Third of a seven-part series
WORLD War III — Is that what humanity is marching toward?
Three years ago, world-war fears already stirred over what was then a year-old Russian invasion of Ukraine possibly igniting direct conflict between Moscow — packing the most atomic warheads on the planet — and the Washington-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which includes the nuclear-armed United States, United Kingdom and France.
Today, while the US under President Donald Trump has ended his predecessor’s policy of aggressively confronting Russia over Ukraine, America has twice joined Israel in attacking Iran — allied with Russia and China — while treacherously negotiating over Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Hence, this third part of our Lenten reflections ponders whether there is any chance at all that the world would halt the arms race — symbolized by the Second Horseman of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation — and heed our Lord’s words of peace and fraternity in the March 8 Mass readings for the Third Sunday of Lent and the third of his Seven Last Words on the Cross.
Actually, the planet’s mega powers might just see reason to seek harmony, not harm.
Blind and defenseless
For starters, President Trump already backed away from full-scale war with Iran just last June, when Israel’s first surprise assault against Iranian leaders and rocket forces led to the near-exhaustion of Israeli and Western defensive projectiles against Iran’s massive ballistic and drone counterattack.
Now, the US and Israel may see a repeat of air defenses gravely degraded — plus America’s regional air bases and allies pummeled by Iranian attacks, with even more feared after US rocket-tracking radar installations were taken out. That has blinded American defenses that once could detect and stop projectiles dozens of miles away.
Indeed, Trump reportedly offered a ceasefire and even wrongly claimed that Tehran wanted talks, “but it’s too late.” In fact, the Iranians don’t want negotiations after Israel and America twice attacked amid negotiations, as Tokyo did to Pearl Harbor while talking to Washington in 1941.
With its bases in the Middle East badly damaged and its aircraft carriers fearful of sailing within range of Iranian projectiles and drones, the US is having to mount bombing sorties from as far away as the Azores in the Atlantic after Spain refused to let American warplanes use bases on its territory.
Bottom line: Western armaments have not stopped Russian forces in Ukraine or collapsed Iran’s regime and military within days. Instead, America and its allies may well be near-defenseless against Moscow and Tehran’s ballistic systems, especially the hypersonic missiles the West lacks. Plus, Russia and Iran are squeezing oil and gas flows, escalating energy costs for Western and allied nations.
The red Horseman rides
The West’s comeuppance might just make the world’s arms racers begin to doubt their blind faith that weapons bring lasting peace and power.
That reliance on armies and armaments has burned over $2 trillion annually since 2021, led by top defense spender and weapons exporter Uncle Sam. It may well fulfill the unleashing of the Second Horseman of the Apocalypse, symbolizing war and riding a scarlet steed in the last volume of the Bible, attributed to Saint John the Evangelist:
“I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” And out came another horse, bright red; its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that men should slay one another; and he was given a great sword” (Rev 6:3–4).
War seeks to dominate or destroy enemies, not dialogue with them. None of the banter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman in the March 8 Mass Gospel reading, also from Saint John (Jn 4:5–42). Asking for water, our Lord cut through centuries of animosity between Jews and Samaritans, prompting the woman at the well to wonder: “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”
Plainly, instead of harmony and understanding, the red steed-riding horseman of war prods nations to expand arsenals with bigger guns, nastier bombs and otherwise far more fearsome and harder-to-stop weaponry than their enemies have. That inevitably sparks fear, suspicion and aggression among adversaries striving to outgun one another.
Plus, rival powers have weaponized money and merchandise with Western sanctions on Russian petroleum and banks and Russian and Chinese restrictions on energy and mineral shipments to the West, plus Iran’s threats against the 20 percent of petroleum exports worldwide traversing the Strait of Hormuz.
Brethren, not breathless
This worldwide armed escalation makes any call for dialogue and harmony sound naïve, quixotic and dumb. Until war crushes those worshiping weaponry — as the West may suffer waging war on Iran and, God forbid, on Russia and China.
By his Passion and Death, Christ showed his opposition to military might. The Jews, who rejected him for not being the all-conquering messiah they hoped for, saw their city Jerusalem destroyed and their nation dispersed by Roman troops in the year 70. Rome itself was sacked in 410, leading to the end of the western half of its empire in 476, suffering the fate of countless potentates through millennia.
As our Lord admonished during his arrest in Gethsemane, “all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” Against man’s self-destructive urge to wage war, the third of Jesus’ Seven Last Words extolled universal fraternity, giving his mother Mary to all humanity, just as he taught us to pray to one Father in heaven: “’Woman, behold your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold your mother!’”
The same call to worldwide family as redeemed children of God and brethren of His Son emerges in the second Mass reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans (Rom 5:1–2, 5–8): “... the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For Christ, while we were still helpless, died at the appointed time for the ungodly.”
May our world not have to learn the hard, bloody way what truly brings peace.