Category: Foreign Policy

James Soriano at The American Thinker

His latest on Ukraine is America's 'Revolutionary Moment.'

What follows is his response to the comments made here on his earlier article Do Not Underestimate Russia's Resolve:

I just read through the comments this weekend.  There certainly was a spirited debate.  

The comments divide into two kinds, with Michael Brazier and Dimitri raising points about how I’ve mis-measured Russia’s intent and its imperialistic history.  Dimitri seemed to be somewhat surprised that a retired Foreign Service Officer wasn’t better informed about Russian history.  Since when is the State Department required to have a firm grasp of history?  That principle has never applied to it in the past and I see no reason why I should conform to it now.  Ha! 

Ben made very good points pushing back against the Russia bogey.   His comment about Churchill and Roosevelt approving the inflow of Russian power into Eastern Europe is noteworthy.  That fact is typically ignored when an anti-Russia speaker talks about how the Soviet bloc was really a modern replication of the Russian Empire.  It is as though Russia was the only actor on the scene and Eastern Europe was merely putty in its hands.  But events were shaped by other actors as well, especially the Anglo-Americans who agreed to Russia’s westward advance (although they may not have liked it), as well as local Communist parties which looked to Moscow for support. 

The other kind of comments were about the realist/idealist schools of foreign policy, with Russia playing Aristotle to America’s Plato.  Elliott picked up on it and you seconded.  
 
Oz linked to a NYT article on why the most prominent anti-war voices seem to be on the right.  That may be so, but I think the real story is the bipartisan consensus for fighting undeclared war against Russia.  Fair to say that US assistance to the Ukrainian army has killed more Russian soldiers than the Ukrainian army acting alone.  Many a “conservative” voice can be heard on the U.S. war wagon.  I’m sure you know the story about Lindsey Graham who approvingly told Zelensky recently that “Russians are dying” and that US support for Ukraine was the “best money we’ve ever spent”.  Shame on him.

Joe Odegaard made a good point about Russia fighting to fend off the imperial reach of the West’s Woke agenda.  That story’s out there in the blogosphere in various forms.  It’s a two-part story:  there’s the U.S. push for globalizing Woke, which R.R. Reno wrote about recently at First Things, and then there’s the resentment against it in the patriarchal and traditional societies of the so-called “Global South.”  I think that’s one reason the Global South has not signed up to sanction Russia.  It likes the idea of having a strong Russia and China around to curb American excesses.

Do Not Underestimate Russia’s Resolve

An American Thinker article by our friend, James Soriano.   

The two camps differ not only on the cause of war, they have completely different world views as to how a system of sovereign states works.   Russian war policy is the epitome of a broader realist approach to international affairs:  states have interests, not friends, and they must rely on self-help to do what is necessary to protect themselves.  Accordingly, Russia went to war not to conquer, but from a no-nonsense threat assessment.  By contrast, the United States entered the fray with an ideologically charged missionary spirit.  The U.S. has long seen itself as the savior of the world, the “indispensable nation,”  Its diplomatic discourse often lapses into moralizing rhetoric.  It believes that a world filled with more democracies would be a safer and better place than it is today.  It is disdainful of traditional balance of power politics and favors a “rules based” world order.  The Russian view of power politics is “bottom up” and conservative.  It insists that a state’s historical and geographic circumstances must be taken into account.  It grapples with the question, “What is there?”  The American view of the world is “top-down” and revolutionary.  It is less concerned with historical contexts than with hypothetical theorizing about how people and states ought to behave.  It grapples with the question, “What should be there?”

[. . .]

One side is saying that world peace is served when the great powers exercise self-restraint and are respectful of other powers’ security.  The other side is saying that maintaining a sphere of influence is implicitly an aggressive act.  One side is saying that tension between the great powers is not the result of the particular character of their regimes, but rather is built into the international system whenever a great power veers out of its lane.  The other side is saying that a regime’s character is exactly the point, because different characters affect the relations among the states in different ways.  One side emphasizes historical and geographic circumstances as a constant in world affairs.  The other side de-emphasizes these in favor of an overlay of law and ethical precepts.

