March 5 marked a major Cold War anniversary: 80 years ago, on that day in 1946, Winston Churchill — unseated as British prime minister after his leadership during World War II and serving as leader of the opposition — coined the phrase "Iron Curtain" to describe nations held captive by the Soviet Union.
Several foreign policy experts who spoke to Newsmax said the phrase — and Churchill's speech in Fulton, Missouri, titled "World Peace" — remains relevant today.
While on vacation in the U.S., Churchill accepted an invitation from Westminster College in Fulton to deliver a speech containing a phrase that would resonate worldwide for generations: "Iron Curtain," describing Soviet domination over formerly free nations of Eastern Europe and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which Moscow insisted were its satellites.
"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the Continent," declared Churchill, who was flanked by Missourian and President Harry Truman."Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in some cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow."
The former prime minister went on to warn that the threat posed by Russia extended beyond the borders of Eastern Europe because, in his words, "in a great number of countries, far from the Russian frontiers and throughout the world, Communist fifth columns are established and work in complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the communist center."
Little known is the fact that the Fulton address had that "World Peace" title and the paragraph containing the phrase "Iron Curtain" was spoken by Churchill but not included in the copies handed to reporters.
Nor was a call in the same speech for a united front of European nations — effectively a precursor to what would become the European Union — included in the text distributed to reporters.
"Safety in the world requires a new unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast," Chrchill said.
Almost overnight, the Fulton address was dubbed "the Iron Curtain speech" and international media adopted the phrase to describe the Soviet-dominated empire.
Russian strongman Joseph Stalin also reacted to the speech, telling the Soviet publication Pravda a week later that, in suggesting a front against the Soviet Union by the English-speaking people, "Mr. Churchill and his friends bear a striking resemblance in this respect to Hitler and his friends."
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 marked the end of the Cold War, and many nations behind Churchill's Iron Curtain emerged with independence.
In effect, the Iron Curtain was dismantled.
But does Churchill's Fulton speech still carry meaning for today's uncertain and turbulent world?
"Churchill's speech absolutely still resonates, because there's a bear at the door," Ilan Berman, senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, told Newsmax. "The type of threat that Russia now poses to the Continent — and the type of order that it seeks to impose on it — is very much of the Iron Curtain variety. Europe is at long last recognizing this, and mobilizing accordingly."
Berman's view was echoed by Kurt Volker, former U.S. ambassador to NATO and special representative to Ukraine.
Volker said: "Yes indeed. It is not quite an Iron Curtain with a geographic line on a map, such as the Soviet Union drew. But it is the continuation of the age-old struggle of free people against dictators and tyrants.
"Now we have the CRINKs [China, Russia, Iran, North Korea] on one side, and the U.S., Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, South Korea and Europe — as well as the people of Iran, Venezuela, Cuba — on the other.
"We have to understand that all of these conflicts are connected, and we are vested in winning them. We can't choose to fight Iran and ignore Russia and think everything will be OK."
"Churchill's warning couldn't be timelier," said Larry Haas, a former communications director for Vice President Al Gore and now a senior fellow with the American Foreign Policy Council. "With freedom and democracy declining around the world for nearly the last two decades, a similar but different kind of iron curtain has been descending — akin in nature but broader in geography.
"China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, in their emerging axis of upheaval, are undermining democracies all over the world while promoting an authoritarian model of governance."
Haas emphasized that "freedom and democracy are on their heels, and we need to rekindle the same kind of spirit from the West as we had during the Cold War to turn the tide, fight the ideological battle, and promote our values.
"As we've seen of late in Venezuela and Iran and as we continue to see sometimes less dramatically in other authoritarian nations across Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America, people still do yearn to be free.
"They need our moral voice, they need our clandestine help, and they need to see the examples of other populations that successfully set their own democratic courses for their nations.
"A freer and more democratic world is a safer and more prosperous one, so we should commit ourselves more fully to the cause for reasons of both morality and self-interest."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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