Foreign Affairs

There is no Hitler II

Mark Noonan47 Comments

More and more people are seeing what I’ve been seeing for a while: in the opinion of our Ruling Class, every foreign enemy is Hitler, every crisis in Munich and everyone who doesn’t get on board with fighting the new Hitler is Chamberlain. This is what they’ve sold us again and again since 1945. To be fair, nobody wants a repeat of World War Two. Six years of killing, 60 million people dead, uncountable physical damage to the civilized world. It is just too horrible to contemplate going back into such a shambles. But, here’s the thing: a repeat of World War Two has always been highly unlikely. The ingredients are hard to come by.

The first ingredient has to be a Great Power defeated but not destroyed. Germany was completely and utterly defeated in World War One. Had the Germans not called it quits in November of 1918, then the Spring of 1919 would have seen a massive allied invasion of Germany with a 3 million man American army in the van and the total allied armies equipped with tanks and planes to make mincemeat of any German defensive lines (and, as it turns out, the first airborne troops – US General Billy Mitchell envisioned dropping thousands of US soldiers behind enemy lines as the offensive started). Had the Germans fought on then the only result would have been more killing and a destroyed Germany. The Krauts quit to prevent that. They shouldn’t have been allowed to do that.

To be fair, the Allies didn’t have our luxury of hindsight so they couldn’t know that right after the war the Germans would cook up the “stab in the back” legend which excused German military failure and laid the blame for defeat on first the socialists and, later, the Jews. But some Allied leaders did have some foresight…notably Marshal Foch and General MacArthur both pointing out that the peace treaty was, at best, an armistice of twenty years. They could see this because while Germany was defeated even the supposed harshness of Versailles did nothing to cripple Germany’s latent power. It was still a united nation. It still had its industrial base. It retained an army which anyone could see would be exceptionally first rate as the Germans retained only the best of the best in the ranks. All Versailles did, really, was to clear the board and allow the Germans to start building from the ground up a new and more deadly force – and the Germans started working on this within a year of the peace (the Germans built new U-Boats in Holland and tested out tank and plane designs in the USSR, for instance). There’s the first necessary ingredient.

Second is a charismatic leader able to spellbind the Great Power’s people and forge them into a united force for conquest. Can such a person rise again? In theory, yes. But the thing about oddities is that they’re, well, odd. Not easily replicated. Plus in the German case you not only had to get that leader, he had to dovetail in with decades of the preaching of racial superiority by others who came before him…in other words, there had to be plowed ground ready to be seeded with the charismatic leader’s ideology. We do not have in any foreign leader that particular sort of person with that particular sort of ground to work with. Keep in mind how totally Hitler captured the German mind: German soldiers would throw themselves on enemy machine guns shouting “Heil Hitler” while they died. Even at the very bitter end the soldiers desperately fought completely hopeless battles for their leader. The chances we’ll find another like this are very low – almost nil.

And now comes the really hard part: once you’ve got your Great Power defeated but still intact and looking for revenge combined with your charismatic leader you need the most crucial thing: a huge run of luck. I mean like hitting the lottery five times in a row luck. The sort of luck where an observer looking back on it goes, “just ain’t possible!”.

The luck of being appointed Chancellor just as his popularity was waning. The luck of Hindenburg dying just as he’s reaching for total power. The luck of the French not destroying him in 1936 over the Rhineland. The luck of the Anglo-French agreeing to remove the Czech threat to the heart of Germany in 1938. The luck of the Anglo-French delaying Polish mobilization until August 31st, 1939. The luck of Stalin agreeing to back up Germany’s invasion of Poland. The luck of France’s massive army remaining immobile against a German military screen in the West as Poland was destroyed. And then the greatest stroke of luck of all – when Germany invades France and hits the weakest part of the French line in the Ardennes the French general on the scene totally flubs the response even though he had an armored division in place to pinch off the German offensive before it could get going. You can see why Hitler thought himself a providential genius after all that.

This belief, by the way, is what did Hitler in. He really thought he was unbeatable…that a string of very bizarre luck was something he willed into existence. The luck ran out first over the skies of Britain and then in the rubble of Stalingrad. But, still: horrible war. Never want to do that again. And provision should be made in case someone else starts to get on a run of luck like that. But this doesn’t mean that every foreign enemy is Hitler and every crisis is Munich. We must stop being stampeded into bad actions by people who are not only lying to us about the threat but are, themselves, very stupid and ignorant people. That’s why they overuse the Hitler analogy, by the way: they’re too stupid to come up with anything else. We stop letting them use that on us and it’ll stop being used.

Absent a Hitler, any foreign crisis is just a thing to be dealt with based upon our perceived needs at the time. It isn’t the precursor to World War Three…it is just Russia wanting the Donbas. Do we let her have it? Try to stop it? These are empirical questions to be answered on a case by case basis. Subsidiary questions are: if we let her have it, what price do we extract from Russia? If we try to stop it: to what extent? That is, how far are we really willing to go to keep Russia out? Rational arguments can be made both ways on this – and it is in the rational argument where we’ll eventually arrive at the best solution. Shouting its Hitler II and you’re a Putin stooge if you don’t drop a hundred billion into arguably the most corrupt nation in Europe is…bad. Unwise. In fact, it is so bad and so unwise that only a complete moron or a con artist would go that route.

As I’ve endlessly yammered on about lately, it is time to rejoin the real world. Paraphrasing Bismarck, if I am convinced that well-reasoned national policy requires it, I’ll see American soldiers fire on Russians or Iranians or Chinese without batting an eye. If we are pressed to it, then war to the knife. But I also believe that cool headed diplomacy backed up by force-in-being will resolve most foreign crisis. Do keep in mind that if Germany and France had between them a military force of, say, 600,000 ready to go in 2022 then a joint declaration by them that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would be casus belli then almost certainly there would have been no Russian invasion. But, also, it doesn’t mean that Russia would get nothing…because if the Russian demand is that Ukraine turn over the Donbas to Russia or Russia will invade, then it is time for the Great Powers to get together at the table and see if a solution short of war could be found. In the real world, diplomacy is backed by force. In the fantasy world, it is backed by a Clinton Administration memo which means nothing. A powerful EU confronting a powerful Russia probably means Putin gets half a loaf. Maybe a quarter of a loaf. But he doesn’t get nothing. And war is avoided because everyone is well armed and ready to use it to make sure that Russia doesn’t try for the whole loaf.

And do keep in mind that the Russo-Ukraine crisis can become a World War if things are managed badly. Much like WWI growing out of a fracas in the Balkans. Nobody really willed that war into existence but a whole string of dumb decisions came together to make it happen. It might well be a dumb decision for us to go to the mat to stop Russia because that might draw in other powers who don’t want Russia humiliated and soon we might find the lights going out all around the world. Much better, as noted, to have armed diplomacy to come to a reasonable solution before things get out of hand.

And now to a last point on this: NATO was a huge mistake. Never should have entered into it. The theory was that Soviet Communism could only be deterred by collective security…and that does have some basis in fact if the USSR was militarily aggressive. But it wasn’t. Certainly not right after WWII and for a couple decades afterwards. Russia had been wrecked by the war. Sure, Stalin and his successors would have fought if they thought it necessary…but they weren’t about to go launching into WWIII any time soon. They couldn’t (people forget that without massive Anglo-American material aid, the USSR would have been compelled to peace in 1943, if not sooner). All NATO did was allow the Europeans to skimp on their own defense. All through the Cold War the NATO allies failed to really live up to their commitments. Sure, their armies in the 1980’s were massively larger than now…but not as large as they were supposed to be. All of them sought cuts in defense spending to use on social programs…all of them coasted along on the back of American military power. Absent NATO, the British would have had to retain a very powerful Navy (powerful enough to secure Britain’s trade unaided) while the French would have had to retain a very powerful Army (powerful enough to stop any theoretical Russian invasion at the Rhine). And our part of defending the West could have been a mere diplomatic note stating that the operation of a hostile naval force around the UK or the invasion of France by a hostile power would trigger American intervention. The Europeans would still have been backed up by us…but not dependent on us. And Europe would have been strong enough to force a diplomatic resolution to the Russo-Ukraine crisis.

