NATO

Open Thread

Mark Noonan5 Comments

Over in the UK a mother of a 12 year old was sentence to 31 months for a social media post. Meanwhile, the government is starting a new campaign called “Let’s be blunt”…lauding the use of blunt-tipped knives.

Just what the heck are we allied with Britain for? They don’t share our values. They aren’t a free people. They are cowardly in the face of foreign invasion. What are we defending Over There these days? Because what is happening in Britain is pretty much what’s happening all over Europe…more controls of speech, more and more disarming the population, more and more sheep-like acceptance of tyranny by the people. A Russian conquest of Europe at this point would make it freer (Putin doesn’t care if you’ve got a pointy knife or put up a harsh post on X – as long as its not about him, of course).

I mean, we know why the British and other European governments are doing this – they see what happened over here with actual free speech among an armed population: Trump. All over Europe there are parties committed to saving their respective countries and the European Ruling Class is determined to stamp them out. I believe they will be successful at this – the being disarmed thing is the worst position for European patriots to be in. They all agreed to give up their arms because lunatics might use some other weapons to kill…the very stupidest thing a person can do, but they did it. Now that they’re facing tyranny and invasion they’ve got nothing…all the complaints in the world won’t change a thing. The European Ruling Class has the guns and so no ultimate fear. But the question remains: what are we doing allied with such people?

To be fair, the only free nation in the world is the United States. Since 1787 this has been so because only our governing document secures our arms and our speech while also saying “Congress shall make no law”. As I’ve mentioned before, no other nation has this – every enumerated right, every restriction on government power has a “but” in it somewhere. Every right can be suspended and every power exercised and on the say-so of the mere parliamentary majority leader. Its not even a King robed in history making the call…just some half-wit politician who managed to climb to the top of the greased pole. But at least in times past Europe made a play at being free…there was a time when you could say what you wanted, you could be armed (even with restrictions) and the Europeans had some guts. Those days are long past and I’ve no interest in defending Europe. A foreign conqueror is welcome to the place as far as I’m concerned.

As we’ve noted many times, polls are a weak reed but yesterday a fairly respectable pollster came out with a Trump 55% approval poll. A lot of people discounted it and it is the outlier…on the other hand, the polls showing him at 42% are clearly bogus. So, backing them out and keeping the polls which actually got 2024 reasonably correct and Trump’s approval sits around 50%…so, while 55% is still an outlier, it ain’t much of one. And what I’ve found talking to people is that they are warming up to Trump fast. They see what he’s trying to do – and they can see his opposition is merely upset that their game is being messed with. Shouts of “he’s killing kids in Africa!” are a mask for “I’m not getting my kickback from USAID!”; nobody doubts this. And it is how it was.

There is also the sheer fun of it all. A judge, mayor and Congresscritter getting arrested is a delight. It is funny. And about time. Arrest more of them! Including a lot of Republicans! Trump being able to off-the-cuff spend an hour in front of the MSM – and making them look like fools – is another fun thing to watch. And we can see the prices of food and gasoline coming down. There is a real chance that 55% is correct.

Cancer-gate is going to have more legs than some suspect. Especially now after Trump posted yesterday that he’s not blaming Joe for what happened…stating that Joe would never have gone along with open borders and such and so it was traitors taking advantage of a senile man. That is a shot across the bow – and the entry point right now for exposing the whole thing is the alleged cancer. Is it real? Was Biden really not checked for it at Walter Reed? And in all this, what was his cognitive ability? Do remember that a couple months ago Trump posted that he considered the pardons null and void. Not much happened after that but by that time Trump had listened to the Hur tapes I’m sure…plus had conversations with the White House staff (I’m talking maids and butlers and such – these are rock-solid American patriots and the most discrete people in the world…but Trump is a guy who can talk to such people and get them to open up about things). He knows now as well as anyone outside of it can what was going on during Biden’s term…and he’s laying the groundwork for basically annulling the last part of Biden’s actions.

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.

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.

NATO Must Go

Mark Noonan41 Comments

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. – Article 5, North Atlantic Treaty, 4/4/1949

This is the teeth of NATO – the part where all contracting Parties agree to come to the aid of any Party attacked by a Third Party. But do note the wording: it does not require any NATO member to use military force in support of an attacked NATO member. I think this was put in place to make sure that the Europeans could weasel out of helping the United States if we weren’t attacked by the Soviet Union. The treaty, of course, had the purpose of keeping the USSR out, the USA in and the Germans down. It was built for the very particular circumstances existing in Europe in the immediate aftermath of WWII. I would like to note that WWII ended 78 years ago.

