger the idea that we are backed into a corner. You know, the Ayatollahs are saying we're backed into a corner, we're gonna go out in a blaze of glory. And this is this is our fulfillment of bringing back their messiah, if you will. Um, there was a book, and I've referred to it uh before, Why Civilizations Die and Why Islam is dying too. And in the book, he talks about how the birth rate in Iraq, Iran, in Muslim rel um rural countries is plummeting. The average Iranian woman uh of childbearing age grew up with like seven siblings, but now she's only having two children. Oh, yeah. And so they see this as they're losing, and so it doesn't make them less dangerous, it makes them more dangerous because they think we will go out in a blaze of glory. So you're correct, I think, in that there's a danger of pulling the nuclear trigger.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

There's a ton of pressures now upon the international scene. And again, I'm not again not making a call as to whether or not the President of the United States is doing the wrong or the right thing, but I am saying that the effect of this is destabilizing the world.

unknown 18:13

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

And as wars always do.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

As they do. And and the economic situation is extremely destabilizing as well. Now let's talk about um the United States interventions. United States has intervened militarily or covertly 390 times since 1776. And we are a pretty big guy in the world. We're the biggest guy by a long shot. I think we're four to five to six times the military budget of, say, China.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

We actually are the question becomes should we be the world's policeman?

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Yeah, and and how does it work out to uh to reconstruct nations and provide stable, long-lasting governments? And this has been somewhat rare in some places around the world. You think of Japan or you think of Germany after World War II, America contributed to the rebuilding of these nations and somewhat successfully.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

But I think it had something to do with this the quality of the people involved. Uh you know, it's when you talk about banana republics and Islamic republics. Uh, I'm talking about Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Nicaragua, Iran, Iraq, Haiti, Lebanon, Syria. How would you like to run in there and tell them what to do? Here, let me rebuild your country for you. Go ahead, Bill. Why don't you just head on out there? We'll get you a passport. That was the mission out there to rebuild these nations. We have a response to that. What's your response to that?

SPEAKER_02 19:39

That's the mistake that that George Bush made when he when he thought he could export democracy. He didn't understand or he discounted the world view of those people, of those that those nations. And you can't just overlay a democratic form of government onto a totalian, totalitarian uh system such as Islam. And so it was a mistake. Now there are there are punitive repercussions that that we've taken and uh here in Iran. Um I'm thinking of Grenada. I uh you know, when Reagan uh invaded Grenada, we didn't go in and try to establish uh a new government. So how did that work out? I I would say that would be an exception to the ones you listed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Oh yeah, but but you're still not talking total banana republic. You're not talking so much an Iran, a Muslim nation which tyranny is playing off on anarchy. And again, I see there to be two problems in places like Nicaragua or Venezuela or Colombia or or these Islamic nations. Uh I would say the problem is tyranny, but tyranny that plays off on anarchy, and anarchy plays off on tyranny, hence the terrorism, hence the instabilities that exist and are throughout the Islamic nations and uh throughout so many of these uh Southern uh South American nations. And so uh here's here's the issue. The issue is that these nations, these Muslim nations, these pagan hell holes, they have not been properly discipled by the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of them have been left to the Muslims, some to the Catholics who did a very lousy job at this. And some to paganism. You take something like Brazil. Brazil's doing better. Argentina is doing better, but I think because Protestantism and evangelicalism actually made it there. Uh Protestantism, evangelicalism has been almost a total failure in Venezuela. I mean, it's they've they've attempted, they're doing something, but they haven't made much progress. And consequently, consequently, you're looking at a fairly high degree of anarchy/slash tyranny in nations where there has been very poor uh implementation of gospel discipleship in the Great Commission.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

I would say there's a exception.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

There are reasons.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

There are reasons for that. Yeah, there's an exception to that. You should be very familiar with this. That is Japan. Japan has an exception. Right. They, because of their their their world view at the time, which was that if you were defeated, then your enemy was superior and you should mimic or imitate or adopt the policies of your enemy. And they did so on the industrial side, on the economic front. But we as a nation failed to rebuild Japan with the gospel. You were part of Your family was part of doing that. We sent very few missionaries over there because there was such a hostility that the churches here did not respond properly. And as a result, what is it, less than one percent of Japanese are Christians? Yeah. And and as a result, we're seeing that there was a stability brought about by our rebuilding, but we didn't lay the foundation for long-term.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Certainly economically, Japan is failing and has since the 1990s. Probably the worst-case nation in the world right now for economic problems. But uh, because they lack a biblical worldview. There is something about the Eastern countries that I think were influenced by Christianity through the years. I think it's uh hard to identify exactly where, but there were instances in which they were influenced by the Christian faith. And Nestorians were extremely influential in China and maybe even Korea early on in the first six or seven or eight centuries.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

