Grand Strategy for a Divided America

[pbi]

But I'm not sure that 19th/early 20th century Germany ever wanted, much less planned, to "sweep the Royal Navy off the seas."...Ditto China, today, I believe: it wants to be able to confront the USN in the China Seas (Yellow Sea, East China Sea and South China Sea) and stalemate it there, but it does not even dream of sweeping the USN off the seas.

A turn of phrase perhaps, but I'd suggest that once you get into a serious naval arms race and a struggle for control of the sea, if you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound.

I do tend to agree, though, that China may not be as expansionist as some people seem to fear. At, least not beyond its own immediate region, which is pretty much what any major power reserves the right to do if it sees fit.

China, while having had historic struggles with all its contiguous neighbours and Japan, hasn't really been an expansionist power the way that, say, Japan, Germany or the USSR have been. I may be torpedoing myself by arguing from what has been to what will be, but I think a realpolitik-based modus vivendi between the US and China, probably at the expense of some lesser powers, may be the most pragmatic solution.

(Stop calling me Neville Chamberlain....)

 

[a_majoor]

Perhaps the hope is simply that the more robust and resilient culture of Liberal Democracy and free markets will  stumble to the finish, while the brittle authoritarian regimes will collapse under their own weight: our true Grand Strategy is to do nothing at all.....

http://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/2014/02/21/what-if-we-were-winning-but-nobody-noticed/?singlepage=true

What If We Were Winning But Nobody Noticed?

February 21st, 2014 - 7:17 am

It’s all about winning and losing, but the best man doesn’t always win, and outcomes frequently have more to do with luck than with merit.  Brilliant strategies fail, and fools stumble into glorious victories.  Napoleon preferred a lucky general to a brilliant one.

Which brings us to today.  The headlines are grim, the pictures from Syria, Venezuela and Ukraine are blood-chilling, executions and demonstrations are mounting in Iran, and Obama doesn’t know what to do about anything.  So he doesn’t do anything; he and his strategists just dither.  And yet…

And yet, our enemies may be on the verge of losing.  Big time.

Maybe the elimination of the Russian Olympic hockey team was an augury, foreshadowing a shift in Putin’s destiny.  Up until quite recently, he waved his mailed fist and barked out commands that were obeyed from Georgia to Syria.  He, along with the Syrian, Iranian, Nicaraguan, Honduran, Venezuelan, Cuban, and Bolivian dictators and would-be dictators, was forging a global alliance aimed against the West, and nobody in the West seemed to notice, let alone take steps to combat it.  The global alliance consists primarily of jihadis and radical leftists, the two principal forces committed to the destruction of what is sometimes known as the Western world.

That alliance is cracking, because many millions of people are fighting the anti-Western tyrants.  They aren’t pundits, and they haven’t calculated the odds on success.  They just fight.  Almost none of the major events of the past few years was foreseen by the deep thinkers, most all of whom thought that Egypt was lost to the jihadists, Assad was firmly in control of Syria, and Chavismo was destined to rule in Venezuela for years to come.

But in Egypt, where the Muslim Brothers took over the most important country in the Muslim Middle East, they lost it within a year.  They were brought down by what the BBC called “the largest demonstration in human history.”  In Tunisia, the birthplace of the “Arab Spring,” the radical jihadists were briefly in control, and then lost to more moderate forces, including secular leaders.  The fighting in Syria began when members of the nation’s armed forces–neither religiously nor ideologically radical–rebelled against the Assad tyranny.  I don’t know more than a couple of people who thought the opposition would endure…until they did an about-face and told us the opposition was unbeatable and Assad was about to fall.  In Ukraine, the people have risen against a government that was clearly a marionette of Moscow.  And in Venezuela, the streets of the major cities are filled with people fighting against a failed Cuban-style dictatorship.

The Ukrainian government is now technically a minority in Parliament (some of its members having defected), and there are reports that the rats are scampering away, loading expensive automobiles and containers full of cash onto airplanes at the Kiev airport (like you, I want to know where those planes are going to land.  We’ll know shortly, I have no doubt).

The Venezuelan demonstrations don’t seem to be getting any smaller, and when the Maduro regime arrested the opposition leader, it backfired, as even more people took to the streets.

For those keeping score: the enemy alliance has lost in Egypt and Tunisia, is losing Ukraine, is in great peril in Venezuela, is losing men and money in significant quantities in Syria, and faces determined opposition inside Iran.

To be sure, there’s bad news too, as you’ll see on the next page.
Lebanon and Iraq are increasingly under Iranian domination, but then again Hezbollah, the main Iranian instrument in Lebanon, and, along with the Revolutionary Guards the Iranian expeditionary force in Syria, is taking casualties, and the body bags are smuggled home in secret.  There’s lots of popular anger at the regime for its Syrian adventure.  Some of the anger comes from with the Guards themselves, who see themselves used as cannon fodder by a regime that keeps raising the stakes.

