From propaganda movies to religion and birth rates: the reasons for not fighting are both self-evident and complex.

Beginning in 1942, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, famed director Frank Capra embarked on a series of what would be seven short films that would serve as propaganda to American military servicemen during the latter stages of World War II: Why We Fight. For the servicemen, the films were intended to inspire in them the need for a previously non-interventionist country to fight for someone else (again). Later they were shown to the general public with the intent to garner their support as well.

Now, Capra, I want to nail down with you a plan to make a series of documented, factual-information films—the first in our history—that will explain to our boys in the Army why we are fighting, and the principles for which we are fighting… You have an opportunity to contribute enormously to your country and the cause of freedom. Are you aware of that, sir?

US Army general to Frank Capra

In 1935, Leni Riefenstahl released her propaganda film, Triumph Of The Will, which covered the preparation, ceremonies, marches and speeches of the Nazi Party Congress of 1934 in Nuremberg, Germany. The lofty Teutonic spirit of the film declared Germany to be a returning world power, with Adolph Hitler as its anointed leader. From the sweeping panoramas, the patriotic close-ups of teenagers holding their local banners, to the overbearing strains of the Nazi Party’s official song, Horst-Wessel-Lied, this film inspired and urged Capra into action seven years later.

I told Hitler that filming the party congress was too difficult for a girl. I told him the men are jealous and the problems I encountered affected my nerves. Hitler became very angry. He told Goebbels that when he gave an order, Goebbels was supposed to obey it. Hitler then told me that I must make a film of the congress in 1934 but I protested, saying that the same thing would happen. He… assured me that there would be no interference.

Leni Riefenstahl

In 2017, the British Army released a series of videos around the theme of belonging. Correct: “belonging”. For some not-fully discernible reason, native British men are no longer interested in fighting for their country. It seems to be less of a case of, “Why We Fight”, has become, “How Do We Avoid Fighting?”

During WWII, army propagandists aimed their recruitment to willing, but reluctant men. With the right persuasion therefore, these men would indeed sign up to fight for their country. Today, as one example, the British Army has given up on native British men in their recruitment videos; instead they are looking for everyone, or anyone, but. Indeed, interest in ‘signing up’ is suffering in many Western nations.

The 2015 WIN/Gallup global survey asked the following, simple question: “Would you fight for your country?” Western nations do not fare well; non-Western nations on the other hand seem to display a martial capacity on a scale unknown to Western man.

• Would you fight for your country (by country/ sample)?
  • Morocco: 94%
  • Turkey: 73%
  • Israel: 66%
  • Sweden: 55%
  • United States: 44%
  • Canada: 30%
  • United Kingdom: 27%
  • Holland: 15%

Although this survey was taken in 215, before the massive diversification and enrichment of Western Europe began in earnest with a full-scale importation of refugees became apparent, certain national aspects are apparent. Morocco: fighting to attack, or just simply get to, Spain? Israel: obvious; surrounded by enemies. Sweden: too much enrichment? Holland: too much enrichment? Anglosphere: the old country is just guilt-ridden and apathetic, whereas the new world hasn’t quite given up yet?

• Would you fight for your country (by religion/ sample)?
  • Muslim: 78%
  • Protestant: 48%
  • Jewish: 51%

• Would you fight for your country (by region/ sample)?
  • Middle East & North Africa: 83%
  • Africa: 56%
  • Eastern Europe: 53%
  • North America: 43%
  • Western Europe: 25%

Compare those two regions in terms of the simple aspect of men willing to fight for their nations: MENA – 83%; Western Europe – 25%. When put in this dramatic light, the suicidal nature of Western Europe’s political class and the people themselves (apart from temporary setbacks like Brexit, of course) is apparent, while the incoming waves of massed migrants from MENA have no such compunction against fighting (or ‘invading’).

For all of this propaganda, from the patriotic and manly, to the apathetic and effeminate, for all of this reluctance to fight, to the martial nature of the developing world, the one, improbable ray of sunshine peeks through it all: Eastern Europe. Poland’s impressive 45% in nearly double the continent’s average. And this almost certainly reflects that nation’s relatively recent experience with communism, and their determination to remain a free, sovereign, dominant mono-culture.

And finally we have national fertility. Procreating and giving birth to a nation’s next generation of people is an essential part of maintaining sovereignty, culture and your connection with the past, the land and the ancestors. Without people, there is no ‘nation’. The developing nations seem to get this basic concept: if you don’t maintain your people through reproduction, then history, culture, land and ancestors will wither and die.

So what are we to make of this? Could the unarmed, third-world invasion into Europe possibly have occurred during the 1950s? Is the Western Empire today, epitomized by the United States, in its ‘Age of Decadence’, as Glubb would hypothesize? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see. We are most certainly deep in the forest, surrounded by trees with diametrically-opposed political views. If Glubb is right however, the great ‘shining light on the hill’ has another twenty years left.

We’ve been wealthy and powerful too long, we’ve been selfish, we have a love of money and have lost all sense of duty. In other words: we won’t fight.

Decadence is marked by: defensiveness, pessimism, materialism, frivolity, an influx of foreigners, the welfare state, a weakening of religion.

Decadence is due to: too long a period of wealth and power, selfishness, love of money, the loss of a sense of duty.

John Glubb; The Fate Of Empires [1978]

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