There are hardly any people left alive who can even remember the war.

But here it is, 2023 and NATO is going strong – expanding. There’s talk of even letting Ukraine in. This has caused some comment about it immediately triggering WWIII but as you can see from the text of the treaty, it would only do that if Russia decided to treat it as a de-facto declaration of war by NATO. But if Russia refrained from attacking outside Ukraine it is almost certain that no other NATO member would declare war on Russia in support or Ukraine. In other words, Ukrainian membership in NATO would be symbolic. Kinda like the whole NATO exercise has been since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Ronald Reagan once said there is nothing so akin to immortality as a temporary government program. This has been true ever since government programs were invented. But the newest innovation of this is to keep treaties going eternally, regardless of changed circumstances. And just as we must at last kill off the idea of an eternal government program, so much we kill off the idea of an eternal treaty. Government programs are to be used to deal with a particular need or problem. So, too, are treaties.

In the aftermath of WWII with that horrendously bloody conflict and its shameful origins fresh in mind, what the leaders of the free world wanted was some assurance that they wouldn’t have that problem again: that is, a megalomaniac launching wars of conquest and extermination. In retrospect: figure the odds. Hitler was unique: never had been one like him, can’t imagine a set of circumstances where we get another. But you can at least see the logic of the people who signed the NATO treaty in 1949. Stalin was also a megalomaniac and the USSR was committed to carrying Communism all over the world. It was felt – reasonably – that a bit of collective security by the non-Communist powers would guarantee against the USSR launching a war of conquest.

We should have been paying a little more attention to Stalin’s history on that – it was Stalin who shut down the Leninist/Trotskyite project of using direct force to spread Communism. Stalin – correctly – felt the USSR lacked the power to do that and, also, that direct conflict had incalculable possibilities which could easily end in disaster for the USSR. Stalin would grab what he could, subvert as much as possible: but he was never going to launch a direct attack on the West…and his successors, sitting pretty with swell lives, were even less inclined for any direct conflict. And if they had been a bit frisky, the fact that it was the mid 1960s before the USSR recovered from WWII was also a restraining factor.

Be that as it may, the NATO treaty was signed and we had our collective security against the remote possibility of the USSR launching an attack through the Fulda Gap. NATO provided zero security against internal subversion by the USSR of NATO States and as this was the primary means of Soviet attack that is…kinda strange that it wasn’t integral to NATO. Almost like, just maybe, some of the people in charge of crafting NATO put together something only useful at stopping what wasn’t going to happen but did nothing to stop what was already happening in spades. Weird, huh? But, the Cambridge Five were still active as NATO was created – as were various spy networks in the US State Department…and it isn’t like even to this day we’ve uncovered everyone who was working for the USSR at the time. Interesting thing to look into, but it need not detain us here for long. Though I would like to point out that the Cold War would have been over in a few years if NATO was a replacement for the UN with all NATO members breaking off relations with the USSR and allies and refusing to have any dealings with them. But, such was not seen as the thing to do at the time.

At all events, we had our defense against the 8th Guards Army – we were definitely ready at a moment’s notice to stop it from driving to the Rhine. But just FYI, the 8th Guards Army – currently constituted as Russia’s 8th Guards Combined Arms Army – isn’t in the Fulda Gap preparing to drive to the Rhine. It is, in fact, in Ukraine. It is, then, nothing we need to be too concerned about. It would take a rather stunning bit of Russian military success to bring the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army into a position threatening NATO. And yet we still have NATO as if the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army were an imminent threat (which is never really was, even way back when). So, why are we keeping NATO?

Same reason we are keeping the government programs: vested interests. Financial and political powers obtain a great deal of their money and political influence via NATO. They will keep it going forever if they can – and just like the government bureaucrats inventing new problems for bureaucrats to solve, so NATO keeps finding new security threats to guard against. But still nothing about the internal subversion of the West. NATO didn’t care about that then, doesn’t care about it now. We’ve got Marxist nimrods destroying our nations but NATO isn’t fighting against that! Nope: gotta worry about the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army trying to conquer the Donbas. As if that matters when domestic threats are trying to destroy family, faith and property.

It is time for a bit of a reality check.