Many Russians believe that U.S. talk about “spheres of influence,” and respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty, and the need for a “rules-based” international order is only a moralizing cover for what the United States really wants — which is regime change in Moscow.  Russia has suspected this all along.  Ironically, it sees the United States pretty much as the United States sees itself:  as a messianic power spreading the good news of democracy around the world.  Russia knows that if it had acquiesced to Ukraine’s joining NATO, if it had been passive in allowing an opposing military alliance to push itself right up against its fence, then Russia would permanently lose its freedom of action and any claim to great power status.  It would have to fit pliantly into an American-designed world order.  It would have to go along with the U.S., rather than to present itself as an alternative to it.  Going back to Napoleon, Russia has a history of opposing hegemonic power bidders.  If it had gone along with NATO-on-the-Dneiper it would have prostrated itself to one.   It would become like Europe, another American appendage. 

The Russian people get this.  They sense that the battle in Ukraine is not just about Ukraine.  It in an existential fight, a struggle of life or death, between them and the West.  To them a challenge originating in the West has once again reared up to put Russia under overwhelming pressure.  They believe that losing this fight would not amount to just a setback from which Russia could later recover; it would be tantamount to Russia’s losing its historical identity, not merely as a country but as a civilization, for Russia is a civilization culturally distinct from that of the West, and not, as many Westerners mistakenly believe, an un-democratized expanse on Europe’s eastern edge.

The Chinese Trial Balloon, Realpolitik, and What it Excludes

Now this you should read. Excerpt:

If I’m right, Beijing’s chief reason for floating a balloon over North America was to see whether it would elicit a response from the U.S. government and military, as well as from the American people.

And so it did, judging from the subsequent uproar in the press and on social media. Advantage: Xi Jinping & Co.

Now China will use what it learned about American psychology to sharpen its “three warfares” strategy. Three warfares refers to China’s all-consuming effort to shape the political and strategic environment in its favor by deploying legal, media, and psychological means. This is a 24/7/365 endeavor, and it’s in keeping with venerated strategic traditions.

After all, Mao Zedong—the Chinese Communist Party’s founding chairman and military North Star—instructed his disciples that war is politics with bloodshed while politics is war without bloodshed.

In the Maoist worldview, in other words, there is no peacetime. It’s all war, all the time for Communist China.

"War is politics with bloodshed while politics is war without bloodshed." Strongly reminiscent of von Clausewitz: "War is politics by other means." Both exemplify Realpolitik. What does Realpolitik exclude? It excludes any politics based on otherworldly principles such as Christian principles. Does it not?

The exclusion is implied in this passage from  Hannah Arendt ("Truth and Politics" in Between Past and Future, Penguin, 1968, p. 245):

The disastrous consequences for any community that began in all earnest to follow ethical precepts derived from man in the singular — be they Socratic or Platonic or Christian — have been frequently pointed out. Long before Machiavelli recommended protecting the political realm against the undiluted principles of the Christian faith (those who refuse to resist evil permit the wicked "to do as much evil as they please"), Aristotle warned against giving philosophers any say in political matters. (Men who for professional reasons must be so unconcerned with "what is good for themselves" cannot very well be trusted with what is good for others, and least of all with the "common good," the down-to-earth interests of the community.) [Arendt cites Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, and in particular 1140b9 and 1141b4.]

"Aristotle warned against giving philosophers any say in political matters." Nietzsche says something similar somewhere in his Nachlass.  I paraphrase from memory. (And it may be that the thought is expressed in one of the works he himself published.)

