Applause From An Old Man

     Once in a great while, an essay comes my way that leaves me speechless from its insight. I’ve just received such an essay from Haretina Kukuri. It’s so penetrating that all I can do is applaud.

     Haretina brilliantly traces the lineaments of the world order from the days when what mattered above all else was force and geographic hegemony, to today, when finance matters as much as arms and armies.

     Within the aggregate of maneuvers and operations we call “finance,” there is always a foundation stone. When the currencies of great nations were redeemable in specie, that stone was gold. But the wars of the Nightmare Century gave the great powers the opportunity they sought to forsake specie redeemability. But a foundation stone was still required. The Bretton Woods system implied it; Haretina makes it visible:

     The order that resulted rested on a distinctive synthesis: American predominance supplied the material foundation; multilateral institutions supplied procedural legitimacy. Together they produced stability and integration without precedent — trade expanded dramatically, investment accelerated, Western Europe and Japan rebuilt into industrial prosperity. But the system’s true foundation was neither treaty nor institution.
     It was confidence: confidence that obligations would be honoured, currencies would hold, rules would bind, and institutions would function under strain. Trust was the invisible infrastructure. Central banks accumulated dollars because American markets combined depth, liquidity and legal certainty no competitor could match; investors accepted modest Treasury yields because institutional credibility reduced uncertainty more effectively than higher returns elsewhere.

     Once again, hearken to the great Benjamin M. Anderson:

     There is no need in human life so great as that men should trust one another and should trust their government, should believe in promises, and should keep promises in order that future promises may be believed in and in order that confident cooperation may be possible. Good faith -- personal, national, and international -- is the first prerequisite of decent living, of the steady going on of industry, of governmental financial strength, and of international peace. -- Benjamin M. Anderson, Economics and the Public Welfare: A Financial and Economic History of the United States, 1914 -- 1946

     Gold maintained a shadow presence in international finance even after the Bretton Woods agreement. But in truth, what mattered above all was the other parties’ confidence in American financial strength and the trustworthiness of American traders and markets. That confidence has waned somewhat this past half-century, though not to the point of revoking the dollar’s status as the world’s “reserve currency.”

     In her conclusion, Haretina tacitly invokes one of the key insights of cybernetic analysis, The Law of Requisite Variety:

     The Law of Requisite Variety (coined by cybernetician W. Ross Ashby) states that to successfully control or adapt to a complex system, the internal complexity and behavioral flexibility of the controller must be equal to or greater than the complexity of the environment it faces.
     Also known as "variety absorbs variety", this First Law of Cybernetics essentially means that the entity with the most available options, responses, and adaptable behaviors will dictate the system's outcome. If an environment throws a highly unpredictable set of challenges at you, a rigid, inflexible set of responses will eventually fail.

     In Haretina’s words:

     The four-phase framework proposed here is not a rigid periodisation but a way of seeing a single transformation whole. Across two centuries the instruments changed relentlessly — sovereign loans became development finance, banking missions became multilateral institutions, fixed parities dissolved into integrated capital markets, and competition now runs through payment systems, reserve currencies, digital infrastructure, artificial intelligence, critical minerals and regulatory authority. The continuity lies beneath: states converting financial capability into political influence while economising on coercion.
     Military power remains indispensable, and negotiation remains essential. But neither now determines the structure of international order by itself. Order increasingly depends on who designs the institutions through which capital moves, liquidity is created, payments settle, technology is financed and confidence is sustained.
     The next chapter of international politics will not be written primarily through territorial conquest or ideological confrontation.
     It will be written through competing financial architectures.
     The decisive question is no longer who possesses the greatest wealth.
     It is who organises the networks through which the world’s wealth circulates.
     That is the diplomacy of finance.

     I told you to keep an eye on this young woman. She’s going places.

What Is "The Law Of Nations?"

     This piece and the many others that have been written since American forces deposed Nicolas Maduro have excited questions about “international law.” The phrase is portentous but misleading. If we take as our template “law” as it comes about in parliaments and is enforced by armed agents of the State, we find ourselves unable to grapple with “laws” never legislated nor backed by specific enforcers. To give “international law” appreciable meaning, we must seek guidance elsewhere.

     Article I Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States includes this provision:

     The Congress shall have power… To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

     When the Constitution was written, “the Law of Nations” was taken to mean the body of proscriptions commonly recognized and enforced throughout those nations from which the peoples of the original thirteen states held as their heritage. Two above others were paramount:

• “Thou shalt not kill.”
• “Thou shalt not steal.”

     Despite the political departure the Constitution represented, the Founders recognized the key legal commonality between America and its Old World roots: the laws against forcible predation. Thus, they empowered Congress to define those acts as punishable outside as well as inside our national borders. Other national laws were omitted from consideration, or deemed unenforceable “on the high Seas.” At the time there was no consideration of laws such as today’s forbiddings of various drugs. Smuggling laws enforced at the nation’s border were outside the “high Seas” scope of the provision.

     Today “the Law of Nations” is more extensive than in 1787. For example, there’s a general agreement among civilized nations that the international transport of certain drugs, and the unauthorized transport of weapons, should be forbidden. No world legislature passed laws against those things; it’s simply a commonality among the great majority of nations. So it became first a matter of tacit international agreement, later confirmed by various treaties and United Nations “conventions.” (It’s also a criterion for recognizing a “rogue state” or a “failed state.”)

     Mind you, such agreements, implicit or explicit, are agreements between States. States do such things to benefit themselves, not their subjects or neighbor States. Were the U.S. to rescind all its laws against traffic in fentanyl, for example, the existing agreements against international traffic would remain. The other nations would continue to enforce them to the extent possible… which, with America subtracted from the equation, would be considerably less.

     Just this morning, “The Pour Over,” a newsletter I get regularly, put forth its own take on “international law:”

     That’s not a bad abstract treatment of the subject, though it doesn’t delve into the history of the thing. As regards enforcement, it’s a bit simplistic in leaning upon “sanctions.” Clearly those are not the only instruments at a nation’s disposal, as the U.S. demonstrated by sinking several drug-smuggling boats in international waters.

     There were, of course, protests against those sinkings. Google’s AI summarizes those reactions, including those from outside the U.S.:

     International criticism of the U.S. strikes came from various sources:

• United Nations and Human Rights Bodies: The UN human rights chief suggested the strikes might constitute unlawful extrajudicial killings, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights voiced "deep concern," requesting investigations.
• Foreign Governments: Venezuela condemned the operations as aggression and violations of international law, filing a complaint with the UN Security Council. Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the strikes "extrajudicial executions". Brazil, China, France, Iran, Mexico, and Russia also stated the strikes violated international law.
• Non-Governmental Organizations and Activists: Human rights groups and legal experts, including the American Friends Service Committee, questioned the legality of the killings and the absence of public evidence.
• Public Protests: Protests against the U.S. actions occurred in locations like Rochester, New York, with demonstrators carrying signs such as "No War on Venezuela".

     The international negative reaction primarily focused on the U.S. military's use of lethal force in what were seen as law enforcement scenarios without publicly providing evidence for the "narco-terrorist" label, leading to concerns about legality under international law.

     But lethal force is the ultimate form of enforcement. It stands behind all other varieties of enforcement. The opinions of the protestors, individual or national, do not matter. The drugs and their transporters were offending against “the Law of Nations” as currently agreed among the States of the world. Moreover, they were doing so in very fast vessels designed to evade capture by the larger, slower vessels of blue-water navies. American aircraft destroyed them. As a character of mine once said, period fucking dot.

     This is not a moral defense nor a legitimization of the action. It’s what States do, and States are amoral. On net balance, I’d say it was a good thing, my opinions about the War on Drugs notwithstanding. It’s best for the potential consequences of an action to be clearly understood beforehand and plainly visible afterward.

     Let there be no misapprehensions: if there is to be a “Law of Nations,” it will be the great powers who will determine and enforce it. Indeed, there needn’t be a “Law of Nations” for that to be the case. The great powers will always enforce their will in No-Man’s Land. Consider low Earth orbit in this regard. Till now, the “Law of Nations” has barely brushed against it. That will change.

Kindness In Diplomacy

     So many people have written to say such nice things about this piece that I thought it might bear up under a brief extension….

---

Kindness Goes International

     Foreign Minister Lane Scheisskopf was plainly upset. As there could only be one reason, Whiteman had to repress a smile. He’d known it was coming; the only uncertainty was how soon it would arrive.

     “Mister Prime Minister,” Scheisskopf ventured, “while your refugee policy has admittedly quelled the problem for us domestically, there have been…other consequences.”

     Whiteman nodded. “I assume those consequences are pertinent to your area of responsibility, Lane?”

