“The Moment Feels Like 1939”

It was a speech (see video recording) that will go down in history - not because of its content, but because of its tone. Pete Hegseth, Trump’s war minister, stood before representatives of the arms industry at the National War College in Washington, looked out over an audience of generals, lobbyists, and defense executives - and spoke the sentence that sent a shock through the hall: “We are not preparing for a period of peace; we are shifting the Pentagon and the military-industrial base into an actual state of war.” Then came the follow-up line that turned every microphone into a magnifying glass: “The moment feels like 1939 - or, I hope, like 1981. Enemies are gathering, and threats are mounting. You feel it. And I feel it.”

It was not a rhetorical slip. It was a declaration. The official line of the U.S. Department of Defense, as Hegseth presented it that day, meant nothing less than the public mobilization of a world power that no longer speaks of deterrence but of readiness - for escalation, for military supremacy, for the return of war as the normal state.

“We are moving the boundaries of the peace economy,” Hegseth continued in essence, “we are rebuilding, accelerating, prioritizing.” Not a word about diplomacy, not a word about negotiation, not a word about de-escalation. Instead, the promise to “revive” America’s defense base and place military production on permanent operation. The Pentagon would no longer wait for the approval of political processes but act on its own.

In the hall sat representatives of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics - the five pillars of the American weapons complex. There were nods of approval, occasional smiles. Hegseth spoke their language. It was as if a veil had been lifted: no euphemisms, no bureaucratic phrases, just pure power politics, raw and unashamed. The reference to 1939 - to the beginning of the Second World War - was no accident. It was deliberate, a historical marker. Hegseth portrayed the present as an epochal turning point, an existential confrontation. But anyone who cites 1939 is playing with a symbol of moral abyss. Whoever places their own nation in the same breath with the year in which global fascism reached its most lethal form knows exactly what he is doing.

The second year, 1981, seemed less ominous at first glance but was hardly less dangerous. It stood for Ronald Reagan, for the beginning of systematic rearmament, for the end of every balance in the Cold War. Hegseth invoked that era with an undertone that was hard to miss - as a yearning for greatness, for power, for dominance. That this man now decides the military future of the United States is not an accident. It is the result of a political strategy built on the militarization of thought. Trump did not appoint him by chance but precisely because Hegseth regards war not as an exception but as an objective.

For weeks, internal memos have circulated in the Pentagon referring to a “restructuring of the defense framework.” What is meant is clear: more autonomy for the military, less control by Congress, more interconnection between private manufacturers and government contracts. In short: a defense economy designed to endure. Hegseth has now said it out loud - without disguise, without detour, without any attempt to wrap it diplomatically. His words mark a turning point: the transition from a simulation of peace to an open war economy.

His words are more than martial rhetoric. They are a signal to the world - and to the markets. When the Pentagon shifts its supply chains, when billion-dollar contracts are set in motion, when entire industries switch from civilian to military production, this is not merely a strategic adjustment. It is a systemic transformation. The comparison with 1939 is not only tasteless. It is revealing. Because back then, it was those who believed they could control war who unleashed it. Today, men like Hegseth stand on the stage, speaking of peace by declaring it impossible. And again, the wrong people applaud.

America has fought many wars. But rarely has the country been so close to its inner war as it is now - the one between responsibility and delusion of grandeur.