Modern Crusader Mentality – March 20, 2026

What in the hell are you talking about now?

To start this, we get to crack open the world history books for the purpose of a starting point to a mentality.

And that means a conversation on the “armed pilgrimages” during the Middle Ages, the original source for a crusader mentality that arguably was a fusion of devotion to religion, social legal obligation, and even martial cultural standards at the time on accomplishment of the aristocratic class. There is plenty in the history books about this ideology of spiritual exercise by what you could also argue was the original evolution of “holy war.”

Saying all that means exploring motivations, and keep that in mind for the entirety of this conversation.

This all starts around the 11th Century with a series of threats turned into military engagements against the Byzantine Empire and by extension Christian access to holy sites. This became a key motivation, the Battle of Manzikert where Seljuk Turks near decimated the Byzantine army opening up what is not Turkey today to occupation as a gateway south into literally core Middle East.

For the purposes of this conversation, as a source, the biggest evolution of what became a religious dispute between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam for what is arguably a core area of the planet considered some degree of sacred for all of them be it for different reasons. Once word of the real weakening of the Byzantine Empire started to spread, the word of shrines and murder of Christians by the Seljuks, including the desecration of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, a mentality was put in motion.

This was such a striking period of world history being that Pope Urban II made a request for military help, calling it that “armed pilgrimage,” with the promise of remission of sins so long as those “of worthy” could participate.

One we still see these themes in existence today.

In the context of the modern era?

This is largely easy to answer, it comes down to which people of which flavor of the Abrahamic Religions controlled a given region.

The original crusade was all about a return of a Holy City and various religious sites to Christian Rule. At the time seen as advancement of Muslim control into what was formerly Christian areas of control. The matter was safety for Christian pilgrims and travelers into the region and to sacred sites in the Middle East. Said another way, the idea was reversing Islamic expansion. A core tenet of Islam, later in the origins of their sacred text, entirely there because of Judaism and Christian expansions onto their lands prior to all this.

It is worth mentioning that at the time that various Popes, before and after Pope Urban II, had other motivations, namely dealing with various splinters both within Catholicism itself and the growing evolutions of Protestant faiths. Unorganized at the time in the modern context, but splitters from central authority in some regard. Sometimes very violent in early periods of the Middle Ages.

There is one other motivation, also an ingredient to this conversation, the Crusades offered a path and opportunity for those of nobility to acquire land and wealth as an expansion further East. Look at this is what we call Western Europe today going into what we call Eastern Europe and into the Middle East and Asia. Said another way, “holy war” turning into an era of Expansionism and that included where Islam was at the time.

So, the modern era.

What is happening today is not apples-to-apples to what happened then, we need to make that very clear. However, some of the underlying motivations still exist. Namely, who is most righteous, deserving of land and influence, thus dominant in an area of the world with civilizational influences going back to the earliest recording of Human History. But today, is the collision of conclusions from World War I and World War II and today has influence over 1 of every 3 barrels of oil moved on the planet today.

The tie from how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam viewed this area of the world then overlaps to how all three view things today. Today being Christian nations to the west, Israel, and the various surrounding Islamic dominated nations in the Middle East, further East, and across North and Central Africa. Arguably, order of motivations shifts here and there but ultimately and ideologically western foreign policy from WWII to current consistently looks to influence, trade, and oil.

What does that mean for today’s motivations?

Today, the mindset is still defined by an unyielding and litmus test level intense commitment to the cause of dominance and control. Rooted in the above historical contexts, today this all boils down to who has the greatest influence over the “greater Middle East region,” oil production, and ultimately control over those who disagree.

It is still, today, missionary spirit. Does not matter if we are talking about Israel’s settlement motivations into Gaza or the West Bank, or if we are talking about US and/or European incursions into the region, or various factions of Islamic culture battling their own in disagreement we are all talking about the same underlying “morally right” action.

It is also constant, and well evidenced with the instability of the entire region not just from WWII to current but going back to those original crusades. If one wants to exclude religion for a moment, plenty of empires have marched across the region changing who is in control as well. In that context we are going all the way back to about 2334 BC and the Akkadian Empire.

The point being that for numerous reasons across the ages a whole lot of blood has been spilled going back some 4350 something years ago.

For the perspective of this conversation, and “crusader mentality,” one result is this consistent filling up the history books for a new battle, a new campaign of military influence, if not outright war between two to many nations to alter the balances of power and influence in terms of religious flavor, authority over trade, and control over people. The idea of “us vs. them” goes back a very long way.

In that context, it suddenly becomes clear why human life starts to have less value in the pursuit of control and influence over this region. Also makes more sense as to why “a vision” for a different balance of power means ignoring the realities of international trade markets and even financial sense.

Prior side-picking, engagements, conflicts… even wars?

If you happen to be struggling of these mentalities and motivations having practical meaning in the modern context then all you need to consider is US involvement in the greater Middle East region from end of WWII to current.

Let me help you…

As early as 1958 then again in the early 1980s the US got involved with Lebanon’s internal civil conflicts. The latter being a Multinational Peacekeeping Force that suffered a major blow with the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing killing 241 American personnel.

The US began assisting Afghan resistance fighters, known as the Mujahideen, starting in July 1979 just before the old Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Largely a CIA operation called Operation Cyclone and became one of the longest and most expensive programs in CIA history to date. While mostly about old school Cold War mentality of West vs. East, some of those Mujahideen fighters had later generations that became The Taliban.

