October 16, 2025
Wars and Rumors of Wars
By J.B. Shurk
The older I get, the more suspiciously I look at the causes of war. This is natural. Young people — especially young men — are incapable of properly evaluating risk. Though they are rebellious, they also follow orders from authority figures. There is a reason why eighteen-year-olds are sent over embankments to cross open fields on the frontlines: They can be convinced to pursue success and ignore mortality. Courageous young men look right past danger. Only years later do they ask themselves, “Why the hell did I do that?”
There is no question that we are being psychologically prepped for a great and terrible war. Whether you are a civilian, veteran, or active service member, you surely have heard over the last ten years at least one commanding officer describe publicly the likelihood of a U.S.-China war or wider WWIII in the near future.
European politicians have been instructing their citizens to prepare for a full-on military conflict with Russian forces since the current war in Ukraine began. Such civilian war preparations have not been limited to the Baltic states, Finland, or Poland. France and the United Kingdom have spent the last several years conditioning citizens to expect bloodshed with the Russian Federation.
During the half-century Cold War, violence operated mainly in the shadows and through “proxies” so that the United States and the Soviet Union could at least pretend they were not directly fighting one another. Such was the shared fear of nuclear weapons — and of mutually assured destruction — that even bitter enemies did what they could to limit runaway escalation. The Moscow-Washington hotline — or what Hollywood mythologized as the doom-averting “red phone” — was established because both sides understood the stakes of WWIII.
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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/10/wars_and_rumors_of_wars.html