59% of the world’s population lives in Asia. 17% lives in Africa. Only 9% lives in Europe. It is just a fact that Europe is not remotely the most important region on Earth. By far it is Asia with Africa coming in second. American political, trade and military thought should be geared towards dealing with the risks and rewards of Asia and Africa. Europe is a backwater. Declining share of global GDP. Declining population. Militarily nearly impotent. There is absolutely zero chance that Europe would send an army to help us fight a major war in Asia or Africa, let alone help defend American territory here in North America. There is nothing we need in Europe. World War Two was a long time ago. There will not rise in Europe a Hitlerian monster to threaten the world…no matter how much NATO propagandists try to make out Putin to be Hitler’s mini-me. And even if Putin were a Hitler…Russia’s GDP is along the size of South Korea’s. They simply don’t have the physical power to threaten the USA.

Whatever use NATO ever had for the United States is long past now. We don’t need NATO. In fact, by remaining in NATO and keeping significant military resources in Europe we actively weaken our ability to influence the course of policy in Asia and Africa. To put it bluntly: remaining in NATO is tailor-made to help China flex muscle in Asia and Africa. And the Chinese are flexing that muscle. Just look up how deeply Chinese money and influence have penetrated Africa (and now moving into South America) and you can see how downright asinine our concentration on Europe has been. If our foreign policy was directly controlled from Beijing they wouldn’t do it any different than we are right now. It is time to move in a new direction.

It is time to leave NATO. Pull out of it: give our notice and leave. Our risks and rewards are in Africa and Asia. But cutting our ties to Europe we’ll no longer have the political disadvantage of ties with those Powers who colonized Africa and Asia. We’ll be able to craft policy based entirely on identified mutual needs with Asian and African nations. Rely on it, India doesn’t want a powerful China. Russia doesn’t, either, but we’ve burned so many bridges there it will be a while before we can sensibly talk to the Russians. But not being in NATO would be an immense relief to Russo-American relations. If you look at a map of the globe, the USA and Russia are natural allies. It was a shame we came into conflict with Russia. Well past time to bury the hatchet. But even absent that – Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Australia and a host of other Asian nations have a vested interest in curbing Chinese ambitions. An alliance with the USA – with our absolute pledge to remain out of their internal affairs – is just what they need…just as what we need is a collection of powers bordering or near China tying down Chinese power which would otherwise be directed against us. Meanwhile, over in Africa and freed from our connections to the former colonial overlords, we’ll be able to work deals with Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, etc to build up their economies and tie them to us rather than to China (much more valuable to us to build an Interstate quality highway in Nigeria than to spend money on NATO). A China directly challenged by the USA and allies in Asia and Africa will have no resources to spend on penetrating South America. It is all win. If we change with the times.

Or we can hang on to the antique NATO alliance, be tied down uselessly in Europe while China builds alliances with India and Russia against us.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan28 Comments

In general, these days – and long before Putin invaded Ukraine – I have been opposed to alliances and supra-national organizations (NATO and UN, eg). They tend to hamstring national policy and, especially as they’ve been construed after WWII, they are usually a one-way street: we take on an unlimited obligation to defend other nations without reciprocity. We can see what that has got us: weak “allies” in Europe and around the world. We are committed to the defense of nation after nation and they are not committed to rise to our defense. So, on the whole, I would end all alliances and withdraw from all international organizations.

But if we are to retain them, then they have to be iron-clad and reciprocal. If we’re going to rush to Poland to defend them from Russia, then I want the Poles to send an army to help us fight China. Any such alliance should really be spelled out: how much GDP is spent on defense, what sort of military force each party is to maintain as a bare minimum and plans already made for deployment anywhere around the world as circumstances warrant.

Furthermore, if we go to war with any nation, then I want us to impose the full financial cost of the war on them after they are defeated. No more free rides: no more forcing us to go to war and then after putting us through death and destruction, we rebuild them. No: they can rebuild themselves while also shelling out 10% of their annual GDP to us for 50 years after the war.

Aside: I’m tired of the American Empire.

