Gog has existed since the time of Nimrod.
It just keeps evolving.
Collectivism is merely one of its current tentacles.
Focusing on that one tentacle,
and that for only modern history,
lets the other tentacles escape detection for both their past history as well as their present history.
It's like a "look here, not there" deception.
Such a creature is more than happy to lose one tentacle to save the head,
and eventually,
that sacrificed tentacle grows back,
once again evolved.
As for the U.S. purportedly being that "wilderness",
this also elides the many centuries the Woman has been in the wilderness since the ascension of Christ,
and the U.S. wasn't always there.
In fact, for much of that history the U.S. didn't exist.
The wilderness is the same sort of condition in which John the Baptist had existed when the Enemy (the feet of clay) controlled the Temple.
While the Enemy controls the Temple,
it is portraying itself as the congregation of God,
but its transgressions of God's Laws reveals it to be a lie.
John the Baptist came from the line of priests who were faithful during Israel's many times she was playing the harlot,
committing adultery against God,
while controlling the temple.
That line of priests would remove the ark of the Covenant to the wilderness to keep it from the transgressors.
Where the Ark went was where the true priests and believers were.
This is the condition in which the true Body of Christ is now.
It is outside of the "established" ones claiming authority over the Body of Christ,
because those established ones are transgressors.
They are the church age Harlot,
committing adultery against God while claiming to have authority over His Temple.