It’s like the case of the bumblebee, which, the engineers patiently explained to us, cannot fly (wrong ratio of wingspan to body mass, etcetera).  But the bumblebees don’t know that, and so they fly.  And even make some honey.  The geopolitical pundits did not expect the Syrian opposition to last, any more than they foresaw the Iranian uprising of 2009-2010, or the mass demonstrations in Venezuela, or the revolt against the Muslim Brothers in Egypt, or…

Life is full of surprises.  It’s better to admit we don’t know what tomorrow will bring.  But there are some basic rules, usually ignored by the strategists and intellectuals, of which the most important has a place of honor in Machiavelli’s writings:  tyranny is the most unstable form of government.  Intellectuals have self-interested reasons for rather liking tyrants (especially when ideologically congenial–leftist intellectuals like leftist tyrants, rightist intellectuals admire ideologically like-minded rulers), but the air can go out of tyrannical balloons with amazing speed.

The flip side of that coin is that democracies and republics are far more durable, even though (maybe even because) they are fractious, sloppy, inefficient and, especially in foreign policy, typically indecisive.

Rule number two is that the world is slow to change.  Except when the world is seized by convulsions and rapid change is the order of the day.  We’re currently in a period of profound change, from the bipolar Cold War world to…we know not what.  But all those who advocate “stability” have failed to understand this moment.

Rule three is that this world is tailor-made for the American mission, which is to support freedom.  Our current leaders can’t understand this, because they view America-in-the-world as a bad thing, as the root cause of most of the world’s problems, and they have been in cahoots with the anti-Americans.  You know the litany by now:  appease or embrace Iran and Putin and the Chavistas and the Brothers and the Castros. They are failing.  See Rule One.

So maybe it’s a race for the booby prize, a mad dash to see who can lose first.

Except (let’s hope) the freedom fighters.  You never know.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Fareed Zakaria, a pretty smart fellow with, broadly, centrist views, takes issues with the anti-Obama narratives that are front and centre in the US media and here in Army.ca in this column which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-america-plays-its-role-in-a-changing-world-right/2014/02/27/b1bb0c40-9fee-11e3-b8d8-94577ff66b28_story.html

America plays its role in a changing world right

By Fareed Zakaria,

Published: February 27

As America navigates a changing world, the people who seem to be having the greatest difficulty with the adjustment are the country’s pundits. Over the past few weeks, a new conventional wisdom has congealed on the op-ed pages: The United States is in retreat, and this is having terrible consequences around the world.

This week, The Post’s Richard Cohen presented the usual parade of horrible things happening around the world — chiefly Syria — for which President Obama is to blame, and he added a few new ones for good measure, such as Scotland’s and Catalonia’s possible moves toward secession. In the face of all these challenges, Cohen asserted, Obama refuses to be the world’s policeman or even its “hall monitor.” Yes, if only the president would blow a whistle, the Scots and Catalans would end their centuries-old quest for independence!

Forget the Federal Reserve’s “taper,” Niall Ferguson tells us in the Wall Street Journal, the much greater danger is Washington’s “geopolitical taper.” He presents as evidence of Obama’s disastrous policies the fact that more people have died in the “Greater Middle East” under Obama than under George W. Bush. But there is a huge difference in the two cases. In the Bush years, the numbers were high because of the war in Iraq, a conflict initiated by the Bush administration. In the Obama years, the numbers are high because of the war in Syria, a conflict that the Obama administration has stayed out of. If this logic were to be followed, Bush is responsible for the tens of thousands of deaths in Sudan and Congo during his presidency.

Most of the critiques were written before the fall of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanu­kovych, so they tend to view Ukraine as another example of the weak and feckless Obama administration. Events in Ukraine actually illustrate how the world has changed and how U.S. leadership is better exercised in this new era.

First, the United States was not the most important player in the crisis. Ukraine wants to be part of the European Union, and it is the European Union that will make the crucial set of decisions that will affect the fate of Kiev. (That’s why Washington was understandably frustrated with the union’s slow and fitful diplomacy, as evidenced in Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s profane phone criticism.) By staying relatively quiet and working behind the scenes, the Obama administration ensured that the story was not about America’s plans to steal Ukraine from Russia but rather about the Ukrainian people’s desire to move West. (Nationalism, that crucial force, is not working against U.S. interests for a change.) Now the United States can play a key role in helping to deter Russia from derailing Ukraine’s aspirations. That will require some firmness but also careful negotiations, not bluster.

The world is not in great disorder. It is mostly at peace with one zone of instability, the greater Middle East, an area that has been unstable for four decades at least — think of the Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur War, the Lebanese civil war, the Iran-Iraq war, the Gulf War, the Iraq war, the Sudanese civil war, the Afghan wars and now the Syrian civil war. The Obama administration has not magically stopped this trail of tumult.

It is ironic that Ferguson, a distinguished economic historian, does not even mention the Obama administration’s ambitious trade projects in Asia and Europe — certainly the most important trade initiative to come out of Washington in two decades and one that could have a powerful stabilizing effect in Asia. But in this respect, he reflects the views of most commentators who believe that U.S. leadership consists of muscular rhetoric and military action; if only Obama would bomb someone somewhere, the world would settle down and stop changing.