As for Ukraine: the Russians seem to still be grinding ahead with some big gains in the south and nearly none in the north. I think the Russians took too big a bite of the apple: going after geographic locations rather than seeking to destroy Ukrainian military power. But I suspect there’s a reason for this: Putin wants the Ukraine physically intact as far as possible. A great deal of Ukraine’s military force is concentrated in point defense of major cities: to quickly destroy this military power would have taken massive, destructive bombardment of the cities. This is cruel, but clever tactics on the part of the Ukrainians – they are essentially using their civil population as a human shield, knowing that any civilian killed by Russia will be written down as a war crime, thus increasing sympathy for Ukraine internationally. But I suspect we are getting close to the end: the increasingly shrill calls for a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine (which would amount to a de-facto declaration of war by NATO against Russia) indicates that the Russians do have air supremacy and the Ukrainians are simply being ground down by superior weight – unless the pressure can be removed, it is only a matter of time.

On the other hand, some are saying that Russia is running out of first-rate material. Not so sure about that: and in second-rate material, Russia is well supplied – but that second-rate stuff is old style artillery, the use of which would cause immense destruction and loss of life. Meanwhile, there is some growing domestic opposition in Russia. Putin better wrap this thing up pretty quick. I don’t think his power is at risk, but the longer the war drags on, the more difficult it will be for him.

What has astounded me is the number of voices on the Right who are taking Ukrainian propaganda at face value. All of a sudden, they’re quoting MSM sources as if they are reliable. I think this is psychological for some of them: being overtly pro-Ukrainian provides distance from the allegedly pro-Russia Trump and supporters (a ridiculous view, but it exists out there). In short, it allows these people to make friends with their Progressives pals again. There is one thing which can save the Democrat’s political bacon in November: the GOP signing on to a Biden war for Ukraine. I think some on the right are willing just that: they fear the sort of GOP which is likely to emerge after the mid-terms…far more Trumpist, far more America-First, far more conservative (they despise GOP moves to enact pro-life and ant-CRT laws at the State level). They hate people like Greene and Boebert; and they can see in the GOP candidates more and more like them. And they hate them because the more we get people like that, the more the GOP will be forced to enact laws the GOP base wants. A war with Russia may deflect or at least delay that.

The joke of the week is that Putin is going to get the Nobel Prize for medicine for having cured Covid. Its like it dropped off a cliff, isn’t it? People were asking where the ubiquitous Fauci had got to and one guy looked it up: basically reduced to appearances on public access cable. The (political) Science has spoken: Covid is political death for Democrats and so we won’t be hearing much about it. At least, not right now: if Ukraine folds in the next week to ten days, they might have to bring it back to distract us from rising prices. We’re up a bit more than 20 cents a gallon for gas in the past week while oil and food staples climb to near-record highs.

In the world of unintended consequences: people around the world are looking about for alternatives to financial securities which can be frozen or seized. You know: like the Russian assets have been. A lot of people thought it cool the way Apple Pay was shutdown for Russians with a flip of the switch at Apple…but a lot of us were like, “WTF – they can freeze me out of my money if they decide they don’t like me”. America is kept going financially by people buying our bonds…and they will keep doing that, at least for now. But if you’re a foreign government or rich guy, do you want your money tied up in an asset that the United States can destroy at a whim? If the world does stop buying our bonds, then we’re financially ruined. And I mean completely. It would make the Great Depression look like a minor correction: one of the strength of Rule of Law societies is the security of wealth under it…that no matter what happens, your property is safe unless you actually break the laws of your host nation (or the host nation of your assets). Now, its funny to watch them seize yachts of Russian oligarchs…but where was the law in that? Some decree of some official. No court. No charges. No conviction: just stroke of the pen, your property is gone.

And that brings me to a point I’ve made recently and for years: national wealth is not dollars. It is what you make, mine and grow. Russia doesn’t just provide us oil, but also fertilizers and other crucial materials. Of course, a huge amount of our manufactured goods come from overseas. Suppose these people decide not to take our dollars in payment? What do we have then? We don’t even seem to make basic things like screwdrivers and scissors any longer.

Gold standard, guys: we have to get back on the gold standard. If our money is backed by gold, everyone on God’s green Earth will accept it no matter how much they hate us. And we must go back to Protection. No more of this “free trade” chimera…massive tariffs to force a rebirth of American farming, manufacturing and mining.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan38 Comments

RBG, where are you?

NATO will increase defense spending by $100 billion. Amazing what you can get when you have a President who asks.

The former Starbucks CEO (some rich dude; could care less who he really is) is rumored to be planning an Independent, moderate liberal campaign for President. And this, naturally, scares the bejabbers out of the Democrats. Can you imagine their tears if Trump wins New Jersey with 43% of the vote? Anyways, typical for modern liberal fascism, they are trying to intimidate him into not running.