     “They are, sir.”

     “Well,” Whiteman said, “other nations were never guaranteed to approve of our domestic arrangements. As long as they confine themselves to verbal criticism, I think we can endure it.”

     “Sir, some of them are speaking openly of retaliatory measures.”

     “Of what sorts?”

     “Tariffs and trade barriers.”

     “Ah!” Whiteman allowed his expression to brighten. “What does our nation import from them, Lane?”

     “Sir?”

     “Come, come! What goods does our country import from those countries? More to the point, how would our people and our economy be affected by the absence of those imports?”

     Scheisskopf was deeply flustered by the inquiry. “Sir, I’m not prepared with that information.”

     “Are you prepared to say which of our domestic industries would be affected by the inability to export to those nations?”

     “No, Mister Prime Minister,” Scheisskopf mumbled. “I’m not.”

     “Hmph.” Whiteman rose from his desk, went to the little bar built into the north wall, and poured himself two fingers of Calvados. “A drink, Lane?”

     “No thank you, sir.”

     “You know,” Whiteman said after a sip, “if you were prepared with that information, it would be a significant datum. It would mean that the consequences of a trade skirmish with those countries would be widely felt, and perhaps deeply enough that our people would feel some pain. As that’s not the case, allow me to say that I’m unconcerned over the matter. Was there anything else?”

     “Yes, sir,” Scheisskopf said after a moment. “The ambassadors of Dumbfuckistan and Upyourassov have urgently requested to meet with you. Today, if possible.”

     Whiteman finally allowed himself to smile. “Of course it’s possible, Lane! I’d be delighted to chat with them. Where are they at the moment?”

     Scheisskopf glanced at his watch. “At this time, sir, I imagine they’d be at their respective embassies.”

     “Well, ring them up! Tell them I’d be happy to see them here, at any time today. But together, Lane. Together only.” Whiteman waved an arm. “My time is limited, but as the refugees could tell you, my hospitality is boundless.”

     Scheisskopf winced, nodded, and departed.

---

     Whiteman didn’t hear from Scheisskopf until late that afternoon. He sensed that Ambassadors Jihadiki and Jerkovich had wanted one-on-one time with him and were resisting the notion of meeting with him together. But at about four his secretary announced that they had presented themselves as he suggested. The two trooped into the Icosahedron Office, with Scheisskopf in the lead.

     Whiteman remained seated as they entered. “Well, gentlemen? What is it?”

     Both ambassadors bridled at the expression of disdain. They were accustomed to the treatment Whiteman’s predecessors had given them as respected representatives of sovereign states. To be treated as mere supplicants grated on both men’s self-esteem. Scheisskopf was equally upset at the blatant disregard of the diplomatic courtesies, but he kept silent.

     It was Jihadiki who spoke first. “Prime Minister Whiteman, we must protest your treatment of our citizens in the strongest possible terms. What you have done amounts to incarcerating them as criminals, treatment that is explicitly forbidden by the bylaws of the World Council on Refugee Resettlement!”

     “Surely, Ambassador,” Whiteman purred, “you’re aware that my nation is not a member of that council? That we reject its assertions of authority and have never agreed to any of its emissions?”

     “We are,” Jihadiki said, “but—”

     “Then you may consider that point to have been dealt with and dismissed with prejudice, Ambassador.” Whiteman paused and looked off theatrically. “Did I hear you say a moment ago that you were here to protest our treatment of your citizens?”

     The Icosahedron Office grew strangely silent. Scheisskopf’s look of anxiety intensified still further.

     Presently Jihadiki said “I meant to say that—”

     “What you did say is what concerns me, Ambassador.” Whiteman chose that moment to rise from his desk and cross his arms over his chest. “Which of your citizens have I mistreated, and when and where?”

     Jihadiki merely glared. Whiteman nodded as if the ambassador had confirmed an important supposition for him.

     “You mentioned refugees in the same sentence with your citizens, Ambassador,” Whiteman said. “From that I infer that the citizens you’re concerned about are in our refugee detention center. Is that or is that not the case?”

     Jihadiki drew a deep breath. “It is, Mister Prime Minister.”

     Whiteman smiled. “Well, in that case,” he said, “I’ll happily order them transferred to your custody—if you’re willing to take personal responsibility for transporting them directly back to your nation. Otherwise, I’m afraid they’ll have to stay in the detention center. They did arrive here illegally, you know.”

     “There is no such thing,” Jerkovich grated, “as an illegal refugee in international law.”

     “And what makes you think,” Whiteman said, “that I have the least concern with ‘international law,’ Ambassador? By conforming to the ‘international law’ of which you speak, the nations of Europe have found themselves overrun by savages that are rapidly destroying their continent. Present trends continuing, twenty-five years from today Europe will be a Third World hellhole indistinguishable from Dumbfuckistan and Upyourassov.” He grinned viciously into their shocked faces. “Why else would the flow of refugees be exclusively from your countries to mine? Did you think I would put a happy gloss on something so obvious, as a gesture of respect to you?”

     It took a moment for Jerkovich to find his voice, but when he did it came out at volume.

     “Your attitude toward a sovereign nation is intolerable!” Jerkovich roared. “When I have informed my president there will be repercussions that will rock your nation to its knees.”

     Whiteman shrugged. “Such as?”

     Jerkovich opened his mouth to continue, but closed it without speaking. He glared daggers at Whiteman, who merely smiled.

     Presently Whiteman said “Unless you’re contemplating military action against us, I’m unconcerned with any ‘repercussions’ you have in mind. And if military action is on your agenda, allow me to state quite explicitly that a fifth of our navy could beat the snot out of the whole of yours and be home in time for lunch.” He turned to Jihadiki “I hope your nation isn’t about to make any such threats. I’d be unable to restrain my laughter.”

     There was a thump from the far side of the room as Scheisskopf fainted and collapsed.

     “Never have the representatives of civilized nations been treated so rudely!” Jerkovich screamed. “You will regret this!”

     Whiteman shrugged again. “I don’t think so. But I will refrain from comment on your implication that your two nations are ‘civilized.’ Now, gentlemen, was there anything else? Anything of substance? I do have a country to govern, you know.”

     After a few seconds’ silence he pressed the button that would summon his security detail to escort them out.

---

     That was fun. And yes, I think there’ll be a third installment. Stay tuned!

Quickies: The Anti-Trumpers Have A Sad

     When your grand hope for pulling down the president rallies to his defense in a shatteringly effective way:

     ...what do you have left?

     I’m no fan of Vladimir Putin, but the hope on the Left (and the NeverTrump “Right”) that Putin would assist them in their campaign against President Trump was ludicrous on its face. Putin has absolutely no reason to do any such thing. Ironically, that would be the case even if the Russian government did possess incriminating material on Trump. Russia is in a state of need that requires the assistance of wealthy foreign powers inclined to help – and what power is wealthier or better known for international benevolence than the United States?

     You don’t undermine the potentate of your best hope for the recovery of superpower status. Even that Trump was willing to have a summit meeting with Putin is a boost to the ailing nation. It suggests more stature than the bankrupt kleptocracy really deserves, and makes plausible a greater degree of commercial involvement between Russia and the states of Europe.

     Mind you, Trump is still putting pressure on Germany in particular to seek out fuel sources from other nations, instead of rendering itself dangerously dependent on Russia as a sole source. However, that’s a specifically NATO matter. In most regards, Trump is willing to cultivate better relations with Russia. They could only stand on a basis of respect for American interests and for the sovereignty of other nations. Trump has been explicit about that throughout his foreign dealings to date.

     But the luminaries of the “Resistance” must color the thing to their preferences:

     And so the carnival rolls onward.

Americans In The Year Of Our Lord 2017

     Courtesy of Ace of Spades, I just heard this remarkable statement, made in the Seventies by Canadian journalist Gordon Sinclair, for the first time:

     Forty years have passed since Sinclair issued that statement. Has anything changed? Why, yes: Americans have gotten rather tired of being expected to right all the wrongs of the world while being castigated as oppressors and exploiters. We've become irritated with the global assumption that we will defend right, uphold justice, and lift up the downtrodden whenever and wherever necessary, regardless of whether anyone else lifts a finger to do so. And for the first time since the Wilson Administration, there's a rising, possibly majority sentiment in favor of keeping to ourselves.

