History repeats itself.  Those who do not take its lessons must learn them all over again, and painfully.  The current tumult facing President Trump is vastly more complex than the headlines suggest, and the consequences of failing to heed the lessons of the past will bring us the same degree of pain – and risk – as were heaped upon the United States during the tenure of President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s and '40s.

The Pacific War 1941-1945, by John Costello, might more aptly be titled with the years 1841-1945, because it grippingly traces the roots of that war to the complex and convoluted factors that produced it.  Economics and profiteering, statesmanship and politics, military courage and careerist cowardice – all played roles in the weaving of a fabric that eventually unraveled into worldwide tragedy.

Here is an excerpt:

The President's State of the Union message in January 1936 was full of gloom.  Japan had walked out of the Naval Limitation talks; Italian troops were marching through Ethiopia and the Nazis had assassinated the Austrian Chancellor, prompting Roosevelt's warning[.] ... [H]e was asking Congress for the biggest naval appropriations in history for "prudent" self-defense.  A storm of opposition was organized by isolationists and pacifists.  A million signatures were collected by the People's Mandate to End War; 50,000 veterans staged a "March for Peace" in front of the White House; and children organized a classroom strike to demand "schools, not battleships. (p. 50)

President Trump must navigate the nation through waters no less treacherous than those that led to Pearl Harbor and the nuclear bombing of Japan.

We are in a world where terrorist nations are arming with nuclear weapons at our expense!  Armies of foreigners are marching toward our borders, demanding access not only to our land, but to our treasury and its generous programs of welfare.  Undoubtedly, hundreds of American citizens will be killed, raped, or otherwise traumatized by the worst of these aliens, who will themselves be protected by sanctuary cities.  Insanity on a massive scale has seized the minds of something like half the population.

It boggles the mind as to how anyone could manage an entire nation during such an era.  We can be grateful that the president's mind is not easily boggled.  He has seen clearly through the smokescreens with which the left is obscuring the dangers.

In the 1930s, there were those who clearly predicted the onset of the Second World War.  Harold B. Rugg wrote about it in 1932, and before him, there were numerous statesmen and generals who grimly warned that if preparations were not made, thousands would needlessly die.

Today, we are being warned that if we do not secure our borders, make citizenship mean something, and restore patriotic devotion, then we will literally lose our nation.  Many scoff at such warnings, but too many of the scoffers look forward with fondness to the day when America will collapse and socialist authoritarians will rule our lives.

"Schools, not battleships" sounds so sensible and moral.  While those words were being spoken, the Imperial Japanese Navy was on its way to our shores.  Millions were soon to die.