Foreign Affairs

Mark Noonan10 Comments

Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz (and known by all in his time simply as “Kaunitz”) was effectively chancellor of the Austrian Empire (within the framework of the very reduced Holy Roman Empire) from 1753 to 1792. I have mentioned him before mostly because he’s one of the most fascinating figures in history, though little known these days. But in his time he very much strode the world as a colossus … everyone listening to him, wondering what he’d do next, that sort of thing. He served a total of four Hapsburg Emperors but he’s most famed for his service to Maria Theresa. It is something he did there that I want to bring up.

A lot of nonsense is being written about foreign affairs since the Trump-Zelenskyy meeting. Lots of people are considering it a disaster and that it’ll encourage Russia and China and we’re really screwed now unless we somehow get Ukraine to victory over Russia. But among the hand-wringing dramatics a couple voices have whispered: “you know, we need Russia as an ally against China”. These voices are ridiculed – yet more accusations of being a Putin stooge and so forth because, as these people say, Russia and China are friends and the only way to deal with them is to show them we’re tough…by backing Ukraine to the hilt!

It is like nobody can read a map or has even cursory knowledge of history.

To be sure, Russia and China are friendly today – China providing lots of help to Russia against Ukraine. While the war goes on, Russia will be careful to keep China happy. The quid pro quo everyone expects here is that since China supports Russia against Ukraine (which Putin states is a renegade province of Russia), Russia will support China against Taiwan (which China considers to also be a renegade province). And that does make sense. But there’s one fly in the ointment: China doesn’t need Russian help against Taiwan. Not even in the UN where China holds the same veto power as Russia. Sure, Putin issuing a diplomatic note supporting China’s annexation of Taiwan will be nice for China at the time, but it will also be quite meaningless…the merest gesture.

One does have to actually think about things and in the Russo-Chinese case given that Russia needs China right now but China needs Russia not at all, try to figure out why China is being so helpful. It becomes blazingly obvious with just the least bit of thought: a conflict between Russia and the West means there’s a conflict between Russia and the West and that suits China right down to the ground. The western world concentrating its military and diplomatic efforts over the Donbas is a West not paying attention as China builds a blue water Navy and deeply economically penetrates Africa and South America. It is a no brainer for China to help Russia – just as its a no-brainer for Russia to accept Chinese help. But because their interests coincide today doesn’t mean they always will.

And that brings us back to Kaunitz. He was made first minister by Maria Theresa because she thought him the man to cobble together an alliance which would undo the result of the War of the Austrian Succession. This had occurred just after her father had died when Prussia had invaded Austria’s province of Silesia. Entirely without justification – a mere power grab by the Prussian king who felt his army the stronger and himself the superior to any woman on a throne. In the event, after 8 years of war, Prussia did manage to keep her stolen goods in the form of Silesia, but Maria Theresa had proved herself a woman of courage and good sense, more than a match for the Prussian king. And she hadn’t given up on getting back what was stolen…but she needed a man of brilliance and tact to rework the European balance of power in her favor. That man was Kaunitz.

Part of the problem Austria had in the previous war was that Prussia was allied with France, which was Austria’s ancient enemy (French and Austrian rulers had engaged in wars for centuries). As long as Prussia could count on the large French army attacking Austria from the west and south then things would go well for Prussia. Kaunitz had the skill and he carried out Maria Theresa’s instructions – France was detached from alliance with Prussia and entered alliance with Austria (it actually was in France’s best long-term interests to curb Prussian ambition…as was proved in 1870). Getting Russia to join the Franco-Austrian alliance just made it even more powerful. This diplomatic tour de force has been called “The Reversal of Alliances” and it was an earthquake in diplomatic affairs. And it almost worked – when the war between Prussia and Austria resumed the combination overwhelmed Prussia with sheer weight of numbers…until the very untimely death of the Russian Empress at the time pulled Russia out of the war. But that is neither here nor there for our purposes today: what we’re doing is pointing out that alliances aren’t permanent. That you don’t conduct your foreign affairs based on sentimental attachments but on the cold, hard facts of your situation. The problem for the USA is that since the fall of the Berlin Wall, sentiment has governed our actions. It is time for facts to come to the fore.

The biggest fact we have right now is that China is far and away the biggest foreign challenge we face. Our foreign policy should be geared primarily towards curbing Chinese ambitions. If you take a look at the map of the world and all the strategic points on it, there will be one rather glaring absence: Ukraine. It has no strategic importance in global affairs. It is a geographic irrelevancy. To Russia it is important. Poland, too. But if you don’t border Ukraine then Ukraine doesn’t matter. Whoever holds it will not harm your own strategic position. Not for nothing have the Dardanelles just south of Ukraine been fought over for centuries while Ukraine has slumbered in obscurity for almost all its history. The former is a crucial strategic point…the latter is just a bit of flat land really good for farming. There is no upside for the USA in fussing over Ukraine – it does not help us contain China.

Another glance at that map and you’ll notice that China and Russia share a huge land border in Siberia – which is 5.1 million square miles with 37 million people living on it. Do that bit of math: that is 7.25 people per square mile. China, just south of Siberia, has a density of 381 per square mile. Siberia has vast reserves of gold, silver, lead, tin, zinc, oil, diamonds, nickel, natural gas…like some of the largest reserves in the world for these materials. Oh, and huge chunk of Siberia was under Chinese rule until the late 19th century.

Do you see what I’m getting at? Russia has this gigantic territory – larger by itself than the USA or China – which is largely unpopulated, stupendously rich in natural resources and part of which used to be Chinese…which sits south of the border with 1.2 billion people, limited natural resources and a crucial need for cheap and easy economic growth to keep their people from questioning Communist party rule. In other words, while Russia and China have a community of interests today, it doesn’t mean they always will. And, truth be told, the only way Russia can be certain of holding Siberia is in alliance with the USA. There are, then, fertile grounds of a new reversal of alliances…detaching Russia from the Chinese connection and adding her to a consortium of nations (USA, India, Vietnam, Korea, Japan) united to keep China under control.

But how can we ally with Putin?!?!? You Putin stooge!!!! Yeah, whatever. We allied with Stalin against Hitler so allying with the far less unsavory Putin against China is within the realm of possibility. And this alliance with Russia remains valid even if Putin – or any Russian leader – tries to cobble together the entirely of the Czarist Empire. It would not alter America’s strategic position. It would gravely alter Europe’s, of course, but that is an European problem…and so far only Poland and Italy are acting like Russia is a problem by vastly increasing their defense spending. But no matter how it goes over there, it isn’t an American problem.

But we can’t let aggression stand! Sure, whatever – that boat sailed in 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea and we accepted stalemate. The two World Wars were very much fought on the ground that you can’t shoot your way into power. The Allied victory in both wars placed that ideal as an absolute in global affairs. Heck, we even hung and imprisoned Nazis on the charge of plotting aggressive warfare. But at the very first challenge to the principle in Korea, we and the rest of the West folded like a cheap suit. We actually had Nazis sitting in jail for aggressive war at the time we decided that North Korea’s aggressive war was something we’d just have to live with. Don’t blame me that the main point of the world wars was wasted…that while the great good of stopping Nazism occurred, all other fruits of the victory were thrown away within a decade of the end of the war. That was done by others, not by me. And I won’t adhere to a standard rejected before I was born. Whether or not I’ll try to stop aggression is entirely dependent on whether or not that aggression negatively impacts the United States. And, sorry, but a Russian invasion of Ukraine doesn’t qualify.

