1 00:00:00,410 --> 00:00:06,959 From when America's armed forces entered World War I in 1917 until today, the United States 2 00:00:06,959 --> 00:00:12,339 military has repeatedly made the difference between Civilization and Barbarism. 3 00:00:12,420 --> 00:00:19,420 It's no exaggeration to say that a militarily strong America is the one indispensable prerequisite 4 00:00:19,420 --> 00:00:26,019 for a peaceful and prosperous world. The witness of history, as well as our own common sense, 5 00:00:26,019 --> 00:00:32,270 bear testament to the fact that when America's armed forces are powerful, focused and feared, 6 00:00:32,270 --> 00:00:38,500 the globe is a better place than when she is weak, unprepared and vacillating. 7 00:00:38,500 --> 00:00:45,200 In the past century alone there have been four great threats made to peace, democracy and freedom. 8 00:00:45,280 --> 00:00:50,180 Each of them have come from enemies that hate and fear what the United States stands for, 9 00:00:50,220 --> 00:00:55,460 as laid down in her Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights. 10 00:00:55,600 --> 00:01:01,580 Three of these have come from differing mutations of Fascism, and one from its totalitarian twin, 11 00:01:01,720 --> 00:01:06,880 Communism. In each case it has been the US military that has been a principal 12 00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:13,550 force protecting the Free World from the tyranny these threats have sought to impose. 13 00:01:13,550 --> 00:01:18,270 The First World War sprung from Germany's bid for hegemony over Europe and was powered 14 00:01:18,270 --> 00:01:25,270 by a Prussian military machine that was proto-Fascist in its outlooks, ambitions and assumptions. 15 00:01:25,380 --> 00:01:30,510 When the discovery of the infamous Zimmerman Telegram revealed that Germany wanted to extend 16 00:01:30,510 --> 00:01:35,940 the War even into the American heartland, the Wilson Administration sent hundreds of 17 00:01:35,940 --> 00:01:41,630 thousands of young American recruits -- nicknamed 'doughboys' -- onto the battlefields of Europe, 18 00:01:41,630 --> 00:01:44,530 and tipped the balance in the Allies' favor. 19 00:01:44,580 --> 00:01:50,220 25 years later, the American armed forces were again fighting against the second mutation 20 00:01:50,220 --> 00:01:56,680 of Fascist ideology -- as espoused by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. 21 00:01:56,800 --> 00:02:03,160 On battlefields as distant from America as tiny islands in the south Pacific, picturesque villages in 22 00:02:03,160 --> 00:02:08,050 Italy and desolate towns in Northern Africa as well as on the sea in the Atlantic and 23 00:02:08,050 --> 00:02:14,650 in the skies over Germany, the American armed forces made another invaluable contribution to victory. 24 00:02:14,740 --> 00:02:21,080 Yet the fight for freedom wasn't over. Almost as soon as WWII ended a new threat arose, 25 00:02:21,080 --> 00:02:27,780 the Red Fascist version of totalitarianism -- Soviet Communism. It soon cast its shadow 26 00:02:27,780 --> 00:02:34,580 over Eastern Europe as well as parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. American military might, 27 00:02:34,640 --> 00:02:39,880 deployed intelligently and globally, played the key role in neutralizing and then 28 00:02:39,880 --> 00:02:46,050 ultimately bankrupting that terrible menace to the Free World. When victory in the Cold 29 00:02:46,050 --> 00:02:52,350 War in the late 1980s and early 1990s finally came under the presidencies of Ronald Reagan 30 00:02:52,350 --> 00:02:57,440 and George H. W. Bush, it was because the US armed forces were kept strong enough 31 00:02:57,440 --> 00:03:05,020 to deal with the ceaseless probing and provocations of the Soviet Union over nearly half a century. 32 00:03:05,120 --> 00:03:11,580 Since 9/11 the world has been faced with yet another mutation of Fascism, fundamentalist 33 00:03:11,580 --> 00:03:17,420 Islamist terrorism. Taking on many of the features of earlier Fascist movements -- 34 00:03:17,500 --> 00:03:23,220 hatred of democracy and Christianity, a fanatical anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, 35 00:03:23,300 --> 00:03:30,060 and a desire for utter uniformity -- the Islamist terror movement has caused death and destruction 36 00:03:30,069 --> 00:03:37,669 wherever it has appeared. The Fascist bacillus has mutated yet again, but it is alive and well. 37 00:03:37,800 --> 00:03:43,860 And yet again, the traditional antidote, the American military, has taken up the task. 38 00:03:43,860 --> 00:03:50,410 By taking on the forces of Terror in full-scale wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US made 39 00:03:50,410 --> 00:03:55,420 it clear that it would not permit Fascism to triumph in our time, any more than earlier 40 00:03:55,420 --> 00:03:59,849 generations of Americans permitted it to in theirs. 41 00:03:59,849 --> 00:04:05,440 All this has come at great cost -- in lives and money. The cost of these precious lives, 42 00:04:05,440 --> 00:04:12,069 men and women, fighting for others freedom far from their homes, can never be repaid. 43 00:04:12,069 --> 00:04:17,349 But the money -- a defense budget that is by far the largest in the world -- has been well spent. 44 00:04:17,500 --> 00:04:23,000 It has protected the honor, power and prestige of the USA, upon which the cause 45 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:26,030 of freedom ultimately relies. 46 00:04:26,030 --> 00:04:30,740 When the US armed forces are weak -- as they were before the Second World War, when America 47 00:04:30,740 --> 00:04:36,180 had only the 14th largest army in the world -- the likes of Adolf Hitler are encouraged 48 00:04:36,180 --> 00:04:43,030 to make larger and larger demands. When US armed forces are strong, however, even a superpower 49 00:04:43,030 --> 00:04:49,070 like the Soviet Union has to acknowledge its own internal contradictions and inability 50 00:04:49,070 --> 00:04:55,130 to overawe the West. With China rearming massively and posing a growing threat to Western interests 51 00:04:55,130 --> 00:05:00,410 and values around the world, and the threat of Islamist fascism still upon us, it is well 52 00:05:00,410 --> 00:05:05,900 to learn the central lesson of the past half-century of human experience, which is that for her 53 00:05:05,900 --> 00:05:12,210 own sake and that of those who love freedom everywhere, the United States must be militarily 54 00:05:12,210 --> 00:05:13,750 pre-eminent. 55 00:05:13,750 --> 00:05:17,570 I'm Andrew Roberts for Prager University.