(1/2) America at War... with the World and Itself
Over the last month, the single question that readers have most often asked of me—and this is in explicit reference to my recent book—is whether I think the current Fourth Turning will climax around internal or external conflict. In Chapter 7 of The Fourth Turning Is Here, these scenarios appear under the rubric of “Civil War” versus “Great Power War.” Looking at the historical track record, I emphasized that both threats typically overlap and rise together over the course of the Fourth Turning and that we often have few clues about which way events will fall until the climax or Ekpyrosis is near.
Look around at the events of the last four or five weeks. They point toward just this pattern. External or internal? I think the risks of each have risen pretty much in tandem, like two racehorses accelerating while pulling out of the far bend.
Let’s look first at what’s happening in the world.
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the world took a big step toward its current polarization into Western and anti-Western camps. In the wake of that invasion, four dictatorships that previously had only casual ties with each other—Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea—gathered together into something close to an axis of mutual cooperation and support, dedicated to rallying other nations with grievances against America and its allies.
With the Hamas attack on Israel last month (on October 7, 2023), the world took a further big step in the same direction. The Israel-Hamas war has many losers: It will result in misery and death for thousands of Israelis and Palestinians; it will result in the destruction of most Hamas leaders and (likely) exile for the rest; it will result in renewed instability for the unstable pro-Western monarchs and autocrats who rule the Arab world. But it also has many winners, first and foremost Iran, who stands to win no matter what happens to Hamas. By daring to take action, Iran has inspired its proxy allies throughout the Mideast, from the Houthis in Yemen to Hezbollah in Lebanon. By rousing the Arab street, it has thrust a giant wedge between America and the conservative Arab states that had so recently been gravitating toward an alliance with Israel. And by glorying in Hamas’s bloody massacre, it humiliated the Biden administration, which had been laboring for years to buy Iranian goodwill.
The good news for Iran, moreover, has been rippling outward into yet more welcome developments within the broader anti-Western camp. With Putin and Xi embracing Hamas delegates in Beijing and Moscow, Russia and China are now using the Palestinian cause to open up a whole new anticolonial front against America in the Mideast and Africa. And maybe even further, among Muslim suburbs in Western Europe or even among Ivy League American campuses. Relieved that the Western spotlight has moved away from Ukraine and Taiwan, both leaders are amping up antisemitic social media campaigns at home while getting back to work supporting anti-Western insurgents in the Sahel or harassing pro-Western governments just beyond the second island chain.
Back just before the pandemic when the West waged war against ISIS—it seems so long ago!—both Putin and Xi still lent the Western cause at least nominal support. They did so, perhaps, for no other reason than to tell America to mind its own business when they brutally suppressed their own terrorists (Chechens or Uyghurs). No longer. The pretense of universal standards of conduct that transcend the divide between West and anti-West is rapidly disappearing altogether.
As nations increasingly sort themselves into one or another of these two camps, we may expect, as happened during the 1930s, that it will become ever harder to remain uncommitted. Like wavering magnets, heretofore neutral nations may have no other choice but to flip one way or the other. In the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, the direction of two middling powers will be of special interest: Turkey (which under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appears to be pulling toward Hamas) and India (which under Narendra Modi appears to be pulling toward Israel).
OK, so much for the global outlook. Now let’s look at what’s happening at home.