The philosopher  is like a ship with insufficient ballast: it rides too high on the seas of life for safe navigation. Bobbing like a cork, it capsizes easily.  The solid bourgeois, weighted and freighted with the cargo of Weib und Kind, Haus und Hof, ploughs deep the waves and weathers the storms of Neptune's realm and reaches safe harbor.

The philosophers who shouldn't be given any say in matters mundane and political are of course the otherworldly philosophers, those I would dub, tendentiously, the 'true philosophers.' There are also the 'worldly philosophers' discussed by Robert L. Heilbroner in his eponymous book, such thinkers as Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes.

The 'true philosophers,' which include Plato and his opposite number Nietzsche, have something like contempt for those who would occupy themselves with the human-all-too-human alone.

Rod is Right

Here:

. . . in a turn of fate that is like something out of Greek mythology, the United States is once again fully committed to a war of choice with unpredictable consequences. Except this time, it's a proxy war against a nuclear superpower. As John Mearsheimer has warned, we are playing Russian roulette with nuclear missiles in the chamber. And yet, all of official Washington, as well as the Establishment's media mouthpieces, are cheering on this war, with urgently necessary discussion about the national security interests of the US in this matter, the war's endgame, and suchlike, shoved to the side so Very Important People of the unified War Party can carry on about how Ukraine's fate is the most important issue facing our country — and anybody who raises a peep of protest is plainly simping for Putin. [Hyperlink added.]

 

Biden as Fitting Symbol of our Nation’s Decline

Some of Joe Biden's personal attributes have national analogues in our general moral malaise, our infrastructural breakdown, our lunatic embrace of race-delusional 'critical' race theories and their noxious, anti-civilizational outgrowths such as 'ethno-mathematics,' our economic dependence on geopolitical adversaries for essentials . . . .

Biden is corrupt morally, a brazen liar, a serial plagiarist, a grifter, and a political opportunist rooted in no discernible principle except that of self-promotion. Physically decrepit, he is also quite obviously  non compos mentis, not of sound mind. Even his supporters now admit his cognitive decline. Manipulated by others, he is a puppet on a string, many strings, pulled by unseen deep state operatives. Told what to say, he is more one dictated to than a dictator. But from time to time the puppet comes alive, goes off script, and blurts out something both stupid and dangerous, as when he recently spoke what is left of his mind: "Putin cannot remain in power!"

This senile outburst has exacerbated the grave danger we and the whole world are now in. I shake my head as did Sean Hannity and Dan Bongino last night when Geraldo Rivera came to the fool's defense.

Madeleine Albright Dead at 84

I will now have to leave off calling her 'Madeleine None-Too-Bright,' at least for a time. De mortuis nil nisi bonum, et cetera. This Revolver piece covers the essentials. 

Unfortunately, Madeleine Albright’s long career represents all the failures and mistakes that, in just thirty years, have taken America from its superpower apex to the brink of imperial collapse.

Be it in Eastern Europe or the Middle East or East Asia, a United States that followed the exact opposite of Albright’s foreign policy vision would almost certainly be a richer, happier, and less divided nation than the fading colossus America has become in 2022.

Albright embraced America’s disastrous pattern of global interventionism

As Christopher Caldwell wrote of Albright back in 2003, “For her, every conflict is a replay of the Munich conference of 1938, with a camp of the ‘farsighted’ on one hand and a bunch of ‘appeasers’ on the other.” The best way to be farsighted, it turns out, was to be aggressive in using U.S. force abroad. Albright enjoyed referring to America as “the indispensable nation,” reflecting an assumption that every dispute and every crisis the world over needed, and would benefit from, U.S. meddling and oversight.

According to her own 2003 memoir, during her days as Secretary of State Albright feuded with then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell, arguing in favor of more frequent and aggressive use of American military power abroad: “What’s the point of you saving this superb military for, Colin, if we can’t use it?”

For more than two decades, Albright’s toxic enthusiasm for military force has been the closest thing there is to conventional wisdom in Washington. It is not only the attitude that gave us the Iraq War and 20 years in Afghanistan, but also missile strikes in Syria, undeclared drone war in Yemen, and useless regime change in Libya.