     After all, we've got troubles, too. Violence at political rallies and appearances by conservative spokesmen. A government riddled with corruption and time-servers. Major executive departments that use their unchecked powers for political purposes. An economy just beginning to awaken from a ten-year slumber. A middle class that can barely pay its bills. Significant public movements openly opposed to Christianity, private property, national sovereignty, the national borders, the traditional family, parental rights, historical memory, freedom of speech, the right to defend oneself, even the right to life. Untrustworthy news media. Major channels of communication increasingly monopolized by a few, highly intolerant corporations with a political agenda. An educational establishment hostile to knowledge and rational thought. Entertainment media that deluge us, day after day, with ill-concealed propaganda.

     But let some pestiferous concentration of violent savages on the other side of the globe suffer a flood, a volcano, or an earthquake, and at once the cry arises: "Where are the Americans?"

     It is rather wearying, isn't it?

---

     In February of last year, I wrote:

     There are reasons why the United States, as large, wealthy, and mighty as it is, cannot save other nations from their miseries. Those miseries are the logical consequence of the erroneous intellectual and emotional baggage toted by the denizens of other lands. Any aid we send to such places, whether or not it’s accompanied by our armed forces, will be dissipated without lasting effects, as surely as the morning dew will vanish under the caress of the sun. The most dramatic examples, such as Somalia, have been very bloody, yet these are not the most instructive.

     Some Americans, though as yet not a sufficient number, have absorbed these truths. That’s why there’s been a retreat from reflexive interventionism among private citizens. But the implication that hasn’t yet been widely enough acknowledged is that just as we can’t go there and solve their problems for them, we’ll become hosts to those problems to the extent that we allow them to come here.

     In that essay I was principally concerned with the tide of illegal immigrants we suffered. Though it's attenuated somewhat this past year, we continue to bear a large burden brought on us by decades of laxity about border enforcement and the demise of the assumption of assimilation. This morning I'm looking at the syndrome in a different light.

     The very peoples that expect the U.S. to save them from whatever ills might befall them are equally strident about their "right" to come here – and to bring those ills with them by refusing to assimilate. Peoples that feel no charity toward suffering others – peoples that have been known to cheer when others suffer! – seek to come here and remake our nation into a facsimile of theirs. Do you think any of them have pondered, even briefly, what that would mean for America's future attitude toward the troubles of their homelands?

     Americans' charity is an essential component of our national identity – our Americanism. It partakes of our Christian ethics, our sense of personal and national well being, and our predominant good will toward others. It cannot outlast the loss of those things. Yet the major sociopolitical and economic trends of our time have eroded all three of them.

---

     Allow me another self-citation:

     I also remember a truly bile-stirring denunciation of the Bush Administration’s response by Leftist critic Robert Rivkin:

     Why hasn’t the Bush administration shown some imagination in convincing the world that Americans really care and are prepared to make a small sacrifice to help victims of this astonishingly destructive natural calamity? In the wake of the administration’s default, why hasn’t the Democratic “opposition” proposed something that will demonstrate to the world that Americans want to help and are not “stingy”? Especially these days, a dramatic proposal to assist victims of mass catastrophe might also improve our country’s tarnished image in many places in the world.

     Here’s a simple proposal that would capture the world’s attention, and which a majority of Americans would almost certainly support. President Bush should announce that because of the colossal losses suffered by millions of people in Southeast Asia and East Africa, he will make an exception to his promise not to raise taxes. Bush should propose a Tsunami Disaster Relief Surtax for 2004 and 2005, with very simple components that everyone can understand.

     For example, the president could propose a flat $50 surtax applicable to every American tax return with an adjusted gross income of between $25,000 and $40,000; a flat $75 surtax on every tax return with an adjusted gross income between $40,000 and $80,000; $100 for incomes over $80,000, and so on. This small assessment for two years would produce many billions of dollars, which could be placed into a fund which would support infrastructure repair and development over a period of at least 10 years in the stricken countries.

     (The original article is no longer reachable. The above is a transcription that appeared in a 2004 article at Eternity Road.)

     Yes, Gentle Reader, you read it right. Rivkin was actually proposing a tax on Americans specifically to benefit – drumroll, please -- non-Americans! If memory serves, we fought a bloody war to be free from that. Of course, I wasn’t around that long ago, but the histories all agree on it.

     But I want to draw your attention to one specific phrase in that disgusting article:

     ...a dramatic proposal to assist victims of mass catastrophe might also improve our country’s tarnished image in many places in the world.

     In other words, Americans should be saddled with a tax specifically so that non-Americans will like us more!

     Yet Leftists wonder that we want no more of them.

     Dystopic would immediately recognize the principle operating above. In giving it a memorable name, he's done the nation a service it does not yet appreciate. Yet the unarticulated recognition of how our generosity is used against us is a great part of what put Donald Trump in the White House.

---

     And now for a complete swerve: a few mildly good words about our "allies," those endlessly sniggering Europeans.

     To the best of my knowledge, the nations of Europe haven't demanded anything much from Americans lately, other than our submission to insane "carbon taxes" to combat the imaginary hazard of "climate change." Moreover, when they belittle us, it's usually about one of two subjects: American cultural exports, and our love of firearms. At this time, given the Islamic invasions they're suffering, many of them are probably bitterly regretful that they gave up their firearms. Concerning American cultural exports, I can only say, once more and with feeling, chacun a son gout.

     So at least they don't expect anything from us...at the moment. Okay, Euroweenies; laugh at our expense. You don't think much of us; we don't think much of you. But here's a friendly suggestion for the broadening of your viewpoint: Every now and then, look to the East. Take a good look at the nation that lies just beyond the former Soviet satellites. Think about the ruler of that nation and what he's done geopolitically these past ten years. Try to forecast his next moves and how the governments of your nations would respond. I'll say nothing more.

---

     As you can see, I'm no fan of the "world policeman" role the U.S. tacitly undertook after World War II. Now that the mission appears essentially impossible, a lot of folks yearn for those halcyon days of yore when it appeared that we were the world's power, that nothing we chose to oppose could stand against us. However, few of those yearners would willingly pay what it would take to regain that status...if, in fact, we ever possessed it.

     Besides, there was a lot of deceit built into it: a covert agenda of expanding the scope and heft of our political class under the overt one of maintaining "world peace." "Public men" will always want as large a "public" as they can muster. The "public men" of postwar America were merely more ambitious than any of their predecessors. They had mastered America, at least in their own minds. Next stop: the world.

     It wasn't businessmen fantasizing thus. American products and services had already reached every continent and had won approval from persons of every land. Our commerce really was ubiquitous. But politicians and their clients aren't much interested in commerce, except as a useful adjunct to their schemes.

     Popular sentiment found something agreeable in the idea of America as the world's guardian. Our political class marshaled it (excuse the pun) to its own purposes. And the blood and treasure of the greatest, most generous nation the world had ever seen was made to flow outward, to others' benefit and for others' use.

     An outward current not balanced by an inward one of equal magnitude cannot be maintained for long.

---

     Seventy years of outward flow, propelled by the frequent, strident suggestion that Americans have an obligation to help those of other lands, have weakened our nation and wearied our people. We're tired – and a portion of the fatigue arises from being often belittled, seldom appreciated.

     Americans' private generosity still exceeds that of any other nation. Yet like any effort that reaps unsatisfactory results, it can be quenched. Many of us have decided to redirect our charitable impulses back toward ourselves and our neighbors. There's a lot of good sense in that; charity really should begin at home, where the giver can observe the results and make whatever changes they mandate.

     It's at the national level that the problem is most acute. Our "public men" are unhappy with our desire to look after our own interests and let the rest of the world cope with its own problems. It limits their scope. It could mean that their names will receive a brief entry in the history books, if any. Besides, why should we have any say over the expenditure of our sons' lives and our hard-earned treasure? Where do we get off claiming a right to be left alone in peace and privacy?

     Perhaps this is all just an old man's ranting. Perhaps the weariness that comes with age is just too much with me this morning. All the same, I want no more of the world beyond our borders. Keep it away. Build the wall. End all foreign aid. Stop sending American military assets and troops to every canker on the globe. And for the love of God, stop treating the effusions and maneuvers of other governments and their satraps as something with which we should concern ourselves. Until they send expeditionary forces to our shores, let them kill, plunder, and oppress one another without our interference.

     That way, maybe we can all get some sleep.

Predictability Part 2: Warfare

     As I wrote yesterday, when armed conflict arises, predictability loses the value it has in peacetime. All other things being equal, a predictable adversary is one whose moves can be countered with confidence. Therefore, a nation at war cannot afford to be predictable.

     However, there’s an exception of enormous importance.

---

     For openers, I will once again quote military SF writer Tom Kratman, from the afterword to his novel A Desert Called Peace:

     [I]t has been said more than once that you should choose enemies wisely, because you are going to become just, or at least, much like them. The corollary to this is that your enemies are also going to become very like you....