Meanwhile, to make liberals even happier: rumors persist that Hillary may yet run again.

Don Surber gives you some idea about what a loss to journalism the death of Buzzfeed would be.

RSM goes over a recent murder case: poor, little girl is killed in a drive by. She’s black and, in the initial confusion, her family says the suspect is a white man. Cue the MSM to scream “hate crime” all over the place. The case quietly dropped out of the news when two black men were arrested for the crime. The family appears mortified by what happened – and, I would be, too. Not only the unbearable pain of losing a family member, but also being made the focus of a false MSM Narrative. This sort of thing is getting out of hand – liberals (and Never Trump, but I repeat myself) are ginning up hatred and division for mere partisan advantage…but when you feed hate, hate is what you’ll get.

Victor Davis Hanson goes over this sort of thing in relation to the Covington boys. What must be kept in mind is that racism – real racism – is almost non-existent in America in 2019. So, too, with homophobia and sexism. This is why the left insists there are “dog whistles” and “white privilege”. You can’t find anything remotely approaching Bull Connor, so you have to make up things to fill the role. And part of making up things is to make up racial incidents. And, so, they make them up – the more I hear about the Convington case, the more convinced I am that people went there to do it…and merely looked around until they found targets they thought they could frame (with the help of an MSM which would accept the Narrative and try to suppress the facts). The problem is that if you treat people like dirt – and the Convington boys were treated like dirt – then eventually the people you spit on are going to strike back. Hard.

Islamists in Libya

Mark Noonan21 Comments

Not a good sign – from Barry Rubin over at Pajamas Media:

Finally, we have evidence that Islamists and even al-Qaeda supporters will play a central role in Libya’s new regime. Up to now there has been reasonable speculation that the U.S. government and NATO might be installing an anti-Western, Islamist government in Libya. Now there’s proof that this is so.

The actual government remains in the hands of non-Islamists, technocrats, ex-regime officials, and moderates. But the armed rebels who actually made the revolution have voted and their idol is…an al-Qaeda guy. Political power, said Mao Zedong, grows out of the barrel of a gun and in Libya’s case this seems a very reasonable expectation.

According to Al Jazeera, the network recommended by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as fair and balanced, Abdul al-Hakim al-Hasadi, also known as Abdelhakim Belhaj, has been named commander of the Tripoli Military Council. He was formerly head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Moderates are understandably nervous…

The guys with the guns do tend to call the shots – and there is just about zero chance that NATO or the United States will start bombing the al-Qaeda affiliated rebels to shore up the non-Islamists. We can still hope that the non-Islamists have enough military force to keep the Islamists in line, but there is one thing you can say about the Islamsits…they do have propaganda convincing to at least that segment of the Moslem population willing to take up arms.  The best bet to make in Libya is that those who fought the hardest are likely to be Islamists, or open to Islamist propaganda.

Another problem hamstringing the rise of decency in Libya is that a good portion of the population is still apparently tribal in outlook…this can work to the advantage of those wanting a free nation, but it can also work against them:  those who are divided up by tribes will be confronting people united across tribal lines in the name of extremist Islam.  In any revolutionary situation, the most determined and disciplined minority will take charge…it was such during our own revolution, and we just hit the jackpot in that the people running our side of the fight were Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams and the like.  I haven’t seen any Washington-like person rising in any of the Moslem revolutions of late.

Once again I have to go back to my first views on Libyan intervention – we should have done it much sooner and much harder.  Had we acted swiftly to destroy the Gaddafi regime then it would have been gotten rid of before large bodies of dedicated, revolutionary soldiers were built up.  Before, that is, a large body of Islamist troops were created.  There would have been in reality no rebel army…and thus the chance for decent people to be in charge.  In any military action, there must be celerity of movement and maximum force…if you don’t want to move quickly and with enough power to over-kill the opposition, then it is best not to move at all.  We may get the worst of both worlds…a half-baked military intervention to be followed by a regime overtly hostile to the United States (Gaddafi’s Libya was hostile, but also wasn’t bothering anyone for the past 10 years or so).

Pray that the good guys win…but be prepared for quite a mess in Libya.

UPDATE:  Islamists plot to take over Libya.

UPDATE II:  Libyan rebels round up  blacks as enemies.