But what really angered me about Albright was her talk of 'fascism' in connection with Donald J. Trump. She was a European who didn't know what fascism is:

Perhaps it makes total sense that such a feminized, passive-aggressive foreign policy tool was instituted by a female “trailblazer” with the childish view of international relations as a bunch of schoolchildren playing in the schoolyard with the United States as the schoolmarm spanking the “schoolyard bullies.”

Albright was a neurotic who saw “fascism” lurking everywhere, in need of aggressive confrontation

Ever since Donald Trump descended the escalator in 2015, America’s most powerful media and tech outlets have been shrieking about the danger of “fascism” in America, and have used this phantom fascism to justify ever-more-restrictive crackdowns on free speech and freedom of association. And Albright, for her part, was proud to lead the chorus in yelping about a fascist danger lurking everywhere, at home and abroad.

For Albright, fascism was indeed lurking everywhere, and the leaders of enemy states were nascent Hitlers in waiting. Fear of lurking fascism drove Albright’s desire to intervene in Kosovo and to contain Saddam Hussein. More recently, it motivated her attacks on domestic political foes. In 2019, in the twilight of her life, Albright published “Fascism: A Warning”, where she argues that fascism “now presents a more virulent threat to international peace and justice than at any time since the end of World War II.” Naturally it’s all Donald Trump’s fault:

“I am drawn again to my conclusion that a Fascist is someone who claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is utterly unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use violence and whatever other means are necessary to achieve the goals he or she might have. Throughout my adult life, I have felt that America could be counted on to put obstacles in the way of any such leader, party, or movement. I never thought that, at age eighty, I would begin to have doubts.

The shadow looming over these pages is, of course, that of Donald Trump. … Trump is the first anti-democratic president in modern U.S. history. On too many days, beginning in the early hours, he flaunts his disdain for democratic institutions, the ideals of equality and social justice, civil discourse, civic virtues, and America itself. If transplanted to a country with fewer democratic safeguards, he would audition for dictator, because that is where his instincts lead. This frightening fact has consequences. The herd mentality is powerful in international affairs. Leaders around the globe observe, learn from, and mimic one another. They see where their peers are heading, what they can get away with, and how they can augment and perpetuate their power. They walk in one another’s footsteps, as Hitler did with Mussolini—and today the herd is moving in a Fascist direction.

Of course, a lack of concern “with the rights of others” and a willingness “to use violence and whatever other means to achieve its goals” would describe both the foreign and domestic policy of the Globalist American Empire. But for Albright, just like the rest of the D.C. elite class, the “fascist” danger was always among her foes, who needed to be crushed.

Albright is a leading example of how the diversity agenda quashes reasoned thought.

The Chinese Virus Wake-Up Call

Good will come of the current pandemic. People will learn how to be more self-reliant and less reliant on government.   They will learn how to prepare for emergencies.  They will learn how to slow down, prepare their own meals, stay home, travel less, read books, be more thoughtful and introspective, repair things, and anally cleanse without toilet paper. (No, I am not advocating a return to the Roman tersorium!) They will finally learn some life skills. Or so I hope.

But most important: we are now in a position as a nation to learn not to rely on enemies for our well-being.  I now hand off to John Moody:

For instance, with China’s economy still reeling from the economic impact of the disease, maybe it’s time for America to rethink our insane over-dependence on China for everything from clothes, to computers, to smart-phones, to even the medicines we need to combat corona—which, despite politically correct howls to remain mute about it, started in China!

Yes, China makes things cheaper than Americans choose to make these days. Yes, China, when it is not busy imprisoning political dissidents and stealing our technology, has made huge advances in its manufacturing capabilities. And yes, it has proven to be a trading partner that takes advantage of us, but keeps pumping out the cheap consumer goods Americans love nearly as much as their freedom. 