I don’t advocate for a pullout from NATO out of petulance but simply because I can’t see the slightest need for it. A Russian invasion of Ukraine doesn’t matter to me. Those whom it does matter are quite powerful enough to build an army to repel a Russian invasion. I also know that in the primary challenge my nation faces – China – the Europeans are far more likely to back China than the USA. There is little community of interest between the USA and the EU…and as Europe is arresting people for social media posts, I can’t see how a stand for Europe is a stand for liberty…sure, a German prison is much nicer than a Russian prison, but both are holding people who said things offensive to the government. This is very alien to the American experience – it makes Europe no longer America’s cousin, but a very strange, malevolent place that Americans better not travel to any longer, lest we run afoul of their Orwellian speech laws.

As in so many things, it is time to enter the real world. The real world is that the USA has maybe one or two friends in the world (Israel and Japan? Maybe a couple others). Everyone else wants us dead or at least to play us for their own ends. We might have a sentimental attachment to France because of Normandy but we must start to understand that the French government will piss on our graves over there if they felt it was in France’s best interests to do so. Nobody else in the world acts on sentiment, and we must stop it.

The Russo-Ukraine War

Mark Noonan9 Comments

The War of the Spanish Succession lasted from 1701 to 1714. It was, in a sense, the first world war in that it involved fights in Europe, Asia and the Americas as a coalition led by Great Britain fought to curb the ambition of France under Louis XIV. In the much-smaller population of the time, it still carried off via war and disease about 2 million people.

Thing is, the war actually ended in August of 1704. That was when an Anglo-Dutch force captured Gibraltar and secured British control over the Mediterranean Sea. After that, it was just a lot of fighting with no major strategic shifts until a peace of exhaustion was secured in 1714…with Britain retaining control of the one prize of the war: Gibraltar (still under British rule to this day).

It is often like that: wars going on after the issue has been decided. This is invariably because the side that lost doesn’t want to admit it and so keep smashing their skull against the stronger, victorious side.

World War Two? It ended in June of 1942 with the Japanese defeat at Midway. It is understandable once you realize that the only path to Axis victory was keeping the American military out of Europe. For all FDR’s commitment to the “Europe first” strategy, he wouldn’t have been able to carry it out if Midway had been lost, Hawaii conquered and the west coast under attack from Japanese carrier battle groups. Without full commitment by the USA to Europe, the Anglo-Russian alliance would have been insufficient to overcome Germany (side note: if we had been defeated at Midway that wouldn’t 100% mean we lost the war – we could build ships faster than the Japanese and so we might have retrieved the situation…but for Japan, and thus for the Axis, Midway was do or die; Japan lacked the resources to replace the equipment and men lost when 4 fleet carriers went down during that battle). Midway won, FDR could keep his promise…and an American army landed in North Africa just five months after Midway. In a sane world, Germany and Japan would have sued for peace no later than January of 1943.

So, too, other wars. The Civil War was over when Vicksburg surrendered in 1863. World War One was over for Germany when they lost the Battle of the Marne in 1914…doubly over when their gamble at Verdun in 1916 was drowned in blood. So, why bring this up? Because the issue in Ukraine is not who is right or wrong, braver, more noble…the issue is this: is this war already over?

In my view, it is. Ended before it even started. After Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014 and clearly indicated that he considered Ukraine to be Russian, it was time for Ukraine to pursue one of two courses of action:

  1. Appeasement of Russia.
  2. Building a military force so potent that it could immediately respond to Russian aggression in an absolutely devastating manner.

Ukraine pursued neither of these options. They lived on in a sort of dream world where a corrupt and incompetent Ruling Class passed out bribes to foreign influencers and hoped that the mere thought that Ukraine would become part of NATO would deter Russian aggression. This obviously was a very bad idea – it is clear now that building up a military force was the best option as the war has revealed Russia’s astonishing military incompetence. This really shouldn’t have surprised us…we should have figured that 70 years of Communist rule had pretty much wiped out all decent and courageous elements in Russia and the dregs of Stalin’s GULAG weren’t going to be very good (side note: they weren’t very good in WWII, either: Russia’s victory was gifted to them by Hitler’s incompetence…and even then the Russians lost a couple million more than necessary simply because the Russian leadership used blood rather than thought to get at the Germans).

But all of that is past. Can’t change it. But what we also can’t change is the battle lines. For example:

And then:

Notice that the lines have not moved in any significant way in two years. Nobody really knows how many have died in the war as both sides lie quite egregiously about it. Best estimates are about 2 million total casualties and this would indicate given normal killed to wounded ratio that about 700,000 are dead and 1.3 million wounded, some significant number of those wounded permanently crippled. All credit to the Ukrainian military for at least stopping the Russians from taking over the whole country…but there’s no further point in fighting. It is just going to get more people killed and likely not change anything…with the understanding that if this becomes a genuine war of attrition, Russia will win due to superior numbers and eventually conquer the whole country. It is highly unlikely that Putin wants to draft enough Russians to do that…so, once again, back to nothing ever changing.

Peace now based on current lines of control is the best option. And I’m talking full peace. No ceasefire: an actual treaty between Russia and Ukraine ratified by both sides which cedes Russian-controlled territory to Russia but also commits Russia to no further territorial claims against Ukraine. Such a thing won’t actually stop Russia but it puts to bed Putin’s theory that Ukraine is Russian and should be part of Russia. It would be an admission by a Russian government that it really doesn’t have title to Ukraine. And then Ukraine can start to build that first-rate army they should have built after the 2015 ceasefire. Of course, I don’t know if Ukraine has any better military material in their population than Russia does – they, too, are the dregs of Stalin’s GULAG. But they can at least try – and very likely a force even a little bit better than Russia’s will whack the Russians pillar to post if it comes to it. The idea here is for Ukraine to have a force in being – instantly ready to go – which can both defeat an oncoming Russian invasion and rapidly move the conflict onto Russian territory…so when the battle lines stabilize it is Ukraine holding the whip hand. This is just Weaker Country Strategy 101, guys. I’m not suggesting something new. It is how the IDF trounced the combined forces of the Arab world in four different wars.

I’m naturally bringing this up because of the meeting today between Trump and Zelenskyy. Yes, a lot of NeoCons are very upset about it. I’m not. Zelenskyy has been playing a role and getting the aid and its all been quite useless…and then he had the idiotic idea of campaigning for Harris in Pennsylvania. This will go down as one of the most bone-headed moves in diplomatic history…the foreigner seeking aid always strokes both sides of the political divide. The Israelis know to keep lines open to both Republicans and Democrats and never overtly engage in partisan American politics. When the life or death of your country is at stake, you swallow your pride and do what’s best for your country…not what’s best for a partisan photo-op. So, today Trump and Vance raked Zelenskyy over the coals. Fully deserved and the best way to get to a peace deal…the Ukrainians had to learn that they’re not talking their butts out of this one…more aid may be forthcoming, but peace is the objective here, not another four years of war.

And this is yet another example of us getting back into the real world. The pretend world is Slava Ukraini! with the brave and heroic Zelenskyy in his fatigues fighting the Russians in the trenches. The real world is that Zelenskyy is an entertainer promoted way above his pay grade, his fatigues are a costume and the trenches are running red with blood. Maybe the Ukrainians really do want to fight on – we don’t know as Zelenskyy cancelled the elections so there’s no way to assess Ukrainian opinion on the matter. But whatever on that – it is their country and their blood. If they want to keep fighting then God bless…do your best. But without our money and weapons. I don’t want to risk a hot war with Russia in the center of Europe over the Donbas…not when we’re $37 trillion in debt, our armed forces are very weak, our manufacturing capacity anemic and China is building a blue water navy.

