Brent Sadler
Over 38 million died in the last world war, a war fought to end the ideology behind it: fascism. As Europe burned in mid-1941, common Allied cause was forged beginning with a pivotal document known as the Atlantic Charter, which guided the U.S. and U.K. through four years of war and set the conditions for winning the Cold War.
As consequential as that victory was, however, it hasn’t freed the world of an ideology that has killed over 100 million people: Communism.
The Atlantic Charter suggests a way forward. Congresswoman Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen of American Samoa, while speaking at the Heritage Foundation last December, rightly called out the dangers posed to Pacific Island nations from the Chinese Communist Party. Common cause for today’s new cold war is needed, which led her to call for “a Pacific Charter for the Indo-Pacific Freedom to emulate the Atlantic Charter.”
Congresswoman Radewagon’s call is rooted in history. Victory over the Axis powers (which initially included the Soviet Union) was far from certain in May 1941 with the U.S. on the sidelines. In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a public speech that endorsed “a world consecrated to freedom of speech and expression” and opposed “a Hitler-dominated world.”
WATCH: The Pacific Pivot: A Discussion on American Strategy for the Pacific Islands
Soon after Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in operation Barbarossa, and two months later in August the Atlantic Charter was signed. The Charter committed the two Allies to territorial changes made only with the freely expressed will of the peoples concerned, equal trade and access for the advancement of all peoples, the establishment of a lasting peace, the freedom of navigation, and to encourage the abandonment of war for offensive intentions.
Today, the free world confronts threatening challenges worldwide, from major wars in Europe and Middle East to increasing tensions in Asia fanned by a revanchist Communist China. » Read More
https://www.heritage.org/china/commentary/time-new-pacific-charter-counter-chinas-rising-threat