Category Archives: War Commentary

Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society, War Commentary

A Chinese-Russian Alliance?

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Sanctions may make it happen:

…we may undo the work of the Cold War era and stand godfather to a new Sino-Russian alliance. This without doubt would be the stupidest move in the history of American foreign policy. Russia’s economy is weak, but Russia has considerable latent resources in military technology. Russia has a limitless market for natural resources in China and a prospective partner in military technology. If we continue to dismantle our defense capacity while Russia and China nourish theirs, we will be in deep trouble.

The best response to Putin’s challenge would be a massive increase in defense R&D, with a view to neutralizing Russia’s perceived areas of strength in missile and air defense technology (remember how SDI cowed Gorbachev in the 1980s?). That would command China’s respect and reduce Russia’s attractiveness as a prospective partner. The Crimea was, is, and will be Russian, and it’s pointless to cry over milk that was spilled in 1783. We need to think several moves ahead on the chessboard. Otherwise, Chancellor Merkel is quite right: sanctions are pointless.

That would include innovations in Milspace, something that apparently only DARPA is capable of.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

The Conditions Of Omar

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The Syrian Christians (who survive) are being forced to convert:

Just the other day in Pakistan, Christians “began the construction of a church on land donated by the Christian Akber Masih, a resident in the area. They built the walls of the building and placed a cross in front of the main gate of the small construction yard.” But “when a large group of Islamic extremists saw the Christian symbol they arrived unexpectedly with bulldozers and started demolishing the building.” Although the Christians notified police and authorities, “the perpetrators were not arrested.” As for the aggrieved Christians, they “have received threats and have to abandon the idea of the project to build a church.”

Thanks to Western intervention in the colonial era, the Conditions largely disappeared — not least because Muslim leaders and elites were themselves Westernizing. But today, as Muslims turn back to their Islamic heritage and its teachings — not least because Western leaders and elites are urging them to in the name of multiculturalism, if not moral relativism — the Conditions are returning. And woe to the Christian minority who dares break them by exercising religious freedom — what I call the “How Dare You?” phenomenon, which is responsible for the overwhelming majority of Islamic attacks on non-Muslims.

This is par for the course, and how Islam spread in the first place, not voluntarily through the evangelical preaching of its virtues and spiritual benefits. It was, in fact, the root cause of the Crusades.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Why Russia Invaded Ukraine

90 Comments

…because the West is weak.

And that’s just the way the Democrats, from Madeleine NotSobright to Barack Obama, seem to like it.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Putin was changing the map while Europe was fixing the climate.

What fools.

Also, when weak nations provoke stronger ones. Because part of strength is the will to use what power you have.

[Update mid-afternoon]

“It’s like they’re living on another planet.”

As he notes, if Obama’s unwilling to take on the Sierra Club, who should believe that he’ll take on Putin?

[Bumped]

[Late afternoon update]

The West’s Ukrainian folly:

The real Cold Warriors understood that crushing the Evil Empire of Communism required us to take into account the interests of Russia as a nation. The elder statesmen who won the Cold War, including Henry Kissinger (whose opening to China flanked the Soviet Union), are trying in vain to inject a note of sanity into the clown show that passes for American foreign policy on both sides of the aisle. The Republican mainstream mistook Tahrir Square for Lexington Common, and then mistook Maidan for Tahrir Square. If only we were rougher and tougher, it is claimed, Crimea would be free today. That is just plain stupid; there is no possible state of the world in which Crimea would not be Russian. We had some ability to influence the terms under which it would be Russian, and we chose the worst possible course of action, namely open hostility combined with impotent posturing.

We have an elite that lives in its own virtual-reality world circumscribed by a failed ideology, unable to learn from its past mistakes (or even to admit that they were mistakes) and condemned to repeat the same blunders again and again. They posture at Putin the way a small boy stands up to the zoo lion behind cage bars. The lion, though, is not entirely without alternatives, as the alarming case of Iran should make clear.

It’s folly on every front.