The Stupid Failure of Foreign Aid

Mark Noonan34 Comments

In an attempt to make us all feel bad about MAGA, a Democrat operative pointed out that a 71 year old Burmese refugee in Thailand died the other day because the NGO providing her oxygen ceased service because Trump shut off the USAID funds. There were a couple problems with this:

  1. @Oilfield_Rando pointed out that the CEO of the NGO makes $2.2 million per year. You’d think he could have kicked in for an oxygen tank or two.
  2. An American lady in North Carolina died of hypothermia on January 6th, 2025, after FEMA failed to help her. No Democrat rose to condemn Biden over this. Bottom line: they don’t care about people dying. They only care about political power and the dead lady in Thailand, they think, helps them gain power. Think of how hard they had to look to even find this out?
  3. The conflict in Burma (called Myanmar by the current pack of thugs running the place) has been ongoing since 1948. It is an entirely senseless ethnic conflict that no civilized people would tolerate – and we note, with great care, that under British rule these conflicts were suppressed because killing someone on account of their ethnicity is barbaric and stupid.

As we are now closely reviewing all the foreign aid, we must also address the underlying reason for foreign aid. Why, at the end of the day, do we do it? After all, outside sporadic international help in response to natural disasters, until the mid-20th century foreign aid just wasn’t a thing. A couple reasons are given for it:

  1. Humanitarian. Can’t let people die. This, of course, is true. If we can in any way prevent an unnecessary death, we should do so.
  2. Global power. If we don’t provide the aid, then someone else will and we’ll lose influence over crucial areas of the globe, placing ourselves at a disadvantage.

We’ll start with number 2 here: global power. If we don’t, someone else will, to our detriment. Ok. Between 2012 and 2022 the United States provided about $2.8 billion per year in aid to Tanzania. That’s equal to 3.4% of Tanzania’s annual GDP. They should love us, right? I mean, if someone handed us a sum equal to 3.4% of our GDP every year, we’d probably like that guy. I know if someone handed me a figure equal to 3.4% of my annual income, I’d be grateful. So, how has this love worked out?

Tanzania has signed a $2.2bn deal with two Chinese firms to build a standard gauge rail link between the port of Dar es Salaam and a nickel mine in Burundi, Business Insider Africa reports.

Looked into who owns that nickel mine in Burundi and it appears to be a company called East African Region Group which is headed up by some sheik from the United Arab Emirates. We gave Burundi $69.7 million in 2024.

To nutshell, in return for $28 billion to Tanzania over the past ten years and nearly $70 million to Burundi just in 2024 we got…nothing. China gets to build the railroad and the Emirates get to mine the nickel. Oh, I mean, sure: there are more healthy workers in Tanzania and Burundi than there would have been without US aid and that’s nice…helps the Chinese and Emiratis a lot. I’m sure they’re grateful.

But at least we did provide the humanitarian aid, right? We can feel good about that!

Well, maybe not.

Not trying to pick on Tanzania here – in fact, I literally picked the country at random for the example here, figuring in advance that any African nation would have the same basic arc over the past 60+ years – but the bottom line is that it became independent in 1961 and in 2024, 63 years later, got $2.8 billion in aid from us. And a lot more from elsewhere (though I suspect that a lot of the non-US aid is actually just more US aid funneled through non-US NGO’s). Just what the heck have the people of Tanzania been up to all this time? In 63 years of American post-colonial development we went from an agricultural backwater to a significant industrial power (that would be 1776 to 1839) about to break out into major power level. And we didn’t get a dime in foreign aid.

Oh, wait. Perhaps that is it?

Americans are no smarter than Africans – people is people. Genius is rare and the average run of us are…average. Americans are not harder working than Africans. Americans are not morally superior to Africans. On the grand scale of things, a space alien examining an African and an American wouldn’t find a dime’s worth of difference between them. So, what gives?

The basic African story: independence granted by an exhausted Imperial power which just didn’t want to bother any longer (though people pump up the leaders of independence movements in Africa into some sort of super-human heroes); a colonially-educated, socialist-minded strong-man takes over and rules for ages (Tanzania was run by Julius Nyerere from 1960 to 1985) suppressing political dissent and trying to graft Marxist twaddle onto a subsistence-agriculture, tribal society. Debt, inflation and general misery results (in the best cases – the worst go Rwanda and genocidal murder)…along with buckets of foreign aid money. And don’t get me wrong here, as far as post-colonial strong-men went, Nyerere was pretty good…at least he doesn’t appear to have looted his treasury and he did (eventually) give up power (though basically to the one-party State he created and which persists today via bogus elections). It should be noted that Nyerere the anti-colonialist firebrand who is hailed to this day as one of the Liberators of Africa…died in a London hospital. All that time in power all that money spent…couldn’t even build one first-rate hospital in his homeland.

All we can really say here is that the aid is the problem – that it actually props up what is wrong in the recipient countries. Think about it: Nyerere’s policies were basket-case bad right out the gate…what kept his people fed sufficient to prevent bloody revolution was the foreign aid. The gifts of the First World. And so it goes in one Third World nation after another – a lousy, stupid and usually corrupt post-colonial Ruling Class makes a mess of things and then begs for aid to put a band aid over the failure. And we give and give and give and nothing really ever improves and on top of all that, we here in the USA don’t even get to exploit the material resources and cheap labor…the Chinese get to do that. How is this good? How is this considered moral?

I don’t want us to leave people to just die – but if people are just dying then we can’t just pass out the cash. We have to address the underlying problem…and that problem is going to invariably be the Ruling Class of the country where people will die if they don’t get aid. They’re either too corrupt or too stupid (or a combination of same) to run their country. I don’t care about offended patriotic sensibilities…if you will starve without my food, then when I send the food, I send my control over you. Because I can’t trust you’ll fix the problem. If we send aid, it comes with strict instructions not just on how the aid is used, but how the recipient country will organize itself going forward. And, hey, they can refuse the conditions…and the food. Their choice. Let the local strong-man rant and rave about American imperialists…I don’t care. But if he wants food rather than his people rising up to kill him, then he’ll do as he’s told.

As I’ve said on many occasions of late, it is time for us to enter the real world. To take things as they actually are, not as we might wish them to be. It is the only way anything is going to get fixed.

Our Useless Alliances

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Why are we in NATO and the UN?

It is a question ever more Americans are asking themselves and it is time we really think this one over. The official justification for NATO, UN and all the rest of the international organizations is that collective security is the solution to the World Wars. That is, if everyone was banded together against the aggressor(s) then the aggression would never occur. It is considered axiomatic that if the USA had been part of the League of Nations in the interwar years, WWII would have been prevented. Our absence from the organization, it is said, sabotaged it and left it incapable of standing up to the aggressor. Really?

Suppose we were in the League in, say, 1938…just what would our understrength and obsolescent 100,000 man Army do in the face of Germany’s territorial demands on the Czechs? Given them something to laugh at?

The idea of collective security is based upon an assumption that everyone thinks pretty much the same way. That is, they weigh up the plusses and minuses and make their decisions accordingly. I have no idea how anyone started to believe this because all of history makes a mockery of it. Especially the history just before NATO and the UN were created. Collective security was never going to stop Hitler. It wouldn’t even have stopped a Germany absent Hitler. There was collective security against German aggression in 1914 where the Anglo-French-Russian alliance was overwhelmingly more powerful than the German-Austrian combination. It didn’t work then. It didn’t work in 1939. It never has worked. It never can work. Its a dumb idea.

The Germans attacked – in both 1914 and 1939 – not because they didn’t face a collective alliance against aggression, but because they thought they could win quick and cheap. In 1914, the German ambitions included essentially annexation for Belgium and Luxembourg, slicing off northern France, Poland and Finland to become German vassals and all of central Africa from the Sahara to South Africa. They really thought that if they could get to Paris in six weeks, they’d gain all of this. To put it bluntly, they figured that for 100,000 dead Germans, they’d gain mastery of Europe and a much larger position in the world. In 1939 it was the same thing – Hitler and his Germans thought they could win a quick victory…annul the 1918 results and gain what they wanted in 1914. It was stupid both times – and collective security stopped none of it. They were being unreasonable. Greedy and wicked. You can’t actually stop such people – you can only kill them when they try.