     If I could speak now to our enemies, I would say: Do you kill innocent civilians for shock value? So will we learn to do, in time. Do you torture and murder prisoners? So will we. Are you composed of religious fanatics? Well, since humanistic secularism seems ill-suited to deal with you, don't be surprised if we turn to our churches and temples for the strength to defeat and destroy you. Do you randomly kill our loved ones to send us a message? Don't be surprised, then, when we begin to target your families, specifically, to send the message that our loved ones are not stationery.

     This is a central motif in Tom’s “Carreraverse” series, which chronicles the conflicts that beset the small, politically unique nation of Balboa on Terra Nova. It’s not a philosophical thesis but a law of human nature:

Savagery begets savagery.

     Like the other laws of nature, it can neither be repealed nor modified by any legislature. There are no exceptions to it.

     Arguments over the value of predictability cannot alter a law of nature.

---

     When civilized society C finds itself in conflict with savage force S – i.e., a force that openly dismisses the Judeo-Christian moral and ethical constraints that characterize an advanced civilization – a seemingly moral quandary arises: Can we defeat them without descending to their level?

     Note the occurrence of the word seemingly in the above statement. The moral nature of the quandary might be illusory, for much depends on the pragmatic characteristics of the conflict:

1. What is the correlation of forces between C and S?
2. What costs would accrue to C from a victorious campaign?
3. Would S’s military defeat solve the problem? If not, what would?

     If the answers to those questions are all satisfactory, C has no insurmountable problem before it. However, let any one of the answers be unsatisfactory, i.e.:

1. S is as formidable as C, if not more so; or:
2. The costs would badly destabilize C, perhaps irrecoverably; or:
3. The problem cannot be solved by a military campaign. Other methods are morally inadmissible.

     ...and the problem acquires a moral dimension. Tom Kratman’s observation then looms large, for among the developments that can ruin a society is the erosion of its common morals and ethics.

     History has not yet recorded a period in which a single nation, if opposed by all the other nations of the world, could not be defeated. There has always been a global counterbalance against true hegemony by any single nation, even if it was not invoked. Thus it has always been possible that nation C might face opposition so great that all hope of C’s victory was vain. That, of course, would exclude the possibility of a victory morally acceptable to C, as well.

     Kobayashi Maru, anyone?

---

     Consider the following scenario from On Broken Wings:

     "Next problem. No maps or planning tables this time. You're the commander of an attacking expeditionary force. Suppose the defenders here have a positional advantage, which allows them to repel any attack at ruinous cost to the attacker. However, it only works in defense, so they mount no counterattacks. Moreover, they don't appear to be interested in counterattack, and you have nothing to tempt them with. What do you do?"
     Christine pondered. "Well, I don't attack here, that's for sure."
     Loughlin snorted. "You think it's always that simple? Maybe there are no tactical alternatives. Imagine that the General Staff disagrees with you about the impossibility of a successful assault, only you know that you're right and just can't demonstrate it without slaughtering a quarter million of your own men. Imagine that you have political pressure building up on your shoulders." Anger crackled through the words. "The people at home are demanding a quick end to the war and the return of their sons. The Emperor has already speculated openly about whether it might be time to replace you. Your troops trust you and will do whatever you say. It's worse: your troops can't imagine what's holding you up. They want to charge across the desert and annihilate those Godless devils, and they're perfectly sure they can do it."
     She grimaced. "You're talking about a no-win scenario. I've been charged with delivering a tactical success from a situation that doesn't allow one, and nobody knows it but me."
     "Exactly."
     "Well, what should I do?"
     He raised his fists over his head as if to smash them against the table, and held them there. After a moment he seemed to recover himself, and brought his hands down before him, staring at them as if he wished they belonged to someone else.
     "I don't know." His voice was bleak. He turned his hands over and stared at his palms, then joined them in a trembling grip. "I didn't know then, and I don't know now."
     "What?"
     "Never mind."

     A civilized nation facing a savage enemy will sometimes be caught in a situation that inflexible. Consider our current face-off against world Islam. (Yes, we are at war with Islam; we’re just reluctant to admit it. Sufficiently prolonged, that reluctance might get us all enslaved or dead. Islam, you see, has no qualms about being at war with us.) There are exactly two ways for the civilized West to prevail over the savagery of Islam:

• Quarantine: the confinement of Islam’s adherents to an enclosed, tightly patrolled space;
• Genocide: the elimination of Islam’s adherents from the face of the Earth.

     Both those solutions trouble a great many Westerners on moral grounds. They regard quarantine as a form of imprisonment without trial. Genocide, of course, would involve the slaughter of persons who might have nothing criminal to account for, and no conscious hostility toward anyone. To this point, those moral qualms have handcuffed the West in its dealings with imperialist, inherently violent Islam.

     They’ve also made us predictable in the near term.

     At every terrorist attack, our panjandrums orate about “bringing the perpetrators to justice.” But justice of that sort is a peacetime conception, carefully defined by penal laws and rules of procedure that can’t be honored on a battlefield. Moreover, our domestic enemies are eager to have those handcuffs bind us absolutely and permanently, such that we can’t even investigate such attacks effectively. Thus, they who would terrorize us into the “shariafication” of the West believe they can foresee our moves with high accuracy. Up to now, that belief has been correct.

     But Tom Kratman’s key observation:

     [I]t has been said more than once that you should choose enemies wisely, because you are going to become just, or at least, much like them. The corollary to this is that your enemies are also going to become very like you....

     ...will not be denied in the long term. The restraint the West has enforced upon itself, which stems almost entirely from the denial of the inherent war between Islam and societies founded on Judeo-Christian principles, is causing pressure to build up. The longer it builds, the higher it will rise. Its release is already likely to result in the deaths of millions, including millions of nominal innocents. That, too, is predictable. What’s entirely unpredictable is the exact course of events: which millions will die, by what method, and by whose hand.

     Long term, the predictability of Western survival depends on our becoming unpredictable in the near term. That will be the case for as long as the conflict should last.

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     The geniuses of conflict studies have poured much hard thought into these matters. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been general concurrence among them. Nor would I represent my own thoughts as conclusive. Like everything else I write, I’ve expressed them in the hope of stimulating still further thoughts.

     (There are other approaches to this subject, including Frank Fleming’s classic essay “Nuke the Moon.” Unfortunately, I can’t find a linkable copy at this time. Any help, Gentle Readers?)

The Gloom-And-Doom Mindset

     There’s been a lot of wailing and hand-wringing over President Trump’s missile strike against the Syrian airbase from which the recent Sarin gas attack was allegedly launched. There’ve also been some outright condemnations of his strike as a betrayal of his campaign pledges. Such lamentations are overwrought and misguided, as I hoped my DextroSpheric colleagues would have figured out for themselves. However, a significant number thereof haven’t figured it out.

     Sigh. And I had so hoped to take Palm Sunday off!

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     War gases are considered weapons of mass destruction: i.e., weapons whose effects are large-scale and indiscriminate. American policy concerning such weapons is and has long been that their acquisition by lesser powers shall be strongly discouraged; their use shall not be permitted. Such a policy implies that uses of WMDs will be punished proportionately to the occurrence. The cruise-missile reprisal against the nominal source of the Sarin was perfectly consistent with that policy. I’d hoped that this essay would have illuminated the reasons such a policy is:

• Prudent;
• Forward-looking;
• Yet does not commit the U.S. to war.

     Now, there are those who disagree with the policy. They’re entitled to do so, though their arguments strike me as unsound. But that it is the policy of the United States and has been so for decades cannot be denied. Barack Hussein Obama even conceded that with his famous “red line” remarks, though he lacked the moral fiber to follow through on them.

     President Trump acted on that policy according to the best information available to him. Those who disagree with the intelligence assessments on which he based his decision, like those who disagree with the policy itself, are entitled to their opinions. But such decisions have never been made (and never will be made) on the basis of a plebiscite. Like it or not, the president must trust that the information he’s offered by his military and intelligence advisors is reliable. Whether it is reliable is a separate question, which no one in my position should try to answer.

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     The second noteworthy aspect of these events is that Trump acted promptly. He didn’t dither or vacillate. He did what he thought best and most consistent with U.S. policy. The contrast this makes with the Obama Administration is striking indeed.

     Just as it is for business, uncertainty is the great enemy of international peace. If a great power is known to be highly variable in its decisions and actions, to the point of complete unpredictability, the rest of world will be destabilized to some extent. Conditions in pre-World War I Europe provide a good comparison: Kaiser Wilhelm II, who commanded the strongest single military in the Old World, was notably wild and erratic. Had he been less so, the chances of a continent-absorbing war would have been lessened as well.