The fact that people can make these pleas for more intervention right after a decade of aggressive (and costly) American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is surprising. On the other hand, think back to the 1950s. A few years after the long, bloody stalemate in Korea, cries for U.S. intervention popped up everywhere. The French pleaded for support in Vietnam; the French and the British begged for intervention during the Suez crisis; Washington’s staunch allies the Taiwanese twice requested U.S. support as tensions rose in the Taiwan Strait. In all these crises, senior military leaders wanted to intervene, even, by some accounts in the Taiwanese case, using nuclear missiles. Commentators warned that the danger of U.S. inaction would be chaos, communist advances and freedom’s retreat.

President Dwight Eisenhower turned down every plea, refusing to inject U.S. troops into complex conflicts without clear missions and paths to victory. Imagine if a different president, less able to exercise courage, wisdom and restraint, had listened to the armchair interventionists and the United States had jumped into all those conflicts. Imagine the disorder abroad and the erosion of American power at home.

I agree broadly with Mr Zakaria: despite my serious disagreements with president Obama on a wide range of policy issues, I think his foreign and defence policies have been, at the very least, harmless.

 

[tomahawk6]

I don't take Zakaria seriously as he is another liberal posing as a journalist.

 

[pbi]

I don't take Zakaria seriously as he is another liberal posing as a journalist.

Are the two things exclusive?

 

[Hisoyaki]

It seem to me that the main difference between Eisenhower and Obama is that the former's threats were actually credible.

Electing a 5 star general was interpreted by the Kremlin as a warlike attitude from the American people.  When he threatened the use of nuclear weapons in Korea, the communists quickly sought an armistice.

Unlike Obama, Eisenhower had absolutely no qualms about supporting autocratic regimes when it fit American national interest and sometimes he was aggressively doing so. He supported the government of South Vietnam and he basically overthrew Mossadegh in Iran and Arbenz in Guatemala for having a pro-Soviet line.

The french pleaded for support and got support from Eisenhower at the tune of 400 millions (in 1950s) $. As parting advice to young Kennedy, he counseled that Laos was the key to Indochina and to consider the sending of ground forces if it were about to fall to the communists.By the time he was done, Eisenhower had sent advisers to South Vietnam.

By contrast, Obama has suspended military aid to the Egyptian military when it rose against Morsi (military aid which was already in place). He also spearheaded the withdrawal of american forces from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Instead of Eisenhower, a more apt comparison for Obama would be Jimmy Carter. Obama lacks a clear foreign policy --- As does the rest of America. The American people have Wilsonian ideals but not the political will to promote them.

 

[Brad Sallows]

The problem with Obama's foreign and defence policies is that he doesn't seem to have any consistent policies except to ignore foreign and defence matters and, when pressed, to do whatever is best for his own reputation (ie. political interests always supercede national interests).

The problem isn't that he encourages anything.  The problem is that he discourages nothing - he has become irrelevant.  I suppose that in the estimate process of foreign leaders, they come to the factor labelled "US/Obama", ask "So what?", find nothing to deduce that affects the aim, and move on.  For the US to be irrelevant or near irrelevant in the calculations of major foreign players is enough of a disaster.  For some foreign leaders to believe they can actively neutralize the US/Obama and/or play for PR advantage (eg. as was done in Syria) is beyond disaster.

 

[a_majoor]

Even some Liberal press organs are starting to wake up to the foreign policy disaster. As I suggested upthread, there is always the possibility that the less flexible and robust autocracies will overreach and collapse, while the more resiliant Liberal, democratic and Maritime powers will be able to weather the storm. Time will tell:

http://thediplomad.blogspot.ca/2014/03/the-washington-post-on-obamas-fantasy.html

The Washington Post on Obama's Fantasy Foreign Policy: The Progressive Civil War Begins?

An interesting development on Progressive Planet.

The Washington Post editorial board, that decades-long stalwart purveyor of standard American progressive "thought," has had a revelation; it is not exactly equivalent to Saul on the road to Damascus, but it might be akin to Jimmy Carter on the road to political oblivion. I refer to that moment in January 1980, following the prior month's Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when Jimmy Carter--silver medalist in the Worst President Ever category--angrily announced, "Brezhnev lied to me!"

Poor dear deluded Carter realized at that moment--he seems to have forgotten this since--that the sun did not rise and set at his command; the world did not spin to please him; the solar system did not revolve around Plains, Georgia. He dimly realized that at times foreign leaders do what they think is in the best interest of their countries, and do not comply with the laws of the universe imagined by Washington DC bureaucrats, and "progressive" journalists and academics.

