When’s the best time to attack your enemy? When he is weak, divided and distracted. This principle works across innumerable fields. And let’s be blunt. The West at this time is all of those to a huge degree: weak, divided and distracted.

Did Putin have that in mind when he launched the attack on Ukraine? Quite possibly. His war efforts were initially thwarted. But recently he seems to be in the ascendency as the West faces the increasingly grave consequences of their own sanctions against Russia. Putin can yet enact policies that can probably inflict economic hardships on West Europe that they will not be willing or able to bear this coming winter.

But Ukraine is not the only front. Other nations are watching. They’re seeing the obvious weaknesses of so many Western nations: weak leadership, weak convictions, even the weakness of character that’s so evident in many Western populations.

Eastern and southern nations are observing it all, making decisions, taking sides, getting on board with one agenda or another. Did you know that there are two nations that, if they weren’t so ostracized, could have an almost immediate impact on the world oil markets? Venezuela and to a greater extent Iran have very vast oil reserves and they could bring these reserves into the world oil market very quickly.

Why hasn’t that happened? Well, Venezuela has been shunned and banned by the USA for years because of their embrace of socialism so that there have been embargoes and they’ve been excluded economically by the USA, with the cooperation of other Latin American countries.  But their oil reserves are immense and bringing Venezuela on stream and into world oil markets would have a quick, very major effect.

The same is true and even more so of Iran. Iran has been so vilified by Western media that we’ve all been successfully lulled into thinking that there’s hardly anything worse than Iran. But their proven oil reserves are such that allowing them to sell on the open market again could in a few short months very strongly change the world energy picture. But nobody would dare tell you that and it’s not going to happen because great work for decades has gone on in the media around the world to picture Iran as a villainous, pariah state.

Meanwhile, the nations of the world watch things unfold. Have you noticed how and where the largest nations seem to be placing their bets? Simply put, it doesn’t look like they’re really getting on the band wagon with the West’s confrontation with Putin. But there’s another front, another flash point that just might erupt.

Years ago I was in my driveway watching two doves fighting it out on the ground in the front yard. Suddenly I heard and felt a “swoosh” go right by my ear. It was a hawk which had seen those two birds fighting and was doing all it could to take advantage of their distractions. The hawk swept past me incredibly fast to try to capture at least one of the birds and it was able to do that. In their distraction of fighting amongst themselves, they didn’t see the outside danger of their mutual enemy and it cost the life of one of them.

Could this simple principle be at work internationally right now in our times? As the West is so weakened, distracted, divided and morally exhausted, could another front open similarly to the one in Ukraine? I hesitate to get too specific but many of you in Asia know of a smaller country there that has been eyed by a very large country for years. The smaller Asian country has long felt that it would be protected by strong friends in the West.

But many are saying that if the wise men of that large country ever were seeing a time when a move against that smaller country would possibly be met with (at best) a feeble and inept response, this might be the time.

Would it be moral? Ethical? Christian and resounding with the values that have been upheld by the West for centuries? No. But in the grim world of Machiavellian realty, this present Western weakness may provide a golden opportunity for things to seem to be possible to non-Western, non-Christian world leaders that stronger governments and stronger times in the West would have been able to prevent. Obviously I’m speaking obliquely. But “they that have ears to hear”, and those who keep up with East Asian power politics, will know what I’m referring to.

Am I predicting this? Prophesying it? No. But I’m reading things from pundits who are more observant than I am that this is like a very obvious “chess move” that’s presenting itself at this time, as the virtually leaderless West is so weighted down with its own problems that it makes for an excellent moment for great Asian leaders to launch attacks they have considered for decades.

And, yes, the Bible has precedents for all this. One man said of how he was defeated, “While I was busy here and there, the man was gone.” (I Kings 20:40)  While he was distracted, while he was turned aside from his task of the Lord’s highest service, the enemy swept in and carried off what he was responsible for.

Or, from the New Testament, “If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for the battle?” (I Corinthians 14:8)  Western leadership can currently at best give a very hesitant, uncertain sound of any foreign danger while America is so preoccupied with its own internal wrangling. And the classic annals of battle will tell you that

one’s enemies are constantly looking for a weakness, an opportunity and an unguarded moment to launch an attack when they feel their adversaries are at their weakest.

Still, the mercy of God prevails. But it is a very serious moment and most people have no idea how vulnerable the distracted, weakened West is to an assault at this time.