But now lets go forward – we need NATO, it is said, because we have to defend Europe from Russia. Ok. We’ll leave aside whether Europe is worth defending (in my view, it isn’t) and just concentrate on the claim. Did NATO stop Russia from invading Ukraine? Twice?

No.

NATO is overwhelmingly more powerful than Russia. If NATO wants, it could raise a military force large enough to make mincemeat of Russia in short order.

Did this stop Russia from attacking Ukraine?

No.

Of course not. Because Russia knows full well the situation and the bottom line here is that no NATO country is going to actually send an army to fight and die in the Donbas on the debatable issue of it being actually Ukrainian. The only thing that might have stopped Putin from invading wasn’t the existence of an alliance much more powerful than he…but an army in Ukraine either before or right after the Russian attack. Putin might have listened to, say, two German armored corps stationed outside Kiev in February of 2022. Might. He still may have gone right ahead if he felt confident that the Russian army was stronger. People who start wars aren’t noted for their rational thoughts. Even great conquerors like Napoleon get caught up in their own desires; never fully understanding the folly of what they’re doing. If they did understand the folly, they never would attack. Someone who attacks is someone who left off at least most of sanity some time before (even if attacking a much weaker enemy – like say the USSR against the Finns in 1939…no way Russia was going to lose but Stalin still sent men to die – to die – for what was at best a modest convenience for Soviet strategic needs; that’s just nuts). And here’s the real kicker: suppose two German armored corps outside Kiev would have stopped him? Nice. One small problem: Germany doesn’t have two armored corps. The Germans only have two panzer divisions plus one panzergrenadier. That’s pretty much it. Hard to deter anyone if you don’t have any force to deter them with.

And that gets us to the really fatal flaw behind NATO and the UN – they are predicated upon having a force immediately available to be unquestioningly used against aggression. There was a time when NATO had this – but after the Cold War ended, it all atrophied very rapidly. Everyone kept saying that NATO provides collective security – repeating it like an incantation as division after division, wing after wing, task force after task force was cut from NATO’s military inventory. Even if the theory of collective security was true, it doesn’t work without military force. Only the USA still maintains a sizeable military force…and our current force is run down, demoralized and understrength after two rounds (Obama and Biden) of imposing Woke ideology on it while equipment and training went by the board. I doubt our ability to field even a complete division for ground combat right now – and the streaks of rust I see on our ships makes me doubt heavily that we’ve even got a Navy at the moment. But we’re Patton ready to fight compared to the European military forces…did you know that Gibraltar, the gateway to the Mediterranean, is currently protected by 235 British soldiers and two patrol boats? You hold Gibraltar and you control one of the most vital trade routes in the world…and it is currently defenseless. Makes ya feel safe, doesn’t it?

As we enter Trump II, it is time we really started to think again about what we want? And I am certain that NATO isn’t it – there’s nothing in Europe I’d ever send an American kid to defend and if I’m concerned about our global position than alliance with Japan, India and Vietnam seems far more useful than what we have now. But I also think we have to abandon this concept of permanent alliances. NATO and the UN have proved not just useless, but malevolent – actually undermining our power and position in the world. An alliance is a thing for the moment – to do a particular task. I want an alliance with India not so that 50 years from now we’re still allied with India, but because the USA and India share a common need to deter China’s power grabs. Once the China issue is settled, then there will be no need for a USA/India alliance and it can lapse.

It is time for us to stop doing things just because it is what we’ve been doing. I realize that a huge number of people have invested their whole lives – and make their money – off the current system, but the system is to serve the country, not the country the system. What we have now serves no purpose; not even a bad purpose. Dispense with it and look for new ways.

Our Stupid and Violent World

Mark Noonan18 Comments

I got yelled at on X by an Irish guy. I had made a little joke about having my surname changed as I didn’t want to be connected with Ireland – and this in regards to the President of Ireland sending a congratulatory letter to the new “President” of Iran – you know, the fanatic anti-Semitic thug chosen by the Mullahs to replace the previous fanatic anti-Semitic thug. I momentarily pondered pointing out that his government had expressed condolences to Germany over Hitler eating a bullet in 1945 but I decided I was dealing with a lunatic and so just blocked him. But then I started thinking about it and I came to an odd conclusion: Irish independence has been a mistake.

Don’t get me wrong here: I’m not excusing things like Cromwell’s depredations nor the vicious anti-Catholic laws the Brits imposed on Ireland. Injustice is injustice and is always wrong. But the bottom line is that while the UK – and, previously, England – had made a huge number of mistakes and committed innumerable crimes in Ireland, by the time the Irish rose in rebellion in 1916, the whole cause of Irish independence was a moot point.

The Roman Catholic Relief Act had passed in 1829 so you could legally be Catholic. The Representation of the People of Ireland Act came in 1832, enfranchising the Irish population equally with the rest of the UK population. Ireland had proportional representation in Parliament and, indeed, at times the Irish Members held the balance of power in the UK (that is, nobody could form a government without getting them on board). After the Famine (which wasn’t deliberate no matter what some Irish guy might yap on about) ended in 1852, Irish prosperity grew rapidly with the Irish having access to work and live anywhere in the United Kingdom and the larger British Empire. What all this showed was that for all of the UK’s flaws, it was a Rule of Law State which afforded its people – of whatever background – all the Rights that people should have, even if securing those Rights took some political battling (as it always has everywhere). Just before World War One – indeed, it was a massive political issue in the UK just as the War came in – the Brits had even agreed to Home Rule: that is, setting up an independent Irish Parliament much as Scotland has today. It was delayed by the War but it was still coming. Whatever lingering feeling remained of being “ruled” by the English was coming to an end…peacefully and with Ireland getting the benefits of local rule combined with those of being part of a larger political, social and economic entity. So, what was the fuss about?

Mindless tribalism. The Irish Nationalist leaders simply didn’t want to be part of the UK because it was dominated by the English. Because great-grandpa had been hung for stealing a sheep. In other words, nothing. No real cause. Just hatred – and hatred which was fueled by German arms provided to the Irish rebels while the UK was fighting for her life against those same Germans. They say the Brit reaction to the Easter Uprising in 1916 is what turned the Irish people in broad majority towards independence. If so, that actually makes the Irish out to be pretty lousy people. What they heck did they expect? Britain was losing thousands of men a week fighting the Germans and here comes Paddy armed with a German rifle to start a rebellion in the rear? Yeah. Guess what: the reaction to that isn’t going to be nice.

But it wasn’t all that harsh. Once the Easter Uprising was suppressed, the Brits took about 3,500 prisoners, about 10 percent picked up for looting. Nearly half were released in a couple weeks. Only 187 were put on trial. Remember, this was an armed uprising against the government during wartime that was supported by the enemy! Thousands of Irish participated – 187 went on trial; 16 were executed. That’s it. For armed rebellion during wartime…and rebellion against a government which was equal for all citizens in the United Kingdom. It just wasn’t a totally Irish government. That was the only objection.

And that is the real problem here: mindlessness. People pick their tribe – or are born into one – and just pigheadedly defend their side no matter what facts might say. Chesterton pointed out that saying, “my country, right or wrong” is like saying, “my mother, drunk or sober”. Patriotism isn’t chauvinism. Love of country means, at times, admitting your country is in the wrong and needs to be corrected. The Irish never seem to have got to that point.