Yes, the Washington Post has SUDDENLY discovered that when it comes to foreign policy, the leaders of Planet Obama might, might just be from Bizarro World. The editorial for March 2 titled, "President Obama’s Foreign Policy is Based on Fantasy" states,

FOR FIVE YEARS, President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality. It was a world in which “the tide of war is receding” and the United States could, without much risk, radically reduce the size of its armed forces. Other leaders, in this vision, would behave rationally and in the interest of their people and the world. Invasions, brute force, great-power games and shifting alliances — these were things of the past. Secretary of State John F. Kerry displayed this mindset on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday when he said, of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, “It’s a 19th century act in the 21st century.”

Has the WP been reading The Diplomad? It goes on to state,

Unfortunately, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not received the memo on 21st-century behavior. Neither has China’s president, Xi Jinping, who is engaging in gunboat diplomacy against Japan and the weaker nations of Southeast Asia. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is waging a very 20th-century war against his own people, sending helicopters to drop exploding barrels full of screws, nails and other shrapnel onto apartment buildings where families cower in basements. These men will not be deterred by the disapproval of their peers, the weight of world opinion or even disinvestment by Silicon Valley companies. They are concerned primarily with maintaining their holds on power.

And even,

The White House often responds by accusing critics of being warmongers who want American “boots on the ground” all over the world and have yet to learn the lessons of Iraq. So let’s stipulate: We don’t want U.S. troops in Syria, and we don’t want U.S. troops in Crimea. A great power can become overextended, and if its economy falters, so will its ability to lead. None of this is simple.

But it’s also true that, as long as some leaders play by what Mr. Kerry dismisses as 19th-century rules, the United States can’t pretend that the only game is in another arena altogether. Military strength, trustworthiness as an ally, staying power in difficult corners of the world such as Afghanistan — these still matter, much as we might wish they did not. While the United States has been retrenching, the tide of democracy in the world, which once seemed inexorable, has been receding. In the long run, that’s harmful to U.S. national security, too.

Well good for the Post! A little bit of the light of realism has broken through the progressive fog. That said, and at the risk of being uncharitable, we must note that it is now March 2014, and Mr. Obama, whom the Post backed in two elections, has been President since January 2009. That's over five years. Ukraine is not the first disaster for this President. Those have been coming fast and furious (ahem!) for those five-plus years, and the Post hasn't said much of anything about them. It, in fact, joined in with fellow progressives to deride Palin and later Romney's warnings about Russia. The same editorial board has stayed silent about the IRS targeting of the Tea Party, the abuse of EPA authority to shutdown businesses not friends of the Democrat party, Obama's arming of drug cartels, and the Benghazi massacre. The Post has long supported the global warming nonsense, and, of course, Obamacare and the fantasy world on which that is built, to wit, that there are millions of uninsured or poor Americans out there just dying to get enrolled in some big government sponsored health scheme.

The Post has an infamous history of its own as an active purveyor of progressive fantasy. Its most famous being the Janet Cooke hoax. Cooke, as you remember, was a black reporter for the Post who wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning series of reports titled "Jimmy's World" which featured a poor little eight-year-old black boy in the ghetto, so lonely and so desperate that he would shoot up his mom's heroin. The progs loved this story! It confirmed everything they "knew" about life in Amerika! It, of course, turned out to be a total fake, an invention by a black reporter who knew what her white progressive bosses wanted from her. As I have written before, progressives see what they believe. It is thus at home and abroad.

You fight one battle at a time, I guess. So we should be grateful that the Post has gotten a bit of wisdom. One can only hope that this is contagious.

AS forfears of a financial war, given the huge foreign holdings of US treasuries, it may be a two edged sword, according to one commenter:

AnonymousMarch 5, 2014 at 10:34 AM

I'm not sure what you mean by 'calling in' the US Treasury bonds owned by Russia and China. There are no 'call' provisions in US Treasuries. If Russia or China showed up on the Treasury doorstep with their US bonds and demanded repayment, the Treasury would (correctly) tell them to take a hike. The Treasury will redeem those bonds on their maturity date (which ranges from next year to 30 years from now), and not a day before. If they don't like that, they can sell their bonds in the open market.

Now, what would happen if Russia and China did that? With a huge increase in the supply of Treasuries on the market, a likely short-term outcome would be a deep decline in both the interest rate the Treasury would have to pay on new issues and the value of currently existing bonds. A decline in the interest rate would be a benefit to the Treasury, and a decline in current value would be disastrous for current bond holders (including pension plans and insurance companies). But the biggest losers would be Russia and China, who would take an immediate and absolutely massive hit to their balance sheets. And who would likely buy those bonds sold by Russia and China? It takes no great foresight to predict that the Fed (with its unlimited printing press) would simply print the money necessary to buy those bonds, thus restoring value to the Treasuries (and financial health to the pension plans and insurance companies), improving the quality of its own balance sheet, and locking in the losses sustained by Russia and China. Will it happen? I doubt it, as Russia and China are not stupid. But if that's what they want to do, bring it on!

 

[Hisoyaki]

If they play their cards right, China alone can and will send the market into a panic. I find anonymous' comments to be cavalier to say the least and I have to question his grasp on economics.