     The other powers of the First and Second Worlds are now aware that Trump will act decisively, at least when he believes he has the necessary facts in hand. America’s allies can consider themselves reassured of his commitment to longstanding American policy. America’s adversaries have been put on notice that he won’t refrain from a bold move just because some other power – e.g., the press – will disapprove.

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     The third point relevant to the cruise-missile strike is that by taking that action specifically, President Trump averted all risk to American personnel. No American blood would be shed in the action. As American casualties are the greatest public-relations demerit that accrues to an administration that goes to war, Trump’s choice of methods was ideal. Neither did it commit us to further military action in the Middle Eastern theater.

     Despite that, the world is now on notice that the Trump Administration means to enforce our policy of punishing the use of weapons of mass destruction. Note that “the world” includes North Korea and Iran, both states that have pursued the acquisition of nuclear weapons and delivery systems for them. Note also that no other power has done more than deplore the gas attack; only America has acted.

     Many Americans dislike the U.S.’s assumption of “world policeman” status. I dislike it myself. But as with piracy on the high seas, the use of weapons of mass destruction must be regarded as inimical to all Mankind. That others refuse to act does not release us from the obligation, especially as it was the U.S. that promulgated the dictum that WMDs shall not be used except in direst need.

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     Given all the above, why are so many – especially in the Right – morose about President Trump’s action? It would seem to me to have been in the best interests of the entire world, while not at all compromising to the interests of the United States.

     I have no answer. Of course, there are some who are never satisfied with the decisions of any administration. There are others who specifically dislike Trump and wish he’d go away. And there are some among his supporters who suspect that a pro-war cabal among Trump’s advisors is gaining influence over him that will eventually result in the sort of endless, pointless Middle Eastern war that has wearied the entire nation.

     Perhaps we should trust this president. He’s been true to his word so far, even considering the recent “failure” of the GOP to pass the American Health Care Act. He’s certainly proved more trustworthy than his predecessor...who, by the way, is deeply involved in operations designed to rally opposition to the Trump / GOP agenda despite all his protestations of support for his successor.

     We elected Donald Trump to the presidency. For my part, I intend to support him unless and until it becomes impossible. It’s a course I commend to all my Gentle Readers.

The Wages Of Weakness

     “Wars are caused by undefended wealth.” – Douglas MacArthur.

     Does it seem to you, Gentle Reader, that the whole world is mobilizing? That the large military powers – other than the United States, that is – are flexing their muscles for the rest of the world to see? That the relatively low international tensions of just a decade or two ago are mere memories fading before the threats of an ever more militarized present?

     Yes, even during the Bush I and II years we had some troubles. However, they were not international troubles. I’ve emphasized that word twice now. Perhaps you can see why.

     The correlation of rising international militarism and aggressive gestures by Russia, China, and their proxies with the decline of American military power and assertiveness is so strong that it cannot be overlooked. The lesson is there for anyone with eyes to see and a mind that will accept the verdict.

     Very few persons – surprisingly to some, more than zero, but still very few – actually look forward to war. Soldiers dislike the prospect more than civilians. Of course they do! Theirs are the lives most immediately endangered by warfare. You’d see no acknowledgement of that in the statements of Leftists, of course. To them, the very existence of a capable military is prima facie evidence that someone, somewhere is hoping for a war.

     I’m well acquainted with both human stupidity and the prevalence of wishful thinking. Far too many persons see only what they want to see...even if it isn’t there. But the Left’s habitual condemnation of the military, to say nothing of its hostility to weaponry, reflects so much stupidity (among the rank and file), and expresses so much hypocrisy (among their well-protected “leaders”) that contemplating it brings me near to the point of nausea.

     General MacArthur had the right of it.

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     Violence of any sort is fueled by one of two motives:

• Passion;
• Profit.

     Now and then these will blend: i.e., the rulers of a nation will succeed in whipping the hoi polloi into a passionate war frenzy from which those rulers and their cronies hope to profit, whether politically, materially, or in some combination. But one or the other motive will always be present.

     Throughout history, the majority of military aggressions have been animated by the profit motive: nation-states’ version of an armed robbery. And really, how plausible would any other motive be? While personal animus could conceivably account for some of the tiny wars that took place between pre-Westphalian nobles, ever since that time warfare has been the province of the nation-state.

     States do not go to war over affronts to “their dignity.” Even in such cases as the War of Jenkins’ Ear, it’s beyond question that the profit motive lurked behind the seeming willingness of the British Parliament to “get angry” at Spanish coast guards’ treatment of Robert Jenkins, an acknowledged smuggler.

     To make the inception of a war appear potentially profitable, there must be loot in prospect. For States, the loot is almost always territory, its inhabitants, and its other resources. If such a prize appears to be inadequately protected by military power, the temptation can become too great to resist.

     When there are a few Great Powers and many lesser ones, all that restrains the Great from preying on the lesser is the possibility that the other Greats will respond. When such a response is deemed unlikely, the probability of military predation rises toward the tipping point. Indeed, the Great Powers might even enter into a quiet alliance for the divvying up of the world into “spheres of influence:” a polite term for a region in which a dominant nation treats the others as de facto clients, if not hostages to its will. That was approximately the case during the Nineteenth Century.

     Such is the geostrategic situation in the world of today.

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     From about 1990 to about 2010, the military power and strategic alertness of the United States deterred Russia and Red China from undertaking any military predations. I need not go into gruesome detail about what’s happened since then. Nor should any Gentle Reader of Liberty’s Torch need a meticulous exegesis of the consequences of our diminution.

     Not being a fan of America’s “world policeman” role, I’ve often been of divided mind about recent developments. On the one hand, we’re less prone to inserting our olfactory apparatus into the troubles of faraway places than ever before. On the other, aggressive militarism, international violence, and the probability of more are more widespread than they’ve been since World War II. That’s not merely because we’ve refrained from flexing our own might.

     The postwar era in which the U.S. did explicitly extend “security guarantees” to many other nations (and implicitly to most of the rest) saw the world’s lesser states draw down their own self-protective capabilities, largely by attrition. This was most visible in Western Europe, where governmental expenditures on military preparedness dwindled year after year in favor of increased funding for ever more lavish welfare states. In effect, the U.S. assumed the burden of Europe’s defense that the European states abandoned. Despite our seemingly relaxed posture in this year of Our Lord 2016, the European states continue to assume that should hostilities break out, “America will take care of it.” That pattern was replicated to a more modest extent among the non-Communist nations of the Western Pacific, despite the steadily growing threat from expansionist Red China.

     That the empire-minded Putin regime over Russia and the territory-and-resources-hungry rulers of Red China have reacted by expanding their ambitions – and acting on them ever more assertively – should surprise no one. Why so many Americans express shock and dismay over these developments indicates that far too many of us have never realized that, among states as among men, “you get what you pay for.”

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     This is a subject I dislike to belabor. It seems too obvious – that a detailed expansion on the mechanisms would constitute an insult to my Gentle Readers’ intelligence. However, the correctives are less than obvious – and more imperative than ever before in modern history.

     First and most immediate, the incoming administration in 2017 must make explicit America’s withdrawal from the “world policeman” role. That would include declaring expiration dates for our security guarantees under the North Atlantic Charter and any other relevant treaties. A Trump Administration would be more amenable to this than a Clinton Administration would be. Nevertheless, the need is unyielding. Strategic and military advisors must press the need upon whoever takes possession of the Oval Office.

     Second, the states of Europe and the Western Pacific must be encouraged to the verge of compulsion to form regional mutual-defense alliances. The states of Europe must revitalize their militaries. Those with nuclear capability must act to ensure their readiness, which has become dubious in recent years. One or two others – Germany comes to mind – must acquire such capabilities, preferably under American supervision.

     The states of the Western Pacific Rim have a harder row to hoe. Japan, Taiwan, and Australia require the protection of a nuclear arsenal. Nothing else will deter Red China. Perhaps they could form a “multi-lateral force” of the sort the U.S. once contemplated forming with our Wester European protectees. The alternative, of course, is for each of those nations to create its own deterrent, once again, under American supervision and with American assistance.

     Those who are reflexively opposed to the “proliferation” of “weapons of mass destruction” will of course bridle at this notion. That’s both pointless and foolish. Proliferation is already a fact – and several of the states that have nukes are no friends of freedom. Indeed, the only thing that’s guaranteed the continued existence of Israel these past five decades has been that nation’s (only recently admitted) nuclear arsenal. Consider how swiftly Ukraine’s sovereignty has been undermined since it ceded its nuclear inventory back to Russia.