The Irish stayed neutral in World War Two simply because they didn’t like the English…as if that mattered. Some credit to the Irish people – especially some Irish soldiers – who joined up with the British, but Irish society and the Irish government were very much “a pox on both your houses” as they pretended that anything other than an Allied victory would save them. Think about that: the most titanic struggle in human history against the personification of evil…and the Irish stayed out because they didn’t like the English. You know, Mexicans do have some cause to be upset with Americans over various historical events…but in WWII the Mexicans declared war and while unable to provide much, did provide something to the Allied cause. It wasn’t like anyone was expecting Ireland to conscript her entire manhood and send them into battle…a just about symbolic declaration and maybe a regiment attached to an American division. Oh, and don’t go getting weepy eyed at the Nazi embassy after Hitler offed himself. Not much of an ask.

And this is why the Irish are, perhaps even by majority, rabidly in favor of the “Palestinian” cause – simple thickheaded hatred. The Irish do see kindred spirits in Hamas and Hezbollah. Keep in mind that even after independence, Irish people were setting off bombs in the UK into the late 1990’s in service of the cause of bringing Northern Ireland under the rule of Dublin. Why? Because in the distant past (like 300 years) the land had been majority Irish. That’s it. Forget that a huge number of events came between, say, 1650 and 1950: it had once been Irish and Irish it must become again. For…reasons. Can’t really think of any. Whatever might have happened in the past, by the time of Irish independence the majority of the population wasn’t Irish and didn’t want to be part of Ireland. That’s an end on it. There was no just cause for anyone to complain about this. But there was the IRA setting off bombs in British pubs in the 1970’s because of some mythical past in Ulster. So, too, the “Palestinians”. Not quite as much time but what happened on 10/7 is that the great-granddaughter of a Jew living in 1948 was raped to death by the great-grandson of a Muslim who tried to kill the Jew in 1948…the modern Muslim trying to annul the last 75 years and make Tel Aviv Muslim…which it hasn’t been by majority population since some time in the mid-19th century. But it was Muslim once upon a time!

As if that matters. It ain’t now. Whatever wrongs happened didn’t happen to the people today (the youngest Muslim who can have a complaint against 1948 is, of course, 76 years old…just figure it out for the youngest adult Muslim who can have a legit complaint: 94 years old). We’re not talking a large number of people even if there was a legit complaint…and the people with a gripe (if there are such) did not take part in 10/7.

And that brings us to a stark realization that we have, for a very long time, allowed very stupid people to disturb the peace of the world for nonsensical reasons. We’re on the brink of a regional war in the Middle East – which could eventually drag in the Great Powers – because of a very stupid concept: that there is some cause “Palestinians” are fighting for. It isn’t a cause. It is an idiocy. It is twaddle. It is infantile nonsense. But we treat it with great respect. We hold conferences about it. UN votes. It is disturbing our own domestic politics. We’ve imported some of the problem so that we can now have “Palestinians” beating up Jews here in the USA. But not just the ridiculous “Palestinians”…time and time again around the world since WWII we have seen these fights emerge as idiots decide to go on murderous rampages in service of stupid causes based upon alleged injustices of the past. Think about the Rwandan genocide as the worst sort of example: Hutu massacred Tutsi…because of some bizarre complaint about who was better off under Belgian colonial rule decades previously. It was just mindless savagery…and the world sat back and watched it happen because for whatever insane reason it has been decided that stupid people acting like lunatics are to be treated with respect.

We have to stop that. Understanding that we live in a big world with lots of different people. Understanding that our understanding of what is true and beautiful might be different from someone else’s. Sure. All that. But nobody can be allowed to act like savages over the past. Did he, that person, do something to you? No. Then shut up and sit down; we have nothing to discuss unless he does. And when some person or group or even nationality decides to go on a violent rampage based on some alleged past action – true or not – then that person or group or even nationality should be punished with exemplary brutality to make sure they – and everyone else – learns the lesson. We will not have any more of this nonsense.

The world is becoming increasingly violent and teeters on the edge of conflagration. We have to call a halt to it. Back in the 19th century, a halt was called to it. The Great Powers simply did not permit lunatics to go on rampages. The British sent a whole army to Sudan in 1898 to overthrow a thug regime which was practicing slavery. Not because it threatened the British – but because it was a thug regime that needed to be overthrown. No worries about national feeling or the pride of the locals…they were selling slaves. Stop that or here comes our army. When the Rwandan Genocide happened the world knew within days what was happening…and the world should have said, “stop it or we’re sending an army in to hang every Hutu caught with a machete”. They would have stopped. Heck, if we had a world where that sort of firmness was common then it probably would not have started. A bunch of Hutu dimwits would have been sharpening their machetes and really, really wanting to dice a Tutsi…but then they’d remember that each time savages go on a rampage the savages all end up hung…so, maybe find something else to do that day.

And this isn’t difficult. It isn’t morally murky. We Americans might get it wrong from time to time but we’re not setting off bombs because Cromwell burned an Irish farmhouse in 1650. Not massacring people because they had a privileged position the past. In short, we’re better than that – and better than any “Palestinian” setting up a rocket launcher in UNRWA school. And that means we get to tell them what they may or may not do and if they act like pigheaded, disobedient savages then they will be punished. The world is on fire and it is time to put it out.

The Limits of Self Determination

Mark Noonan10 Comments

One of the principles of global affairs that is universally accepted is the right of peoples to self determination. That is, as far as possible, every identifiable nationality should be able to determine its own fate by its own means of arriving at national consensus. For the most part, this is the correct way to go because human beings have a right to their community and their community may express itself. Certainly, as we sit here in our United States, we do not wish to have any alien power dictate to us how we shall conduct our affairs. Any such effort would be considered by us to be an act of war and we would almost certainly fight against it. But even with that, I think that the expressed principle of self determination is incorrect.

To take a step back out of any modern controversy, back from the late 19th century until World War One, the Serbs were considered to be rather pests in the European body politic. They were primitive, nearly barbarous and were given to insane outbreaks of violence. Part of this, of course, was because they had for centuries been under Turkish rule and that rule was not conducive to the development of civilized behavior…but, still, the Serbs had agency and once they gained full independence from the Turks, they did a lot of really lousy things and well earned a reputation in Europe for being a problem to be dealt with. One of the more hideous things was the murder of King Alexander and his wife Draga during a coup; not just murdered, but mutilated. One of the major conspirators in that effort had a hand years later in setting up the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand which led to WWI. Nutshell: not nice people. But once World War One got rolling, Anglo-French propaganda turned these barbarians into the “plucky little Serbs” fighting the mean, old Austrians. Truth be told, the Serbs deserved all they got and more.

Given all that they had done, were the Serbs really people you want self-determining? If it was just that they were being lousy to each other, that wouldn’t be so bad, but they also touched off a world war. It is when you review the full story of the run up to WWI that you understand why the Great Powers of Europe tried to sustain Turkish rule over Serbia…the Turks were holding down people who very often needed a beating. So, there’s our fly in the ointment: we want people to rule themselves, but what do we do if they rule themselves so badly that it causes catastrophe?

Now lets jump over to today: we’re told that the Palestinians deserve their own State, totally free and independent. Leave aside that the Palestinian leadership says they want all of Israel and the massacre of all Jews. Lets just go with the concept that in Gaza and the West Bank the principle of self determination dictates an eventual fully independent State. It isn’t just Islamists saying this – it is some of the most reasonable, intelligent and educated people in the West. It is taken as a given that our end must be Palestinians governing themselves. And to be sure, in theory I think that all of us would want that – given that we want the same for ourselves.

But here’s the problem: Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Sure, the Islamists called it an “open air prison” with the Israeli border controls but that is just nonsense; and if it was a prison, it was enforced not just by Israel, but by Egypt, which has controls at least as strict as Israel’s (and probably more). However you want to slice it and no matter what complaints you wish to make about it, Gaza was free of Israeli occupation. The people of Gaza could choose their course. They were also the recipient of untold billions of dollars in aid from all around the world. They had the freedom and the money to choose.

They choose to build rockets and rape/murder squads.

Self determination suddenly looks a lot less cool, if you ask me.

