The world is facing “Armageddon.” Americans should be “terrified.” Foreign-policy experts are on the airwaves telling us they are “scared.”

The reason for all this panic? President Trump has named former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton as his new national security adviser. Politicians, journalists and foreign-policy experts are having a fit.

Bolton is a “disastrous pick,” “dangerous,” “as insanely militaristic as they come,” “the godfather of stupid wars” and, of course, a “warmonger.”

“Yes, John Bolton Really Is That Dangerous” warned the editors of the New York Times. George Will and the Washington Post say he is “The Second-Most Dangerous American.”

My initial reaction to the anti-Bolton mania has been amusement and irritation. But this mania is a symptom of something in American society that is deadly serious.

“He’s not extreme,” David French wrote in National Review. “The reaction against him, however, is. Moreover, the reaction betrays a sad reality: The foreign-policy left still hasn’t learned the lessons of the recent past.”

To leftist Bolton critics, the incoming security adviser has committed a cardinal sin: He has openly considered war. He wrote a 2015 New York Times editorial titled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran,” and last month in the Wall Street Journal he wrote “The Legal Case for Striking North Korea First.”

Bolton critics believe war is the worst possible outcome and must be avoided at all costs. Even if that cost is allowing Iran to get the bomb or allowing North Korea to develop nuclear missiles that can reach the United States. Being held at nuclear gunpoint, to them, is preferable to a preemptive war launched by the U.S. John Bolton wants America to use, or threaten to use, its military power to make the world a safer place. His critics don’t want America to use that power—ever.

Avoiding war at all costs sounds nice. The trouble is, this same attitude led directly to the most destructive war in human history.

From 1936 to 1939, the free world was arguing over how to respond, not to the Iranian ayatollahs or the Kim regime, but to Adolf Hitler. His German troops marched into the Rhineland, seized Austria, and took the Sudetenland (when Britain and France literally signed it over to him).

Those who compromised with Hitler were hailed as peacemakers: Not a bomb had been dropped! “Peace in our time!” Those who opposed him were denounced as warmongers. Yet if the “warmongers” had their way, Britain and France would have used or credibly threatened to use military force while Hitler was still comparatively weak. Bombs may have been dropped, hundreds or thousands of men may have died, but World War ii would have been prevented. Somewhere between 50 million to 85 million people would have been saved.

Hitler’s interpreter said that he admitted that the two days after his invasion of the Rhineland were “the most nerve-racking in my life.” He was afraid Britain or France would put up some sort of resistance.

In Austria and the Sudetenland, Hitler still could have been stopped, though with each appeasement the cost in human lives for stopping him rose. But the “peacemakers” prevailed until the only options were to be conquered or to wage all-out, worldwide war.

Britain and America failed in the lead-up to World War ii because of weak will. Britain and America “lacked the courage to face the brutal truth in the early days of Hitler’s reign,” writes Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry in his booklet Winston S. Churchill: The Watchman.

In his booklet, he explains how we suffer from the same problems today. “We simply lack the will to deal with tyrants and finish the job,” he writes. “We have a pathetic lack of will in a very dangerous world. It always gets back to the will to lead and the will to follow a strong leader.”

Isn’t that true today? That is why anyone who wants to take on the tyrants of this world is quickly shouted down. Prior to World War ii, Winston Churchill himself was an outcast. He too was condemned as a “warmonger” and “scaremonger.” I’m not saying that John Bolton is another Churchill, but the reaction to his appointment shows us exactly how we would treat Winston Churchill today. (It’s no coincidence that Churchill is being increasingly demonized in the press.)

This shouting down of Bolton illustrates something else Mr. Flurry brings out in his booklet: “Weak people try to force others to follow them. In this they are very strong! Their reasons are very weak because they don’t have the truth. That leads them to demonize those who oppose them. They can’t accept the truthful message, so they attack the messenger.”

They demonized Churchill, and now the same organizations are demonizing Bolton.

Of course, none of this is to say that a war with Iran or North Korea would be easy. North Korea is led by a madman who has nuclear weapons and thousands of missiles targeting Seoul, South Korea, a city of 25 million people. There’s the potential for a lot of death (though as the National Interest argues, perhaps not quite as much as has been reported). This is the real world. The choices are hard. But pretending that everything can be fixed by negotiation helps no one.

America’s weakness today is a curse. God actually prophesied that if the modern-day Israelites (including the United States and Britain) sinned against Him, He would “break the pride of your power” (Leviticus 26:19).

“Our will to fight, militarily, is going to be totally broken!” writes Mr. Flurry. Further on, he writes, “Our will was being broken even then [during World War ii] because of sin, and it is much worse today” (ibid).

The world is a much more dangerous place today because America lacks the will to defend itself and confront tyranny. This is why the opposition to Bolton is dangerous.

There is a better option than war. The nation needs to turn to God, repent of its sins, and put the matter in His hands. But just because there is a godly peaceful solution, does not mean that every peaceful solution is godly. As Mr Flurry explains in The King of the South, ”[O]ur refusal to use our military might is often not righteousness, as we like to believe, but despicable weakness resulting from our sins. We simply lack the faith, character and courage to fight against Iran, the number one terrorist nation today. In the end, we will prove too weak to survive!” God would have taken care of Adolf Hitler had we turned to Him in sincere repentance. But in the absence of that, taking up arms against him was clearly preferable to sitting back and doing nothing.

Today, too many are trying to dismiss World War ii as a historical lesson that applies to us today. People always mention the war, the argument goes. Hitler was an extreme, and if you have to bring him up, you’ve lost the argument.

Ignoring the prelude to World War ii ignores a crucial period with life-and-death lessons we must learn. Only now, many more lives are at stake. During that time, political leaders, journalists and the educational establishment made strident arguments—and all of them were wrong. They failed to stop the war—in fact, they made it horrifically worse.

Mr. Flurry emphasizes the failure of these institutions in our free booklet Winston S Churchill: The Watchman. This booklet is mostly about the history leading up to World War ii and it is full of quotes from the great defender of Western civilization himself.

Reviewing it today, in light of the rabid rhetoric over John Bolton, I was struck by how up-to-date it is. Our leaders, media and educated elite are all failing in exactly the same way that our leaders, media and educated elite failed leading up to the last global bloodbath.

This booklet introduces you to the historical perspective you need to understand why our nations today are again failing to confront mortal threats. Read or download it free online—we are also happy to send you a free copy.