The Fed does not have unlimited printing power --- not if it wants the USD to be worth anything at the end of the day. The commenter has conveniently forgotten about the political in-fighting in the US congress and the credit downgrades our southern neighbors have suffered recently (partly due to  and to quantitive easings --- or printing money).

It makes no sense to say that interest rates the Fed would have to pay would lower if there was a huge sell-off tomorrow. When bond supplies go up (and price drops), so does their yields. The Fed will need to match the market/interest rates on new issues.

And it's not like it has much of a choice, the US government needs to constantly re-issue new bonds to finance itself. Higher interest rates would basically force austerity down the throats of socialists in Washington ( with optional hyperinflation if there is too much screwing around).

No doubt, China and Russia would also be big losers if they sold all at once, but that is why China at least have been slowly divesting itself from US treasuries.

The threat of bond selloff has already been pulled in diplomacy. Ironically, by the US themselves vis-a-vis Britain during the Suez crisis:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=bSbgh4YN4dgC&pg=PA197&lpg=PA197&dq=If+there+is+any+single+event+that+marked+the+end+of+Britain+as+an+imperial+power+of+global+reach,+it%E2%80%99s+the+Suez+Crisis+of+1956.+Egypt+nationalized+the&source=bl&ots=8aqg0vv0Xk&sig=9YhxQHfykxAnKI9q8trt4R3QBXg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=IrgXU5XGDYzM0gGmjYDoCA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=If%20there%20is%20any%20single%20event%20that%20marked%20the%20end%20of%20Britain%20as%20an%20imperial%20power%20of%20global%20reach%2C%20it%E2%80%99s%20the%20Suez%20Crisis%20of%201956.%20Egypt%20nationalized%20the&f=false

 

[a_majoor]

The Fed has and does use "unlimited" printing power; one only has to look at the recent history of "QE" to see that. The Washington and political elites might not even mind a round of hyperinflation, since that would set the stage for even more meddling in the domestic economy and advance a domestic agenda (which seems to have been the point of Obamacare as well. When you look at the mechanics of that it is a giant wealth transfer program, which is currently being hamstrung in two places: the inability of the "exchanges" to actually work for people who did sign up, and the passive resistance of the millions of young and healthy people who are needed to sign up in order for the program to actually work. The number that was presented during the rollout was 7 million, currently something like 2.5 million are "enrolled" but it is unknown how many of the enrolees are young and healthy, or how many are actually registered and paying premiums at this time).

Since we are not Americans, I think most of us fail to fully understand just how much of this process is being driven by partisan political concerns and the unique structures built into American politics. What seems like sensible and statesmanship like actions to us may be the kiss of death for some career politician or devalue the position of a career bureaucrat in Washington, hence to be avoided, deflected or defeated at all costs.

 

[muskrat89]

http://www.steynonline.com/6179/beyond-europe

A snippet:

America is not who it thinks it is. John Hawkins has an excellent post today on the five structural problems that are destroying the nation, and he marshals some evidence of his own:

America doesn't have the highest taxes in the Western world, but it does have the most progressive tax system in the Western world. As a practical matter, what this means is that we have large numbers of Americans voting on whether others should pay more taxes in order to give them things.

Every time the Democrats call for "the richest one per cent" to pay their "fair share", Republicans ought to point out that we have a more progressive - ie, redistributive - tax system than Canada, Scandinavia, Belgium, the Netherlands... In other words, America's rich already pay more than Sweden's rich or Norway's rich. If it's fair enough for the Continentals, why isn't it fair for Americans?

What about corporate tax? Federal corporate tax in the US: 35 per cent; in Canada: 11-15 per cent. Total (national, local, the lot) corporate tax burden: Ireland 12.5 per cent, Sweden 22 per cent, Denmark 24 per cent, Netherlands 25 per cent, Germany 29 per cent, Italy 31 per cent, Belgium 33 per cent, United States 40 per cent.

So America is more Euro-socialist than most Euro-socialists.

 

[a_majoor]

While perhaps not as apocalyptic as Michael Leeden, I do find elements of his thesis to be plausible. The various "Continental" powers are rising and uniting again against the "Maritime" powers in order to secure their own power and extend their reach. Iran's ambitions to be a regional hegemon are certainly furthered under this sort of scenario. My two questions are how long this sort of mutual backscratching will go on given the disparate aims and goals of the various participants listed, and do they even have the resources to reach as far as they have and maintain their gains in the medium and long term?

http://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/2014/03/18/the-big-story-the-global-war-goes-mostly-unreported/?singlepage=true

The Big Story–the Global War–Goes Mostly Unreported

March 18th, 2014 - 2:03 pm

The “news” is resolutely out of context.  A subject about which virtually nothing is known–the mystery of the missing airplane–gets saturation “coverage,” while events of potentially earth-shaking importance are largely unreported. Twitter is full of tweets, photos and videos from the streets of Venezuela, but the Maduro tyranny expelled CNN, and Wolf Blitzer crams his airtime with heads talking about the Malaysian passenger jet.  Any self-respecting “news network” would relentlessly run stories about the ongoing demonstrations from Caracas to Maracaibo–demonstrations surely the equal of those from Maidan Square in Kiev–but no.