How in heck is Israel supposed to live next to that? And a fully independent Gaza and West Bank just means even less ability for Israel to check those forces in favor of rockets and rape. The Israeli city of Sderot is 2,800 feet from Gaza. Do you want people who build rockets and rape/murder squads 2,800 feet from you? From your daughter? It is not something that any rational person can agree to – especially after 10/7. Maybe in the days when it was just a few rockets that Iron Dome could mostly stop and the every now and again stabbing attack…but when its 1,200 dead Jews including women who were raped to death, that makes it impossible to lived next to the people who did that. People who do that have to be watched; controlled; ruled.

Perhaps some day in the future the Palestinians can regain self government, but it would take at least a couple generations of instruction – basically un-teaching them hatred of the Jews. Until then, I can’t see any reason other than stupidity for wanting a Palestinian State. We can’t let adherence to a theory blind us to reality. However it happened, and whoever was at fault, the Palestinians have become essentially a national Einsatzgruppe bent on the murder of Jews. Until that is changed, they can’t decide for themselves.

Punish the Barbarians

Mark Noonan19 Comments

I wrote not too long ago about the need to punish – that is, if we want to have civil society then we are going to have to start punishing the miscreants who are increasingly making civil life intolerable. And this wasn’t a call to jail criminals – it was a call to punish. To physically harm these people. And often for what we have been conditioned to call relatively trivial offenses these days. It is necessary to do this – and we will as a society eventually do it – because human beings, because we’re Fallen or just perverse, take your pick based on theological/philosophical beliefs, can only be made civilized. You can’t politely ask a barbarian to behave – you have to whip him into compliance. As we learned over a thousand years, after a while force is reduced to habit and hides its claws. That is once you’ve punished enough people become polite and transmit this moral code to their children on the regular and so barbarism largely vanishes. Unless you do something stupid like think that people are naturally nice and so you can put away the whip forever.

This is also necessary in the realm of international affairs. States are made up of people and so have all the inherent weaknesses people have. But a bit worse in that there is no cop you can call on a nation that has decided to become outlaw. Only other nations can bring it to heel, often at high cost and a lot of bother; war being a fearsome thing, most nations prefer to avoid it as long as possible and often for far too long, allowing the outlaw nations to gain quite a lot before their avarice awakens their enemies to the peril. And that is just for the more conventional nation trying to grab land and resources. At other times, especially in the modern world, the outlaw nation isn’t merely trying for a bit of larceny (though that is always at the bottom of any aggressor’s actions), but are also imposing inhuman cruelty as a part of national policy. The Nazis are, of course, the prime example of this: not only wanting to conquer the world, but also enslaving or murdering everyone they deemed non-Aryan.

The Nazis to a large degree did get what was coming to them. Not enough, in my view: the Germans (as well as the Japanese and Italians) got off far too lightly for putting the world through the Second World War. But it was still sufficient punishment to ensure that no German, Japanese or Italian would decide that a program of conquest and massacre is the way to go. We’re now approaching 80 years since the end of the war and such sentiments in all three nations are only held by tiny numbers of kooks who have no chance of national power. But what was done to the Axis powers during and after WWII also shows the necessity of doing it.

Think about World War One; we are taught that the harsh peace of Versailles caused German resentment and so led to World War Two. Drivel! The reparations were, relatively, no different from what Germany had imposed on France after the Franco-Prussian war. The territories sliced off from Germany were territories the Germans had taken in unjust wars of conquest in the past. And then you really have to think about Belgium and France: they literally did absolutely nothing to bring on the war. They were minding their own business, not offering any threat to anyone in 1914 when the Germans demanded their abject surrender with the threat of invasion if not complied with. It took both of those countries massive blood drain to expel the Germans. Huge amounts of their territory was ruined by war. And, remember: they were completely innocent! And all the French demanded post-war was the return of stolen land and cash compensation for all the death and destruction. That was reasonable. The Germans were unreasonable to so much as resent it. A Germany which had been far more severely punished for WWI would never have started WWII…just as the severely punished Germany of 1945 has not and will not start WWIII.

And you know why I’m bringing this up – the Iranian attack on Israel. While it was ongoing the leaders of the West – from Pudding Brain on down – were calling on Israel to show restraint. Not calling on Iran to show restraint: Israel. And more than likely Israel will show restraint, just as they have in Gaza. Just as they have with their Arab/Muslim enemies since 1948. And that’s the problem: the restraint. As we see in American streets that allowing barbarism just gets you more barbarism, so it is in international affairs. When a savage attacks and you let him live, that just means he’ll attack again…and probably more nasty each time as he figures out new ways to be a son of a bitch.

How should Israel punish? Ideally with their nuclear arsenal. I know: we’re not supposed to say things like that. How could you! The Ultimate Weapon can never be used! Whatever; its just a big bomb. And if Israel really wants to make a point, they’d target Iran’s primary nuclear facilities with nuclear weapons. It would get the Mullahs attention. It would let them know they are outclassed and facing an enemy unafraid to push the button. It is, in fact, the only way for Israel to really punish Iran as Israel is too far away and has too small a population to go toe to toe in a ground war. Sure it would cause outrage – but only among the people who really just want Israel to die already so they can get on with living off Arab oil money in peace and quiet.

In the larger context, if we want to end this international anarchy where States use lunatic proxies to wage war against us – and infiltrate our societies with Islamists committed to our destruction – then we’re going to have to start punishing the nations causing the trouble. To nutshell it: there are no innocent Palestinians. No innocent Iranians. Point blank: if a nation uses its own or irregular forces to attack us – any of us, anywhere at any time – then that nation and its people are outlaws. And outlaws must feel pain. Lots and lots of pain. So much pain that no matter how much they hate us, they’ll never dare look crossways at us again. Our mistake post-9/11 was our assumption (and I did share it at the time) that there was a separate part of the Muslim population causing the trouble and if we could just isolate that part and destroy it, all would be well. Doesn’t work that way. Just as the SS doesn’t work without Fritz delivering the mail, so Islamists don’t work without Abdul milking the goat. All Germans were collectively responsible for Auschwitz. All Muslims were collectively responsible for 9/11. And the only way a German in WWII got out of his responsibility was by actively working for the downfall of the German regime – so, too, the Muslim on the street: he’s guilty unless he actively joins the fight against the Islamists. Want me to make it clear: all Muslims were responsible for 10/7 and Israel has a right to punish all Muslims any way they see fit until such time as all Muslims stop 10/7 from ever happening again.

If we don’t start to see it this way, then we’ll never get out of this mess – and that is bad for Muslims as well as for us. Had we spent WWII just trying to hit SS infrastructure, we would have lost. The SS would have remained in control – and along with killing and oppressing non-Germans, the SS would to this day be killing and oppressing Germans. The Islamic world must learn a harsh lesson; in this case, that they can’t harbor Islamist supremacist thoughts and remain safe. That just allowing it to be means eventually a bomb is coming for you and your family. The only way to safety for Islam must be surrender of all dreams of Islamist conquest – just as the only way to safety for Germans in 1945 was to give up the Nazi dream.

What, then, is punishment? Aside from direct military action there must be surrenders of territories. Removals of populations. Trials of criminals. Occupation by victorious enemies. In other words, what happened to Germany in 1945 must happen to Islam.

We are in no way physically or mentally ready for any such thing; but we’re going to have to get ready. Because they won’t quit. Israel will respond in some military fashion to Iran – and maybe even hit some pretty important targets. But the Iranians are expecting that. It won’t alter the game as far as they are concerned; just a bump on the road to their ultimate victory is how they’ll view the matter. In fact, that Israel won’t use nuclear weapons will likely be seen in Tehran as proof of Israeli cowardice and will actually encourage them to try more attacks. Until we steel ourselves to some very harsh actions, this just goes on and on.