     Nuclear weapons serve the cause of peace for a simple reason: aggression-minded rulers and governments know they’re under the nuclear crosshairs. They cannot escape the personal consequences of their decisions. When nukes are part of the equation, it’s not just soldiers, sailors, and airmen whose lives are in jeopardy from a war. No other variety of weapon makes that threat more definite...or more threatening.

     Once such a rebalancing of the international military scales has been accomplished, America could relax its own military readiness somewhat – but not entirely. “Wars are caused by undefended wealth,” and America holds the greatest concentration of wealth the world has ever known. For as long as we’re free and prosperous and determined to remain so, we will need a substantial military and an intercontinental nuclear capability sufficient to deter an “armed robbery writ large.” Consider the situation the late Tom Clancy described in his novel Debt of Honor, and ask yourself how likely his fictional Durling Administration would have been to recapture the islands a freshly nuclear-armed Japan had seized, had an ingenious stratagem not succeeded in destroying those Japanese ICBMs.

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     There will always be exceptions to any “rule” about the decisions and actions of armed states, and the above skein of reasoning is no exception. As I wrote in 2002 at the old Palace of Reason:

     Conflict-resolution analysts have always based their approaches on the classic, game-theoretic approaches pioneered by John Von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern. These men, themselves mighty geniuses, built atop the economic understandings of David Ricardo and Vilfredo Pareto. The thinking of Ricardo, Pareto, and the rest of the scholium of classical economics took its founding insights from the father of all rational economic reasoning, Adam Smith.

     From Smith to the great thinkers of RAND and Hudson, we can trace an unbroken chain of calm, reasoned analysis, all of which rested on a silent, indispensable postulate: For any given thing a contestant in a contest might want, there is a maximum price he'd be willing to pay, and no more.

     Seems unassailable, doesn't it? The contrary proposition would be that there's someone willing to pay an infinite amount for some good. That would imply that he'd be willing to sacrifice his life, the lives of all his loved ones and friends, and everything else he could manipulate, to achieve some desideratum. Insane! Who would be left to enjoy whatever it was he had purchased?

     Before Black Tuesday, no one would have entertained the notion.

     Somewhere in my time closet, I have a button that says, "If you're willing to die, you can do anything." Perhaps that's a bit of an overstatement, but it points up an unpleasant truth. The sacrifice of one's own life, which has been called "the ultimate price," will buy a lot of things that are available for no other currency. Yet the willingness to make that sacrifice contradicts the unspoken assumption of classical economics. It renders conventional methods of valuation, and the reasoning by which we use them, impotent.

     The line of thought derived from Smith, whose fullest flowering arrived with Schelling, cannot cope with decisions that incorporate a willingness to pay an unbounded price.

     It gets worse when we include the nature of the "purchase" being made by the terror masters of our time: the destruction of innocent others. I mean analytically worse. How do we reproduce, in terms accessible to the non-suicidal mind, the value a terrorist places on carnage dealt to innocent others? The best of us can barely comprehend the possibility of sacrificing our lives to protect a loved one. But to throw away life and all it holds out to us merely to visit horror upon people we don't even know? From whose demise no good can flow?

     That postulate of economic rationality is what makes it possible to think about conflict resolution at all. Once removed, even the brilliance of Thomas Schelling can't cope with the results.

     Economic rationality is indispensable to deterrence theory. Because of that there remain unsolved problems: How to deal with an economically irrational, eschatologically minded state such as Iran, whose rulers are willing to see their nation and all its people destroyed if that would bring about the destruction of Israel and the emergence of the “twelfth imam,” for instance.

     Food for thought.

Quickies: KISS Off Dept.

     The Wall Street Journal boasts some fine editorial work. However, even an insightful article can contain a clinker or two:

     Today Mr. Obama has become our most politically correct president, with nothing real to say on the threats we face. No surprise, then, that the chief beneficiary would be our most politically incorrect candidate, Mr. Trump.

     Because when Mr. Trump speaks about suspending Muslim immigration or “bombing the s—t” out of oil fields controlled by Islamic State, what supporters hear is this: I won’t let political correctness stand in the way of keeping America safe. And when Republicans respond by tut-tutting about how distasteful they find him—instead of showing why his argument is full of holes—they too come across as condescending, implicitly sharing the president’s belief that the knuckle-dragging American public just can’t handle the truth.

     That’s a pity, because as admirable as a lack of political correctness is in a dangerous world, it’s no substitute for a tough foreign policy. For the main weakness of Trump foreign policy is not that it’s “fascist,” “unhinged” or “outrageous.” It’s that it’s almost all seat-of-the-pants.

     “Seat of the pants” is a circumlocution” for “simplistic.” Herewith, a word of advice to every politician who aspires to national office:

Foreign Policy Can, Should, And Must Be Simple.

     A simple foreign policy would look like this:

• No foreign aid of any kind, for any reason.
• No alliances except for during a declared war;
• Well-controlled borders to assure national sovereignty;
• Free international trade except for state of the art military goods;
• An immigration policy that excludes persons from hostile regions or cultures;
• A strong military with a “reflex” component that can be anywhere in 12 hours or less;
• A policy of immediate reprisals for any harm done to Americans or Americans’ property;
• No “special relationships” that would compromise any of the above provisions.

     The above would say to the rest of the world: Show us your best and we’ll show you ours. But don’t mess with us, or we’ll stomp you – and we’ll laugh at your stupidity while we do it.

     Granted that we’re a long way from such a foreign policy now. We’d have to make quite a lot of changes to get near it. But simplicity, as delineated above, would guarantee that other nations could not fail to understand what we say and do – or to anticipate how we would react to this or that initiative on their part.

     A foreign policy must never encourage adventurism adverse to one’s own interests – and a complex, endlessly mutating policy that seems to be unanchored to any principle encourages that in quantity. Remember this bit of wisdom from Henry John Temple, better known as Lord Palmerston:

    "There are neither eternal allies nor eternal enemies. Only interests are eternal."

     There’s a reason Palmerston is regarded as the foremost statesman of his time.

Enemies, Negotiations, And The Legacy Fetish

Barack Hussein Obama appears to have grasped that he stands at the edge of a precipice. He’s pushed Congress, the courts, and the electorate about as far as they’re willing to go. The few major “achievements” of his time in the White House are all proving to be failures if not catastrophes. Were he to leave office today, he’d have nothing to point back to as a positive mark he’d left on the United States, even by his own twisted standards.

Which is why getting a deal with Iran, an enemy of the United States since 1979, is at the top of his agenda.

However, Obama has abandoned neither his premises nor his standards. He still regards his own country as “the problem” in any conflict with another nation. He still considers the approbation of the Left, and of left-leaning regimes wherever they are, as the highest possible mark of distinction. These are the considerations—the only considerations—that shape his approach to the nuclear negotiations with the mad mullahs.

Those premises and standards make him the living creature most dangerous to the peace of the world in our time.

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“You can always get an agreement if you’re willing to give enough away.” – former U. S. Senator Robert Dole of Kansas

Negotiation is a well studied field with rules all its own. Those rules are few but absolute. Violating them during a serious negotiation can cost more than you can afford.

The first rule of negotiation is to know your interests and their ranking in priority order. To one who is negotiating for his own sake, this is usually perfectly clear. However, in international negotiations, matters can be quite different: the ruling regimes involved might have interests that diverge from the interests of the nations they rule. Worse yet, the negotiators designated by those regimes might have a third set of interests distinct from the other two. The potential for conflict could hardly be more obvious.

The second rule of negotiation is to know the dealbreakers: i.e., those issues on which either you or your adversary in negotiation is absolutely unwilling to concede. You cannot succeed in coming away from the table with an agreement worth having if either of you stake out a position that violates one or more of the other side’s dealbreakers.

The third rule of negotiation is to have a tenable, credible ultimate fallback agenda: i.e., what you are demonstrably ready, willing, and able to do in the event that no deal can be struck. This is particularly important in negotiations with an enemy, for example, over an armistice, a truce, or a peace treaty. If such an enemy doesn’t believe you’re prepared to invoke that fallback agenda, he can keep you at the table until you die of old age.

The current face-off between America and Iran violates all three of the above rules. The American side has acted throughout as if the most important outcome is that there be an agreement regardless of the specifics of its terms. This is plainly a dismissal of the American (and allied) interests involved. Worse, it implies that there are no dealbreakers for our side, despite repeated statements by American presidents and secretaries of state that Iran shall not be permitted to have a nuclear weapon. Worst of all, the Obama Administration has made it quite plain that there is no American fallback position. The only imaginable fallback should the talks fail (in objective terms, not Obamunist terms) would be a war of decapitation, as no sanctions regime capable of breaking the theocrats of Iran of their nuclear ambitions can be enforced by the U.S. alone, and the other nations involved are unwilling to assist in such a regime.