The Venezuelan uprising may turn out to be the biggest story of all, because it is part of a world-wide battle that pits anti-Western tyrannies against their own people, and against their neighbors.  It is of a piece with Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran and Russia itself, where, just a few days ago, fifty thousand Muscovites demonstrated against Putin’s imperialist moves in Ukraine.

I’ve been saying for years that we’re the target of a global war, that the Pyongyang-Beijing-Moscow-Tehran-Damascus-Havana-Caracas etc Axis of Evil is hell-bent to dominate and destroy us.  Now the evidence is so clear that only a willfully blind man could fail to see it.  When the pundits were saying that Assad’s doom was imminent, I warned that he had the full support of Russia and Iran, and they would not go quietly.  He didn’t, but the pundits are still trying to unscrew the inscrutable jihadi networks and alliances, invoking the tired chant of Sunni vs Shi’ite, and refusing to see the battle of Syria in the context of the real war.

Today, the repression of the Venezuelan people is under the command of Cubans and aided by Hezbollahis, which is part of the same picture that has Russian troops-in-mufti operating in Ukraine, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah killers operating in Syria, Iranian-guided terrorists fighting in Yemen, Iranian-trained Taliban killing Afghans and Americans, and on and on.  That picture has been clarified by the announcement that Russia is opening naval bases in Latin America.

Just as the fall of Assad would be a devastating blow to Russia and Iran, the Axis must defend the Venezuelan dictatorship, because its fall would seriously challenge the anti-Western alliance.  Venezuela is a lynchpin in the Axis.  Caracas launders money, transships weapons (as between Russia, Syria and Iran, for example) and drugs, and provides safe havens and training facilities for jihadis, from which they can move toward our poorly defended southern border.  Thus Cubans fight Venezuelans in the streets.  Thus Russian warships are headed for the Caribbean and the southern oceans.

Putin and Khamenei openly ridicule Obama for his lack of effective action;  they are not worried about an American response to their imperialist campaigns. Their fear is like Sauron’s as Sam and Frodo approached Mount Doom: they are afraid of their own people.  This is demonstrated by the intensification of the domestic crackdown in Iran and Russia. Putin cannot even permit Pussy Riot to be free, and Khamenei/Rouhani are killing at a record rate. The outcome of these internal battles is not foreordained.  Indeed, if we had a pro-American government in Washington, the odds would be against the tyrants.  Even so, the Maidan Revolution sent a great glob of spittle into Putin’s face.

As we head toward the November elections, we badly need revolutionary leaders, men and women who understand the gravity of the global crisis, and who embrace the support of democratic revolution in the heartlands of our enemies.  This president and his executive branch are not going to do that, and the feckless “reporters” of the drive-by media are not going to report it in context, so it’s going to have to come from Congress.

Or it’s going to end up as a big shooting war. And Obama is doing his damnedest to make sure we don’t have enough military power to win it without terrible cost.

Faster, please.

Of course history also seems to be on "our" side; the Athenians, Elizabethan England, and the Serenìsima Repùblica Vèneta could compete on an equal basis with Sparta and her Allies (backed with Persian money), Imperial Spain and the Ottoman Empire despite being vastly outnumbered and having far fewer resources. The modern West is anchored by the United States, a Continental power in its own right with vast reserves of manpower and resources, and including the wealthy and advanced nations of the Anglosphere as the senior parners in the alliance, hardly a pushover combination if well led and organized (even ill led and disorganized maritime polities can still be formidable opponents, see Athens during the last decade of the Pelopenessian war).

I think (and hope) that the long game favours us still.

 

[Journeyman]

I'm sorry, I stopped reading at "Havana....hell-bent to dominate and destroy us."

 

[a_majoor]

Cultural change that may signal the true end of the United States as a dominant power. As referenced in this article, one of the key differences between the United States and previous dominant powers was the rather unique social structure of the United States, communities bound by mutual trust and able to create spontaneous order (the "Little Platoons" of daily life, or as de Tocqueville said "a nation of associations"). IF the coming generation can reestablish this sort of social order, then things should work out. On the other hand...

http://nypost.com/2014/04/04/millennials-path-of-least-resistance/

Millennials’ path of least resistance
By Michael Barone
April 4, 2014 | 8:39pm

When Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in 1830, he was struck by how many Americans were participating in voluntary associations. It was quite a contrast with his native France, where power was centralized in Paris and people didn’t trust each other enough to join in voluntary groups.
Tocqueville might have a different impression should he time-travel to the America of 2030. Or so I conclude from the recent Pew Research Center report on the attitudes and behavior of America’s Millennial generation.