Attention, America: that freedom is at risk. The massive shutdown of China’s industrial output in response to the corona scourge has demonstrated just how thoroughly we have outsourced our manufacturing might in the name of saving a few bucks.

Read the rest.

The leftist scum who are attempting to use the current crisis to attack President Trump are attacking the very man who alone has the courage to oppose the globalist, borderless madness.

Dems and Spooks: Why Suddenly So Ferociously Anti-Putin?

Michael Ledeen provides historical perspective and poses a good question. 

It’s a hard question to answer, because we do not know if it is based on new intelligence, or if it is primarily motivated by politics. So far as we know, there is considerable information tying Democrats to the Russians, and relatively less showing Russian links to Republicans, including the Trump crowd. We can document substantial Russian and Russia-linked involvement with the Clinton Foundation, some of it directly linked to U.S. policy decisions such as the one giving Russia effective control over the U.S. company Uranium One. We know that Bill Clinton received a huge payday for a speech in Moscow, orders of magnitude greater than what General Flynn was paid. Yet there is virtually unanimous Democratic condemnation of Trump’s failure to denounce Russian “meddling” in our politics, claiming it was in support for Trump.

It seems to me that the Democrats are accusing Trump of doing what they actually did.

 For the clueless: 'spooks' is not a racist dog whistle, nor does it have anything to do with Halloween.

Paul Starobin on the Helsinki Press Conference

Angelo Codevilla is good, but Starobin is better,  his piece a superb example of fair and balanced analysis.

NYU's Stephen F. Cohen will also give you some real insight into what is going on.  Attend to these gentlemen and ignore the lunacies spewed by the lamestream media outlets.

UPDATE (14:50). Andrew P. Napolitano weighs in, wisely:

I don’t know whether Putin can be reasoned with. But I believe that if anyone can do it, Donald Trump can. This is what made me think this past week of all those litigations I helped to resolve. Negotiations are often fluid. They take time and patience, as well as threats and flattery, and they cannot be successful under a microscope.

Stated differently, Trump knows how to negotiate, and his skills cannot be assessed midstream — because midstream is often muddy and muddled. Trump’s efforts this week were just a beginning. His public praise of Putin and giving moral equivalence to Putin and our intelligence services were not to state truths but to influence Putin’s thinking in order to bend Putin's will — eventually — to his own.

But the neocons in Congress will have none of this. The power of American arms-makers is formidable and profound. They have acolytes in all branches of the federal government. They depend on the threats of foreign governments to animate taxpayer funding of their armaments.

They know that Russia is the only threat in Europe, and they fear that if President Trump reaches a meaningful rapprochement with President Putin, there will result a diminished American appetite for their weaponry.

The Reason the Foreign Policy Establishment has Gone Mad

Pat Buchanan:

Not since Robert Welch of the John Birch Society called Dwight Eisenhower a “conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy” have such charges been hurled at a president. But while the Birchers were a bit outside the mainstream, today it is the establishment itself bawling “Treason!”

What explains the hysteria?

[. . .]

Using Occam’s razor, the real explanation for this behavior is the simplest one: America’s elites have been driven over the edge by Trump’s successes and their failures to block him.

Trump is deregulating the economy, cutting taxes, appointing record numbers of federal judges, reshaping the Supreme Court, and using tariffs to cut trade deficits and the bully pulpit to castigate freeloading allies.

Worst of all, Trump clearly intends to carry out his campaign pledge to improve relations with Russia and get along with Vladimir Putin.

“Over our dead bodies!” the Beltway elite seems to be shouting.

Hence the rhetorical WMDs hurled at Trump: liar, dictator, authoritarian, Putin’s poodle, fascist, demagogue, traitor, Nazi. 

Pitchfork Pat has it exactly right. Please read the whole thing. He hereby earns the highest of the MavPhil accolades, the coveted Plenary Prize for Political Penetration.