The behavior of Secretary of State John Kerry in Lausanne and of Obama here in America can only be interpreted as above. There is no way their doggedness in pursuing a deal with Iran, when it has become plain that Iran will not comply with the terms of any deal that impedes its progress toward nuclear arms, could be taken as genuinely in harmony with the foreclosure of that eventuality.

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Despite all the above, the events that have transpired in Lausanne make plain that Obama is determined that there shall be an agreement, no matter what it specifies or how long it takes. He clearly doesn’t mean what he’s said about being resolute that Iran not acquire nuclear weapons. He and his spokesmen have implied repeatedly that war is absolutely beyond contemplation. Indeed, even a stiff sanctions regime is anathema to him. An agreement to which he can point as an achievement, as Bill Clinton pointed to the foolish agreement his administration concluded with North Korea over the very same subject, is all that matters to him.

The security of the United States would be badly imperiled by such an empty deal. The continuing existence of the state of Israel would become dubious. In no way would the Iranian theocrats be in the least inconvenienced.

I’m groping for a Last Graf. I can’t find one. Our electorate has twice put a narcissistic community organizer of immutable socialist ideals and impenetrable incompetence into the highest office in the United States. This is one of the consequences, over which our supposedly Republican-controlled Congress will probably demonstrate its recent impotence once again.

We have sown the wind. A whirlwind will follow. Film at eleven...if we’re lucky enough to survive that long.

Addicts

By now everyone in the world knows about ISIS’s immolation of captured Jordanian pilot Lt. Muath Al-Kaseasbeh. Most persons will also know that ISIS killed Lt. Kaseasbeh on January 3, and thus had been negotiating with the Jordanian government in the quintessence of bad faith. As of this morning, world reaction is essentially “on the record,” with nothing more to be added.

Supposedly, all the recognized governments of the Islamic Middle East are denouncing the atrocity, but inasmuch as Muslims will say anything at all that they think will serve the cause of world Islam, I’m inclined to discount their “outrage” as mere posturing for geostrategic reasons.

Here at home, we have Barack Hussein Obama stridently pontificating about the need for “greater vigilance,” however that might apply to confronting and defeating an enemy openly at war with us but which he won’t even name. Actions? A plan of campaign? Please! This is Obama we’re talking about.

But the most significant response to the atrocity has come from the governments of Europe.

“What response was that?” you say. Exactly what you’re thinking, Gentle Reader: None at all.

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A few months ago, I wrote about the unwisdom of our post-World-War-II military guarantees to other nations:

NATO, the military consequence of the North Atlantic Treaty, became a growing burden on American power and finances. At its peak, in combination with our security commitments to Japan, Taiwan, and several other states, it employed roughly a third of American combat power and consumed approximately half of all American military expenditures. We told ourselves those deployments were the indispensable bulwark against Communist expansion, the sole force capable of deterring aggression from the Soviet Union and Red China. And we were quite correct to think so.

Yet it was inevitable that those deployments would have a cumulative consequence for the priorities and behavior of the governments whose nations they shielded. Trusting that America would provide, they systematically underfunded and undermanned their own military establishments. The funds Europe would otherwise have put to military preparations went to expanding its welfare states: creating a culture of idlers and persons who disdained any responsibility for their own defense. Perhaps worst of all, the dynamic nourished political forces that blamed all international tensions on American militarism. In their view, the one and only enemy was the one whose sons stood ready to defend them.

The dynamic has produced a continent lousy with state-supported layabouts, and cultures to which things military are anathema. It no longer matters that they would refuse to defend their own nations, for they lack all power to do so. As for conflicts in other lands, they're inherently someone else's problem -- and probably America's fault.

Over the decades since the North Atlantic Treaty was ratified, the states of Europe have become addicted to American military protection. The desirability of creating and maintaining armed forces sufficient unto their own nations’ defense never enters the thoughts of the political masters of the Old World. It would mean transferring far too much money away from their welfare states and toward warlike things. It would elicit strident protests from their millions of layabouts and deafening outcries from the anti-military sectors of their electorates. But worst of all, it would deprive Europe’s political class of the ability to blame any and every ugly international incident on “American militarism.”

Europe’s silence toward the evils of world Islam, coupled to its reflexive blame-the-Americans response when confronted with Islam-powered tensions, has protected its access to Middle Eastern oil. That supply has become critical now that Vladimir Putin has demonstrated his willingness to use his control of the bulk of the continent’s natural gas supply for political leverage. Alongside that, the large Muslim sub-population of Europe is kept in a state the elite regard as tolerable, though Europeans whose cars and shops Muslims burn might disagree.

Europe’s addictions go beyond American guns, tanks, planes, and soldiers.

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Any number of self-help gurus preach the beauty of “living in the present.” Inasmuch as there’s nowhere else one can live, it would seem a foregone conclusion that one should make oneself comfortable there. But like all maxims, “live in the present” comes with a limiting principle that must not be overlooked.

The great Mark Steyn has written about Europe’s descent into self-extinction. Europeans’ low birth rates aren’t biologically determined. a la mode de P. D. James. They stem from a disinclination to reproduce. It arises from a present-moment attitude driven beyond rationality by the continent’s political devolution.

When “live for the present” becomes so imperative that one utterly forsakes all thought of the future, so also does it eschew all thought of:

• Redressing injustice;
• Protecting the oppressed and defending the beleaguered;
• Making provisions for future generations to enjoy what one has;
• Making future generations at all.

The implications for national policy are obvious:

• Passivity in the face of even the most atrocious crimes;
• Acquiescence to the formation of exclaves within one’s borders;
• Indifference to proper budgeting and to conditions that incentivize or disincentivize business and commerce;
• Utter disregard of conditions that discourage reproduction;
• A fierce and unrelenting grip upon whatever external sources of sustenance and protection exist at the moment.

Europe’s flaccidity in the face of the ongoing Islamic colonization of the continent is part and parcel of these attitudes and responses. The Old World has lost interest in the future. Its peoples regard their present moment as too comfortable to compromise with concerns for an era they will not see. Their political classes are aware of the upheaval that would result from any attempt to chivvy the continent back toward military self-sufficiency, economic dynamism, and cultural confidence. Though they never say so explicitly, they have ceded their continent’s future to the Muslim invader.

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Today, Barack Hussein Obama, who favors European social-fascist policies for the United States, sits in the Oval Office. His presence there ought to have disturbed Europeans’ slumbers, for Obama is the least inclined president since Warren Harding toward the active opposition of evil – especially the Islamic evil now swelling worldwide.

Europe can no longer rely upon the military protection it has come to expect from America.
America’s Obama-induced economic stall has deprived Europe of both goods and export markets.
European indifference to its own culture and to American culture have left it culturally vacuous.
How, then, could it oppose, much less defeat, a culturally confident invader determined upon conquest?

Europe’s addiction to its seemingly comfortable present has occasioned an even stronger addiction to military, economic, and cultural supports upon which it can no longer rely. Any European awake to the realities of geopolitics and the dynamics of cultural morphology should be shuddering at the implications...but how many such Europeans are there? Indeed, how many such Americans are there?

Verbum sat sapienti.

Ukraine

The most recent reports on developments in Eastern Europe all suggest that Russia is on the verge of invading Ukraine a second time this year, either to annex the eastern portion or to decapitate the post-Yanukovich government and install a satellite regime. Needless to say, the crisis has the attention of much of the world...but perhaps not that of Washington, D.C.

The Obama Administration doesn't know how to cope with the Ukrainian quarrel. Its innate dislike of the use of military force would have predisposed it against an outright intervention in any case, but this case is uniquely complex. Ukraine is not a NATO ally; therefore, the U.S. is not treaty-bound to Ukraine's defense. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine surrendered a prodigious nuclear arsenal on the strength of guarantees of its territorial integrity which the United States signed.

The Budapest Memorandum was never presented to the Senate for ratification, so it lacks the status of a treaty. More, there were several other signatories -- ironically, the Russian Federation was one of the first -- which clouds the issue of whether the memorandum's obligations lie upon the signer states individually or severally. Above all, there are serious questions about America's ability to intervene usefully in that region without the active assistance of our Western European NATO allies, not one of which has expressed even a mild interest in doing so.

We need not pause over whether military intervention would embroil the U.S. in a war with Russia. Of course it would; that would be the point. Such a war would be unlikely to go nuclear, as American nuclear weapons in Europe would inflict catastrophic damage on Russia, whereas Russia could not trust its decrepit strategic arsenal to do much to America at all. However, were there a serious prospect of such an intervention, the outcome would be in doubt for political and logistical reasons.