By 2030, the Millennials, people born after 1980, will be closing in on age 50 and will be the dominant segment of the working-age population.
Today the Millennials, write the Pew analysts, are “relatively unattached to organized politics and religion,” and significantly more unattached than the age cohorts (Generation Xers, Baby Boomers, Silent Generation) that came before.

Politically, 50 percent of Milennials classify themselves as Independents rather than Democrats or Republicans, compared to about 36 percent of their elders.

Millennials largely voted for Barack Obama — 66 percent in 2008 and 60 percent in 2012. But only 49 percent approve of his performance now, just a bit more than among Xers and Boomers. Only 34 percent of white Millennials rate Obama’s performance positively.

Most Millennials say they believe in God, but it’s a smaller majority than among older age groups, and only 36 percent say they see themselves as “a religious person,” versus nearly 60 percent of their elders. Some 29 percent of Millennials are religiously unaffiliated. They’re evidently moving away from their parents’ religion but not moving toward one of their own.

One reason may be that people tend to join churches when they marry and have children — and Millennials, so far, aren’t doing much of either. Only 26 percent of Millennials age 18 to 32 are married, far lower than other generations were at their age (Xers 36 percent, Boomers 48 percent, Silents 65 percent).

Millennials aren’t entirely rejecting parenthood, but 47 percent of births to Millennial women are outside of marriage. Even so, about 60 percent of Millennials, like their elders, say that having more children raised by a single parent is bad for society.

Unlike Tocqueville’s Americans, and unlike the generations just before them, Millennials seem to be avoiding marriage, church and political affiliation, and to lack a sense of social trust. Only 19 percent say that generally speaking most people can be trusted, compared to 31 percent to 40 percent among older generations.

This is in line with Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam’s thesis that social trust is declining in America. The Pew analysts speculate that this may result, as Putnam has uncomfortably concluded, from increasing racial diversity.

Nearly half, 43 percent, of Millennials are non-white — about 20 percent Hispanic, 15 percent black, 8 percent Asian and other. Non-white percentages are much lower among the more trusting Boomers (28 percent) and Silents (21 percent).

Racial divisions are mirrored in political attitudes, with white Millennials souring on Obama and his party, Hispanics doing so to some extent (according to other surveys), but blacks remaining loyal.

So who do Millennials trust? Their friends, those they’re connected to via social media. Some 81 percent of Millennials are on Facebook, with a median 250 friend count, and 55 percent have shared a selfie.

The picture we get from Pew is of a largely disconnected generation, in touch with self-selected peers and distrustful of others. They’re more likely to be college-educated but also to be hobbled by college-loan debt. They’re not doing as well economically as their elders were at their age, but they’re eerily optimistic about their economic future (only 14 percent think they won’t earn enough to lead the life they want).

A Tocqueville arriving in 2030 will see whether these optimistic expectations are met, and whether the Millennials’ connections to marriage and parenthood, religion and political party were just delayed or never widely established.

He’ll see whether the absence of a universal popular culture, aimed at everyone, like America had from the 1920s to the 1980s, has caused atrophying social disconnectedness and trust, or whether the Millennials have managed somehow to turn current trends around. Good luck.

 

[a_majoor]

Not too sure about this one. I suspect that many of the comments are correct in saying the American public won't be interested in foreign policy until it rises up and bites them in the a**, at which point the Jacksonian "terrible swift sword" comes out of the scabbard. Still, recognizing that foreign policy errors and inattention makes the world more dangerous and difficult is an important first step:

http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2014/04/08/is-the-neo-isolationist-moment-already-over/

Is the Neo-Isolationist Moment Already Over?

In the 2012 presidential election campaign, the debate between Governor Romney and President Obama on foreign policy was widely considered the least important of the three debates. But because of the Ukraine crisis, foreign policy is back at the center of our national conversation, and the WSJ’s Washington Bureau Chief Gerald Seib thinks it will stay there. The world is getting nastier, Seib argues, and domestic issues won’t be able to elbow out foreign policy anymore:


Syria is turning into an ungovernable mess, and a breeding ground for all manner of extremist groups. President Bashar al-Assad isn’t going away, thanks to an influx of help from his friends in Iran and Russia, but he isn’t reasserting control of his country, either.

[...] If tensions in the Middle East are rising because of weak governments there, they’re rising in Asia because rival governments are growing stronger. China’s arrival as an economic power and as an emerging military power has led to tensions with a newly assertive Japan in the East China Sea, and with a handful of American allies in the South China Sea. At a minimum, the tensions require attention and deployment of naval assets to reassure friends.

Iran’s nuclear program isn’t going away as an issue, regardless of the outcome of current international negotiations designed to rein it in.

As the domestic political debate over these crises heats up, we are seeing a classic American pattern in action. America’s success abroad breeds stupidity and hubris in U.S. foreign policy. This hubris and stupidity leads to bad choices and magical thinking. We begin to believe, for example, that the world can become safer and more democratic even as we scale back our involvement. These bad choices and bad ideas then lead to huge global challenges. Those challenges ultimately spark smarter, more purposeful American engagement, usually after we’ve tried a few unsuccessful gambits first. That engagement finally leads to American success, which leads back again to American stupidity and hubris. And so on.