Libya is no different, but various reasons. 1986 airstrikes as response to state-sponsored terrorism. Another in 2011, going in with NATO air and naval strikes to protect civilians during the Arab Spring. And again 2015 to 2019 going after ISIS militants.

Once Iran and Iraq decided to have it out, including the naval conflict years of 1987 to 1988, once it became a “Tanker War,” the US conducted Operation Praying Mantis, the largest U.S. naval surface engagement since WWII, to protect oil tankers and retaliate against Iranian mines. That should sound familiar too.

Then we flipped to calling Saddam a bad guy (he was a good guy when fighting Iran,) we liberated Kuwait from Iraq in 1990. Saddam took Kuwait, we took it back using Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm that ended up a 35 something nation coalition.

Once the US was struck directly, 9/11 resulting in almost 3000 lives lost, by terrorists turning airlines into weapons, we decided the Taliban was hiding al-Qaeda and their planning apparatus. Our response was Operation Enduring Freedom and it turned into a 2001 to 2021 longest military engagement in US history, only to find Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and have first-term President Trump decide to hand Afghanistan right back to the Taliban. All those years, lives lost and changed, money spent to take a nation and give it back roughly 2 decades later (something to that effect will end up in a history book somewhere.)

Speaking of al-Qaeda, in Yemen from 2002 to still today, we have decades now of counter-terrorism operations going after many targets including ISIS and Houthi rebels all too busy going after ships they can reach in the Red Sea. Operation Prosperity Guardian as it is called.

Back to Iraq, Bush 43 picked up where Bush 41 left off taking us back into Iraq and turning it into a war going from 2003 to 2011. Remove Saddam Hussein from power, find his suspected weapons of mass destruction (did not exist,) and nation build with people in power more favorable to western needs. Sort of stable today… ‘ish.

Spreading from Iraq and into Syria, engaging in their long term multi-direction civil war at the time, Operation Inherent Resolve targeted ISIS and their intentions for an “Islamic State” from 2014 to present day. And speaking of Syria, in 2018 and 2021 the US had direct strikes against the Syrian government at the time as retaliation for attacks on US lead coalition forces. Russia was in the mix for some of that, and not on our side.

October 7, 2023 saw one of the most brazen attacks on Israel in years, Hamas went into neighborhoods with a surprise multi-front assault killing civilians and taking hostages. Which became US involvement in Israel’s response from then to current, we are providing military aid and intelligence, even naval positioning, that has turned Gaza largely into rubble. Humanitarian disaster, and by some accounts filled with illegal war crime behavior by all involved.

And now we have today’s news. Arguably Israel convinced Trump go go into Iran just this past month, with airstrikes and naval strikes, marking the biggest escalation of conflict in the region in years with it altering 20% of the worlds oil supply movement and entirely uncertain future. Not nation building, not regime change but kinda is, to prevent nukes that we were told we accomplished last summer, who really knows but it resulted in one of the largest energy supply disruptions in history. No real clue what is next but this time our no-longer-allies are not stepping in.

Just reading all of that, written like that on purpose, with the admitted skepticism of the motivations of leaders at the time, all resulting in plenty of loss of life including our own, tell us our clear involvement with a region that sees far more conflict than any sense of peace going back decades.

BTW, I left a few out.

Pivotable question – How does all this apply to Iran?

In the context of rhetoric from US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, this latest endeavor has crusader undertones. The struggle against “religious fanatics,” statement that the US is “fighting religious fanatics who seek a nuclear capability in order for some religious Armageddon.” He describes himself as a Christian Zionist, that the US should stand with Israel because of “honor (for) God.” Hegseth has even written about this, the 2020 book American Crusade, that boils down to calling various Islamic movements as what cannot “coexist with the West.”

None of that is new, Hegseth did not discover a continent or anything, no matter what tattoos he has associated with rallying cries of Christian Knights.

George W. Bush (Bush 43) once described the War on Terror as a “crusade” with “God (telling him) to end the tyranny in Iraq.” He was not alone, his Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft had similar tones. With Ashcroft reportedly saying, or close to, “Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you.” That sort of rallying cry generalization for reason to fight.

But, does any of that sound familiar? It should when listening to the current lot explain why we are doing what we are.

So, where does this leave things?

It leaves us with a strong argument that the desire for control over this region, be it economic influences up to strategic alliances to even military engagements sending our own to fight somewhere, all has ideological roots to the original Crusades.

And perhaps a secondary discussion on the power of religious ideological undertones while making decisions with high implications. On nations, on militaries, their families, the list goes on.

This is not designed to be a distractor conversation on the power of oil in terms of regional, if not world level, decision making. Nor designed to diminish the insanity of Iran holding a nuclear weapon. Just means there are some underlying reasons to rush to fight, even if today it means under the Trump Administration and Israel not entirely able to put forth what the end zone looks like.

Call it supplemental thinking as a reason to fight anyway, even if this time it appears Israel asked for our direct involvement in Iran so that Israel can continue south into Gaza dealing with Hamas, north into Lebanon dealing with Hezbollah, while the US and Israel both focus on Iran (arguably the proxy holder for Hamas and Hezbollah even though some of their leadership is living large in Qatar.)

No matter the case, the general request is to consider these things as Netanyahu talks about regimes, nukes, and proxy terrorism. Or, when Trump and his Administration seemingly all over the place on reasons to be in Iran or what it will take to end the conflict. Or, even Iran “supreme leaders” talking about death to Israel, or the US, or wherever else.

Even if oil from this region will matter for the foreseeable future, so is a basic concept on why religions fight it out and how long they have been doing so.