Among the considerations involved in any decision over American military aid to Ukraine looms one that, to my knowledge, no other commentator has yet addressed: What would it do to the future prospects of the NATO alliance? This, too, is a complex question, for though the U.S. is considered the "senior member" of NATO, it's not the only one -- not even the only one with expeditionary capability or nuclear weapons.

NATO has never been a "balanced" alliance. The U.S. is expected to defend the European signatories, but no one expects the European states to rush to the defense of the U.S.; Israel would be far more likely to do so. Part of what distinguished the First Gulf War from Operation Iraqi Freedom was the surprising willingness of the European states to contribute to the former, in contrast to their almost complete abstention from the latter. That first war was viewed as having implications for European security, especially its supply of oil; the more recent one was not. It was a demonstration of the European states' essential indifference to affairs that don't bear directly on their own interests.

Even so, the alliance's terms are explicit: all signatories are committed to responding to an attack on any one of their number as if it were an attack on all of them. NATO's internationally integrated military and command structure reflects that commitment.

For the U.S. to go to the defense of Ukraine, in the absence of a reciprocal commitment in the fashion of the North Atlantic Charter, would pose the other NATO states with a conundrum: What point is there to being a NATO member if the U.S. is equally willing to go to the defense of non-member states? Why accept the obligations of membership when the key benefit could be obtained without them?

That question could cause the effective dissolution of the alliance. Perhaps it would cohere in form for a while, but the sense that NATO has practical significance rather than being merely a historical arrangement superseded by events would be lost.

Thus, even with a Reagan or a Bush the Younger in the Oval Office, there would be at least some backpressure against the impulse to come to Ukraine's aid, over and above the usual military and budgetary considerations. Reagan was willing to intervene in Grenada out of regard for American students there, and out of fidelity to the Monroe Doctrine. Bush the Younger struck Afghanistan in reprisal for the September 11 atrocities, and Iraq out of the hope that the Middle East might respond constructively to the removal of one of its most brutal regimes. An intervention in Ukraine would not offer those incentives. It would have to be propelled by a sense of moral rather than legal obligation, without the prospect of gains from victory and against the disincentives posed by national and international politics.

With the Obamunists in power it's guaranteed not to happen, but even with a more hawkish administration, it would be against the odds -- and it's possible that watching from afar while readying our military for whatever might come next -- for example, a Russian move against the Baltic members of NATO -- really is the right thing to do.

Margins

The celebrated Richard Fernandez has an insightful column today at PJ Media:

Medea Benjamin was manhandled in Cairo today. “Help,” she Tweeted. “They Broke My Arm. Egypt Police”. They didn’t know who Medea Benjamin was or they didn’t care. Democracy Now reports:

U.S. peace activist Medea Benjamin was detained Monday at Cairo’s airport by Egyptian police without explanation. She says she was questioned, held overnight in an airport prison cell and then violently handcuffed by Egyptian officials, who dislocated her shoulder and broke her arm. She was then put on a plane and deported to Turkey, where she is now seeking medical treatment. We speak to her by telephone from the airport medical facility. Benjamin had intended to meet up with international delegates before traveling to Gaza for a women’s conference.

Whatever happened to that long ago line “you can’t do this to me. I’m an American”? Maybe times have changed.

Please read the whole thing before continuing on here.

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Fernandez has long been one of the Right's most astute and valued commentators upon international events. He sees clearly that our pullback -- in terms of armed force; in terms of economic dynamism; in terms of border control; and otherwise -- has been noted and correctly evaluated by the more aggressive powers of the world. But more to the point, underlying his insights is the unspoken foundation of relations among nation-states, once made explicit by Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister of the British Empire:

"We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual and these interests it is our duty to follow."

Indeed. It's a point I've made elsewhere:

The States of Earth exist in an anarchic relation to one another. Each has its own regional code of law, which might differ markedly from all the others. Despite several thrusts at the matter over the centuries, there is no "super-State" to enforce a uniform code of law over them all. More, they view one another as competitors in many different areas; their populations and institutions are often in sharp economic competition with one another. Thus, they are often at odds. They resolve important disputes among them through negotiation or warfare.

...and one that the Kumbaya/anti-military/peace-at-any-price types and their plaster saint Barack Hussein Obama are firmly resolved to ignore.

The odd part is that within the sphere of domestic politics, the Left understands the primacy of power very well. Their doctrinal gospeler put it thus:

Alinsky Rule #1: “Power isn't only what you have, it's what the enemy thinks you have."

And a very significant component of that aggregate is your enemy's perception of your will, or lack thereof, to use it.

---

There's been a lot of nattering from the Left about the "unacceptability" of invading "a sovereign nation" in our enlightened age. Seems to me that we did that -- twice -- back in the early Oughts. No one thought twice about it back then...at least, no one worth listening to. But then, we in the Right mostly grasp something else the Left is resolved to ignore, which I've written about more than once:

One of the key concepts in international political discourse is sovereignty: the attribute a State possesses when it is effectively unchallenged within its boundaries, and is conceded by other States to be legitimate in that position. At one time, we spoke of "sovereigns" -- kings -- who were literally the personal possessors of the power of their States. Today the concept is more diffuse, extending to the government as a distributed entity rather than to an absolute monarch.

Sovereignty is less a thing possessed by right than a thing conceded. The concession is important, for a State is unlikely to be able to hold its own against any and all opposition. A sufficiently large, sufficiently well motivated coalition of other States could bring it down. So State A's sovereignty depends more on the indulgence of other States, for whatever reasons, than on its claims to legitimacy.

Now and then that becomes rather obvious. The Taliban claimed sovereignty over Afghanistan, but America decided otherwise. Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist dictatorship claimed sovereignty over Iraq, but once again, America decided otherwise.

Similarly, Ukraine claimed to be sovereign over the Crimea, but Vladimir Putin has decided otherwise. Unless an armed force should arise capable of repelling his troops and restoring the Ukrainian government to control of that region, and unless that force acts to do so, Putin's notions about sovereignty over the Crimea will hold the field.

When John Randolph wrote that "You may cover whole skins of parchment with limitations, but power alone can limit power," he was speaking of the Constitutional separation of powers within the federal edifice. Yet his observation is even more pertinent to international relations -- and once again, the Left is firmly resolved to ignore it.

---

In Foundation and Empire, the second volume of Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy, a lone individual and the enforcers of a future State have a most instructive clash:

    A dark giant, in lieutenant's uniform, followed them; dark of skin, hair, and scowl.
    The dark man spoke with the dangerous softness that meant he had little need of shouting to enforce his whims. He said, "Are you the man who notified us?"
    The guard was still holding his wrenched hand, and with a pain-distorted face mumbled, "I claim the reward, your mightiness, and I acuse that man --"
    "You'll get your reward," said the lieutenant, without looking at him. He motioned to his men. "Take him."
    Toran felt the clown tearing at his robe with a maddened grip.
    He raised his voice and kept it from shaking. "I'm sorry, lieutenant, but this man is mine."
    The soldiers took the statement without blinking. One raised his whip casually, but the lieutenant's snapped order brought it down.
    His dark mightiness swung forward and planted his square body before Toran. "Who are you?"
    And the answer rang out: "A citizen of the Foundation."
    It worked -- with the crowd, at any rate. The pent-up silence whine broke into an intense hum. the Mule's name might excite fear, but it was, after all, a new name, and scarcely stuck as deeply in the vitals as the old one of the Foundation -- that had destroyed the Empire -- and the fear of which ruled a quadrant of the galaxy with ruthless despotism.
    The lieutenant kept face. He said, "Are you aware of the identity of the man behind you?"
    "I have been told that he's a runaway from the court of your leader, but my only sure knowledge is that he is a friend of mine. You'll need firm proof of his identity to take him."
    There were high-pitched sighs from the crowd, but the lieutenant let it pass. "Have you your papers of Foundation citizenship with you?"
    "At my ship."
    "You realize that your actions are illegal? I can have you shot."
    "Undoubtedly. But then you would have shot a Foundation citizen, and it is quite likely that your body would be sent to the Foundation -- quartered -- as part compensation. It's been done by other warlords."
    The lieutenant licked his lips. It was true.

Dr. Asimov was no hawk. Yet it's clear that he understood.

The margin of international dominance that once applied to the United States of America -- formed of unequaled economic and military might and asserted by heads of state who knew both their duties and the tools at hand -- no longer exists. Barack Hussein Obama has labored diligently to dissipate it.

Governor Jindal was corect. It's high time, and well past, that we revisit our assessment of Obama -- indeed, of any and all persons allied to him -- as "a smart man."