Contrary to Jeffersonian legends, what drove increasing American engagement over the 20th century wasn’t the missionary itch of the Wilsonians, or corporatist, Hamiltonian plots to build spooky New World Orders to Bilderberger specifications. It was the reality that when Americans got foreign policy wrong or ignored the outside world, the consequences were so severe that we were continually forced back into the “game” of world politics. What Seib is gesturing to is the reappearance of this reality. A mix of poor foreign policy choices—under President Bush as well as President Obama—added to the consequences of a tentative American pivot away from global engagement have led to a sharp deterioration in the world situation. Accordingly there will be more momentum behind broader U.S. international involvement as global security continues to get worse.

Recently, those who support smaller U.S. presence abroad have had a moment. Provoked by exhaustion over our adventures in the Middle East, American discourse has shown some sympathy for politicians like Rand Paul who want to reduce our overseas commitments. But Seib’s piece suggests that the inchoate neo-isolationist moment may already be coming to an end. A newly attentive American public will pay closer attention to foreign policy during the next presidential election cycle than it did in the last one, and will be less likely now to give a pass to politicians who want to withdraw within U.S. borders.

 

[pbi]

Cultural change that may signal the true end of the United States as a dominant power. As referenced in this article, one of the key differences between the United States and previous dominant powers was the rather unique social structure of the United States, communities bound by mutual trust and able to create spontaneous order (the "Little Platoons" of daily life, or as de Tocqueville said "a nation of associations"). IF the coming generation can reestablish this sort of social order, then things should work out. On the other hand...

http://nypost.com/2014/04/04/millennials-path-of-least-resistance/

I'm not clear how the cultural changes described here would contribute to the decline of the US as world power. If isolationism is reasserting itself, then that is really just a cyclical thing in US political culture.

What I see is younger people rejecting two largely ossified political parties which, these days, seem unable to come up with much in the way of pragmatic, bipartisan solutions to anything important. If that leads to a reform of US political culture, so be it. I also see that while millennials may have  spritual faith (which is fin and generally, IMHO, good), they are rejecting the religiosity and book-burning fundamentalism that is far too salient a feature of US political discourse.

As for the disconnection from society, that I do agree is a matter for concern. Civil society is everything, and if people turn away from it, nothing good will come. But, are they actually turning away from it, or turning away from what their parents thought it was supposed to be? Could civil engagement be revived?

I think some of these questions could be equally well asked in our country.

 

[Journeyman]

What I see is younger people rejecting two largely ossified political parties which, these days, seem unable to come up with much in the way of pragmatic, bipartisan solutions to anything important.

I see room (notwithstanding the uphill battle inherent in the current US political structure) for the birth of a centrist party; as long as both major parties feel a need to cater to their more bizarre (vocal?) fringe elements, there will more people drawn to such a central "Common Sense Party."TM

I think some of these questions could be equally well asked in our country.

I see us as a minor reflection of several of their same issues.  I don't think we're quite as far 'out there' as the US political parties are, but there's certainly room for pondering.

 

[Edward Campbell]

It may be equally likely that the two mainstream parties will be 'saved' by their lunatic fringes. The hard right in the USA is already divided between what I would call Constitutional fundamentalists and the religious right and the hard core private property party. The Democrats have a hard left wing, real socialists, who are always excluded from real power. I suspect the Republican are closer to a real split. I think the Ron Paul/Libertarian wing is almost ready to 'give up' on the mainstream ... but they understand, deep in their political souls, that they are marginal, like the hard left.

The splits here are just as real but not as deep. The Manley Liberals are not Conservatives in a hurry and more than the NDP (the CCF, actually) were just "Liberals in a hurry" back in the 1940s. The left wing of the Liberal Party, which is still, essentially, in favour of capitalism but which wants to redistribute the fruits of others' labours, is alive and well, but the centrist Liberals are, very often silk stocking socialists or limousine liberals whereas the centrist Conservatives are reluctant allies of both the 'law and order Conservatives' and the 'social conservative' wings. I understand why Scott Brison left the CPC and I also understand why a union of Manley Liberals and Progressive Conservatives is unlikely. Both centrist 'mainstreams' need their fringes here in Canada and they can tolerate their fringes because, in the case of the left, the NDP provides an outlet and there are, equally, small fringe parties on the right to allow the 'SoCons' and so on to let off steam.

 

[tomahawk6]

The Democrat hard left IS in power today with the Obama Administration.I can only hope with the mid term in Nov. that we see more Republicans elected to take control of the Senate.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The Democrat hard left IS in power today with the Obama Administration.I can only hope with the mid term in Nov. that we see more Republicans elected to take control of the Senate.

Oh, wow! I think there are a whole lot of active, politically engaged Democrats who are far to the left of e.g. Jacob Lew or Penny Pritzker or even Barack Obama, himself. And I think Hillary Clinton is listening to them ...