We stopped the practice of sati in India.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Yeah, and that would have been the 19th century. But but even back into the seventh and eighth centuries, Nestorian Christianity made it across. And I I deal with that in preparing the world for Jesus. So because I think that's a data point. Uh to the extent that the Japanese have been influenced by the West, and and uh they've been influenced, I think, by the Judeo-Christian ethic.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

I'd say the Protestant world.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

All the way back. And even the Protestant ethic post you know 17th century, um, or post-19th century, really, because Protestantism didn't make it there till after Perry. So and and and the fact that the Japanese are good at copying. They're very good at copying. Because of their worldview. Because, yeah, and and because of the influence of Protestant America since the uh 1940s, 1950s. So, yeah, America has been somewhat successful in some nations, not so successful in others. I do think the gospel is critical, though. You know, how in the world are you going to see nations like Iran or Iraq stabilized with decent government? I don't think it's just imposing democratic socialist ideals, humanistic ideals. Just get more Hollywood into Iran. Maybe that will fix them.

SPEAKER_02 24:57

Yes. What happens is when when we are at war, we do drop bombs, we do uh send in weaponry, but we need to follow it after the cessation of hostility with dropping the gospel. We need to drop the leaflets of the Bible everywhere in the culture. We need to send missionaries in. And that is Well, that's what MacArthur did for Japan. Yes, he tried to. He tried to the American church didn't respond well.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Well, we did. My dad came largely because of MacArthur's call back in the 1950s.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

He understood, he understood their mindset. Their mindset was if you're a defeated enemy, you your enemy must be superior. You should adopt what they are, their worldview. And so they did partially, but not all the way. And but with Islam, it's different. It's much different. Yeah, it's much tougher to get in there, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

And so how in the world are we going to transform Afghanistan? Libya, Somalia, Nicaragua, Iran, Iraq, Haiti, Lebanon, Syria, uh, maybe Haiti, but boy, trying to get into some of these Islamic nations is nigh unto impossible.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Because it's a war of ideas, not just a war of weapons. And the that ideas do have consequences. And I believe that Islam is just so demonic that it's going to take a concerted effort on the part of our nation to to penetrate it with the gospel, not just drop bombs. We need to drop Bibles.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Yeah. Okay. Amen to that. And it will take an act of God. I mean, it's gonna be more than Trump. It's got to take an act of God to break down those hostilities and bring the gospel to it.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

God may be using Trump like he used Nebuchadnezzar. Yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Well, friends, I encourage you to my new book, which uh is coming out shortly. It's called uh Under God. Under God. Every nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all. Jesus Christ is Lord of all, he's king of kings. Every Christian in the world believes this. And every nation is under God's sovereign rule and therefore bound to serve the king. Every civil ruler in the world should kiss the sun lest they perish from the way. That's Psalm 2. Here at the end of the secular age, when humanism and its political derivatives of socialism and communism have proven miserable failures, where will the nations go from here? After the bankrupted economic theories of Marx and Keynes have finished their ruinous course, and after the revolutions and world wars have scorched the whole earth, what comes next? The last two centuries have played out more iterations of the Lord Christ bringing his enemies under his footstool. Now, once more, Christians in every country on earth are called to be the salt of the earth. So what's the agenda? Well, my book, Under God, contains a comprehensive battlefield manual intended for instructing and equipping God's people for full bore engagement in order to reform the political state. In America, yes, but every nation on earth. This handbook is intended to apply the Word of God, the scriptures of the Old New Testaments, to equip the man and woman and all children of God for every good work in the realm of the civil state. Topics covered in this resource: America's godly heritage, God's law versus natural law, maximizing liberty, relationship of church and state, drugs, pornography, prostitution, strategies of political action, torture, strongman governments, biblical principles for courts, sphere jurisdictions, social justice, God's law, tyranny and anarchy, internationalism, nationalism, Christian nationalism, conspiracies, prepping, civil obedience, disobedience, fleeing, monarchy, democracy, and republics, media distortions, diversions, U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Biblical Economics, as well as Keynesian economics, pro-life strategies, IVF, Brave New Science, History of Governments, The Administrative State, The Better of Two Evils, Multiculturalism, Capital Punishment, Biblical Principles of Warfare, Weapons of Mass Destruction, the Character of Godly Leaders, and How to Prepare the Next Generation of Leadership. That, my friends, is a new book that's coming out just a month from now. It's called Under God, soon to be available at generations.org. This is Kevin Swanson and Bill Jack, inviting you back again next time as we continue to lay down a vision for the next generation. This has been a production of the Generations Media Network. For more information, go to generations.org/slash media.