Jake Broe Calls It—and Rightfully So—This Is World War III
- john raymond
- Jul 22
- 4 min read
Jake Broe did well this time. He didn’t fall into the trap of hollow cheerleading, nor did he offer false comfort in place of clear-eyed analysis. Instead, he arrived—perhaps not for the first time, but certainly with clarity—to a truth too few of us have long accepted: we are in the early phases of a global war. Not a war of declarations and formal alliances, but a total conflict spanning economic systems, political ideologies, disinformation spheres, and kinetic battlefields. This is World War III. And Broe said it. And with conviction.
To his credit, Jake didn’t hype this into a slogan. He didn’t stylize it. He simply framed the war for what it is: a coordinated, multi-front assault by authoritarian regimes against the liberal democratic order. Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and their vassals and proxies—from Wagner cells in Africa to Iranian militias in Syria—form a loose, self-reinforcing axis. They share neither language nor religion, but they share the fundamental imperative of regime survival. That imperative—what I’ve called the Prime Directive—demands they extinguish democracy wherever it emerges. Not through conquest alone, but through corruption, propaganda, and political rot.
As mentioned, Jake Broe’s realization is not new to some of us. I’ve written and spoken extensively about this framing. Vlad Vexler, too, has sounded this alarm. But it matters that Jake Broe has now internalized it. Because Jake is not a doomsayer. He is, by nature, hopeful. And if he is now openly acknowledging the scale of the war, it means the evidence is too loud to ignore. That honesty marks his strength as a commentator. His honesty makes him trustworthy, and this shift in tone—this cold clarity—makes him important.
But even in this strong showing, Broe let one crucial element pass by with too little scrutiny. It was mentioned, but it wasn’t called out, and it must be: Trump’s so-called NATO arms deal.
Broe names the deal in passing, noting the new mechanism where NATO countries may purchase American arms from existing stockpiles for potential re-export to Ukraine. But he treats it like just another item in the inventory of military logistics. That is a mistake—not because the deal is relevant, but because it is deliberately irrelevant. It was never meant to arm Ukraine. It was meant to appear as help while functionally doing nothing.
The things is a trap, and one that plays perfectly into the European paradox—a trap I and others, including Vexler, have been warning about for weeks now. The paradox is this: the more Europe spends on militarization—especially in ways that don’t directly benefit their own citizens—the more they expose themselves to the backlash of populist rage. That rage, we must remember, is often seeded and stoked by Russian information warfare and financial meddling. Austerity at home becomes a poison pill that pseudo-populists can exploit to seize power. In France, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia—this pattern is not hypothetical.
What Broe does get right is the litany of actual spending pledges from European nations. He reads through the German, Dutch, Norwegian, and Canadian contributions. And what do we notice? None of them are flowing through the American arms deal. Not one dollar. The Netherlands is funding drones. Norway is helping Ukraine’s industrial base. Canada is maintaining tanks. Germany is sending munitions and potentially Patriots. But not a cent is going toward the “deal.”
This is day nine since the Trump team’s announcement of the arms purchase program, and it has yet to manifest a single meaningful delivery. This is not delay. This is design. The deal was never about arming Ukraine—it was about wasting time, creating headlines, and pretending leadership while enabling Putin. This is asymmetric warfare at its most insidious: a performance of strength meant to mask strategic retreat.
Jake doesn’t quite say this. But his tone, at least, suggests he senses it. And that’s progress. His usual optimism is subdued here. The weight of the nightly attacks on Kyiv, the grim logistics of air raid shelters turned into nightly beds for the elderly and pregnant, the stories of civilian suffering—all of it is handled without his usual hopeful spin. That is not weakness. That is maturity. Jake Broe has grown as an analyst because he has listened to the war and let it change him. That is how you know he’s honest.
Contrast that with Trump, whose every tonal shift is a lie. Whose every peace promise is a trap. Trump’s deal was theater. Jake’s quiet realism is truth. And in wartime, the difference between the two is everything.
So yes, Jake Broe did good this time. Not because he rallied morale, but because he acknowledged the magnitude of what we face. This is not just about Ukraine. This is not just about drones or artillery. This is about the fate of democratic civilization, and the enemies who will stop at nothing to crush it. Jake is finally speaking from that place of sober reality. And for that, we should thank him.
Glory to Ukraine. Glory to the heroes. And glory to those who refuse to lie.
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