Russia, Russia, Russia

Mark Noonan24 Comments

So, I watched a bit of the Tucker interview of Putin – I wasn’t going to but everyone was ripping on Putin bringing up history back to the 8th century on it and mostly making out that it was ridiculous. It wasn’t.

Whether or not Putin actually believes it I can’t say, but what he is doing is making Russia’s legal claim to Ukraine. This is something alien to the American experience but it is something common to the larger Christian world: this is why dynastic wars used to happen. That is, disputes over who had the legal title to a bit of land. And in such things to lay out the clear succession of title was very important. It wasn’t a matter of people, it was a matter of land: who owned the land? And who did the land legally transfer to over time?

Land is very important in Russia – who has it, who is allowed to use it. The ancient Russian assembly was call the Zemsky Sobor – the assembly of the Russian land. Not the Russian people: the land. For them, it is all about land. What Putin lays out in the interview is the case that Ukraine originated as an integral part of Russia which was unfairly and unjustly taken away from Russia by foreign conquerors. Ukraine’s national identity – in Putin’s thinking – is a false thing manufactured by powers hostile to Russia. This is Putin’s justification for the war – and it is probably why he’s so far been able to sustain support for it, at least to the point of keeping a large army in the field. It is in line with Russian national feeling.

The bottom line is that we here in the USA – and the West overall – have to decide if this Russian irredentism is something worth fighting against? Additionally, is Putin’s aim merely the restoration of traditional Russian lands? Or does he have a goal of restoring the Empire of Alexander I? Ukraine and Belarus back under Moscow’s rule would be uncomfortable for Poland and Hungary but not a massive crisis. That can arguably be Russia…but if Putin wants Finland, the Baltics and Poland back? That becomes a bit of a problem.

But, in my view, still not an American problem. The EU outweighs Russia in every measure of potential power. The EU has more people, more money, more production capacity, better communications. On and on like that: Russia has more troops in uniform right now, but if the EU wanted, they could easily raise a military force of 20 million and massively outnumber the Russians with better equipped troops. What I’m saying is that if the EU wants to fight Russia, it will be a very one-sided fight resulting in a crushing Russian defeat.

But if the EU doesn’t want to do this, then why should I? I can see Poland’s concern here. But if Poland doesn’t raise an army and convince their neighbors to also raise armies, then why in heck should an American army be sent? The German army is about 67,000 troops. Out of a population of 84 million. The Polish army is 100,000. Out 30 million people. 118,000 in the French army out of 68 million people. These three nations, based on population and resources, should have standing military forces of 800,000, 300,000 and 600,000 respectively. These would not be large forces relative to population…but they’d have outnumbered the Russian army 3 to 1 on the eve of the invasion of Ukraine. These are not serious people. These are not people determined to defend themselves.

So, why should I?

Why should I send some kid from Kansas to die defending Kiev?

And Putin does propose to build something Christian. Maybe Putin is lying. He wouldn’t be the first Russian leader to do that. But the laws and the policy is still to promote the Christian theology and virtues. Meanwhile, over in the UK kids are being arrested for misgendering while in the Netherlands the government is trying to shut down Dutch farms to appease the weather god. I’m supposed to fight Russia? For Europe? So I can have more European commies come visit? More finger wagging about guns?

Really?

I don’t think so. I do not feel Russians to be my enemies. I feel no threat from Moscow. I do not want us to give another cent to Ukraine and I want us to withdraw from NATO. I’m done with this. World War Two as a long time ago. The world has changed. It is time we changed with it.

What Happens When the Gaza War Ends?

Mark Noonan11 Comments

I know that, personally, I have been bloody-minded of late. The horrific actions of Hamas savages being de-facto endorsed by plenty of my own fellow Americans has got me into a dark mood. But, I must not. God commands me to mercy. And I know it is true – and that if I want to be shown mercy, I must show it. So, we take a breath and calm down. They are savages but they are still my brothers and sisters and I must will what is best for them.

Not that the Israeli government will be calling me for advice, but I think there is a logical outcome to the Gaza War: Trusteeship.

The poison of Hamas has sunk very deeply into the population of Gaza. Keep in mind that the Hamas troops took video of their actions and proudly transmitted that video to friends and family in Gaza. By the time they had got back into Gaza, the people there knew exactly what they had done and they cheered wildly. Naturally, no sane person would leave Hamas in charge of Gaza but neither should the people of Gaza be in charge. Of course not everyone there is Hamas – indeed, we’re starting to see some reports of Gazan’s being furious at Hamas for withholding food and fuel from the people – but it is impossible for outsiders to really separate the sheep from the goats. The remnants of Hamas will attempt to retain power and eventually re-assert control and we can’t be sure who is genuinely anti-Hamas and who is faking. So, no Gazan gets to have a say in what happens in Gaza for a while.

Don’t be too shocked about the concept! Many will be – because we’re so used to universal voting rights and other such Progressive drivel that we can’t imagine denying someone power over their own governance. But self governance is an ideal, not a natural state of affairs. It is something to be aimed for, not really fully achieved. Even in the most educated and civilized society there has to be controls because civilization is not natural to the human condition. We’re naturally barbarians – we are instructed to be civilized and maintained in it by law and custom.

What I’m suggesting is not unprecedented. After World War Two both Germany and Japan were essentially placed under trusteeship and not allowed to resume full sovereignty for a significant period of time. In Japan that can be dated to 1971 when we returned Okinawa to Japanese control. For Germany, because of the peculiarities of the four-power post-war occupation, it didn’t happen until 1991. No matter what, the Allies were determined that there not be a resumption of Japanese and German aggression. The old joke was that NATO was to keep the Germans down, the Russians out and the Americans in and there was much truth to that: especially keeping the Germans down. The Brits massively drew down their military power in the 1950’s to the 1960’s but they kept the British Army of the Rhine at strength until German reunification. The Brits did not propose to have a third round with the Germans.

And it wasn’t just an occupation to keep an eye on them – the Germans and Japanese were instructed in new ways of thinking. Heck, the Japanese constitution was pretty much written by Douglas MacArthur. They were told why they had done wrong and what they had to do to repair it. To be fair, many Japanese and Germans voluntarily joined in the effort because they felt ashamed of what their countries had done, but the fact that to this day there are Germans and Japanese who hanker for the old ways shows the necessity of our efforts to impose new ideas on them. Had we not done that – had we done new Treaties of Versailles with them, then they would have just nursed their grudges and their power and tried again.

So it will have to be with Gaza; the people there must be rated incompetent to hold power. This doesn’t mean we go in and boss them around in their daily lives, but it does mean that the broad direction of national effort are taken out of their hands. They can’t control their government, their military/police or their schools. Someone else has to – someone who is committed to at least an idea of peace and justice.

It can’t be the Israelis. There is too much hatred between Muslims and Jews. If Israelis try to reorder Gazan life the people will reject it. They’ll probably stubbornly resist any such efforts from any quarter, but they’ll be in complete opposition to Israeli overlords.

My view is that a multi-power Trustee government should be imposed – with a commission made up of, say, people from Switzerland, Morocco and India (gotta have a Muslim majority power involved; it won’t work any other way and Morocco has long proved itself of a moderate strain of Islam). It would be better to keep the UN out but that is probably not possible; but full authority should be vested in the Trustees – not a penny gets spent, not a law gets made, without their consent. Their primary job would actually be reforming the education system so that the rising generation of Gazans will be told the truth rather than hate-filled Hamas lies. And after that generation rises, a period of transition can begin, step by step, to allow Gazans to resume sovereignty. But it would be at least a twenty year process. Maybe fifty.

Other people can come up with other ideas but the one thing that is certain is that Hamas has to go. Their actions on 10/7 removed them from human society. They still are people, of course, and must be shown mercy especially if they ask for it – but their entire system of beliefs has to be torn down and made unacceptable. Only that way can a path to peace be forged.

Aside: It is Pearl Harbor Day. God bless the memory of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.