Messerschmitt Bf109. Heinkel He 111. Junkers Ju 88. Junkers Stuka. These names are lost to history, except for military scholars of Second World War aviation armaments. Despite them seeming outdated, the development and production of German warplanes bear a striking resemblance to the war in the Gulf.

Right under the eyes and noses of the French, British, Polish and other European nations, the Germans rearmed after WWI with predictable results. In the early thirties, German aircraft production was in the hundreds. By 1938, there were over 5000 and by the time of the Blitzkrieg on Poland in 1939, there were over 8000 Luftwaffe planes in the air.

It was a similar story for every other armament. The Panzer series of tanks increased by the thousands and tens of thousands for half-track trucks, mobile howitzers, and machine guns. In essence, every material aspect needed for an aggressive war was in full production.

The number of soldiers in uniform went from a hundred thousand in 1930 to three million on the eve of the invasion of Poland in 1939. All in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles.

What did any sentient person alive then think Hitler was going to do with a war machine bristling with lethality? One that he threatened to use?

That is the question that must be asked today about Iran and the Gulf States. What did the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia think was the intended use of the thousands of aggressive armaments and the extensive defensive ones, like advanced anti-aircraft radar, in the hands of medieval fundamentalist Shiite fanatics?

Israel knew the answer to that question; it was this. Iran would use its thousands of intercontinental ballistic missiles, short and medium range ones and tens of thousands of drones, to one day attack its identified enemies. That’s exactly what happened. Remember the 2002 “One bomb eliminates Israel” remark by a former Iranian president.

Israeli war planners knew for decades that one day Hezbollah’s hundreds of thousand Katyusha, Fajr, and precision-guided Fatah-110s would find their way south. It was only a matter of a lit fuse that would ignite the lethal onslaught into Israel’s towns and cities. The Israelis always believed the Iranian Ayatollahs’ “Death to Israel” chant was a policy plank, not an off-the-cuff slogan. They planned during those decades to naturalize the threat. Israel was never surprised by Iran or Hezbollah… they were prepared.

And by and large, Israel has neutralized the threats because even a simple lightweight rocket like the Katusha can do profound damage. Multiplied by factors of hundreds, the damage from cluster bombs delivered by large solid fuel rockets demands a devastating response.

Then, there are China and Russia. Both were eager to facilitate and upgrade the lethality of Iran’s weapons. Russia, by developing and selling anti-aircraft shields, and China, by sending both defensive weapons like YLG series anti-stealth radar systems. Worse, China sent offensive ones, like components for surface-to-air missiles and sodium perchlorate, a component for solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Gulf countries knew these weapons were arriving as they passed right through their waterways.

In their defense, it is true that all the Gulf countries did arm themselves with anti-missile systems, and many coordinated with the US for a sort of layered shield that used American intelligence to identify and intercept incoming missiles and drones. However, they clearly misunderstood that the Iranian regime’s strategy for survival included destroying their petroleum and gas infrastructure and sowing terror on their largely expat population.

The last thing on any digital nomad or offshore banker’s mind when they bought a house on Dubai’s multi-billion-dollar artificial island on Palm Jumeirah was incoming missiles from Iran. But that is precisely what they should have anticipated. Even the famously natural Swiss mined their tunnels and bridges to Europe in case the Nazis changed their minds and decided to include them in the Third Reich.

The hasty, confusing and swiftly discredited apology for attacking their “brothers” by the supposedly-in-charge president Masoud Pezeskhkin only underscores that when armed to the teeth, the path of least resistance is to use all weapons available. The nearby neighbors of Iran are now witnessing this path as their airports and glistening commercial and residential towers, not to mention petroleum infrastructure, are being destroyed by Iranian missiles and drones.

Here is a bet for the all-sentient prediction markets. When will China use its massive no expense spared military buildup against Taiwan? Not since the rearmament of the Third Reich has the world witnessed such a stockpiling of weapons. China is literally bristling with the latest nuclear missile ICBM silos, multi-warhead hypersonic missiles, submarine-launched JL-3s, unmanned naval stealth attack drones…the list is endless. They are using the latest in dual tech to build robotic attack abilities on land, sea and air. The war they are planning has never been fought before; it will be more lethal than ever seen before.

Just like the Third Reich, China is not even hiding it. You can watch, almost in real time on YouTube, their rearmament. Forget the once “peaceful rise” proclamation for China’s path forward by Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao. Times have changed under Xi.

Note to humanity: when a country arms itself with every manner of offensive weapons, when a county is governed by nasty, angry, ideologically ridged leaders — leaders that openly and constantly threaten their “enemies” — it is more than likely those weapons will be used in facilitating the world view of that leadership.

As the globalists of Gulf nations are now learning, those armed to the teeth with a medieval mindset don’t care how many Nobu restaurants, Four Seasons hotels with rooftop pools, or Swiss watch retail stores you have. What they care about is their desire to destroy you and that they have obtained the armaments to do so.

All of which you allowed them to have because you failed History 101.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)