Russian gas continues to cross Ukraine to Western Europe

Nothing is as absurd as Russian gas continuing to cross Ukraine to customers in Europe while Russia and Ukraine are at war.  Both Russia and Ukraine benefit financially and the rest of Europe manages to stay warm in winter while Moscow attempts to destroy Ukraine’s energy grid.  Moscow literally pays a transit fee to Kiev, while Europe helps fund Russia’s attack on Ukraine while simultaneously deploring it vehemently.  We here in this country refuse to replace Russian energy with our own because we want to save the climate from more CO2.  Everybody is convinced that they are right and the other is wrong and “things are complicated.”  And the killing goes on non-stop.  Now, Putin says he is ready to talk to Trump and Trump believes that he can stop the war in 24 hours.  

I’m on Trump’s side in all of this blather, but I see a more profound problem than the absurd war between Kiev and Moscow.  Human stupidity layered on top of inadequate intelligence.  The same people that are smart enough to invent nuclear weapons are capable of engaging in activities like the war in Ukraine, Gaza, Somalia, Libya, Syria, and on and on, even as they understand that we are inching toward a conflict that will fundamentally change the world that we live in and the air that we breath.  The difference between the dinosaurs and us, is that we can see it coming and we choose to pretend that we can not.  My guess is that humans will continue to exist, but we will be different in the same way that we are different from apes.  Even though I am definitely curious, I don’t want anything to do with the transition.  Gender confusion is hard enough for me to get used to.

Syria and Turkey

The Financial Times headline and lead sentence says it all:  “Syria’s new government ready to run Isis detainee camps, Turkish minister says. Hakan Fidan meets Abu Mohammad al-Jolani and says Donald Trump will back Turkey over Kurdish forces.”  

I believe that is indeed the deal that is being negotiated and I suspect that it does have Trump’s blessing - assumed if not actually stated, and Turkey is expected to ensure that Syria keeps ISIS under control, even if the prison camps are allowed to wither away over time.

I presume that Israel is watching all of this very closely, but, assuming that Ankara can keep Damascus in line vis-a-vis Israel, I don’t expect Jerusalem to complain.  The “only” losers would seem to be the Kurds and they do not have much of a constituency outside of the immediate area.

Assuming that this “solution” continues to guide events, I see a diminishment in open conflict in Syria that involves us and a strengthening of what I consider to be contrarian, if not outright radical, Islamist thought.  I credit Turkish President Erdogan with being superbly attuned to the realities of soft power in the region, even as I am uncomfortable with his objectives.  This reflects my own difficulty in accepting the dramatic change in Turkey’s role in the world during my lifetime.  I knew Ataturk’s Turkey and find Erdogan’s Turkey less compatible with my thinking.

Our emerging policy toward Syria is part of the process of accepting contrarian (radical) Islamist thought and, while unquestionably necessary, that is going to further complicate the resolution of every one of the issues facing humanity.  Given the number of people in the world aligned with some form of Islamist thinking, this process is going to be extraordinarily difficult and time consuming.

I support DOGE, but...

I support DOGE, even as I am worried that mistakes will almost certainly be made.  I spent thirty years in government and I saw enormous waste and massive wrong-headed spending decisions.  Having said that, I would much prefer that reform be made from the bottom up rather than from the top down.  The individuals at the working level are the most knowledgable about what is necessary and what not.  Were I in charge, I would give every single supervisor a cost-reduction target and require them to make the decisions necessary to achieve that level of savings.  I would also caution against over-ambitious fiscal targets.  If my analysis was that a given agency could safely reduce its budget by ten percent, I would require the head of that agency to reduce costs by five percent.  

At the same time that this process was going on,. I would increase the budget in those areas that increases were necessary.  A prime example of which is Defense.  For obvious reasons, this is where the process would be most difficult.  Requiring a supervisor to cut at the same time that you are increasing his budget would require some intense supervision across an enormous bureaucracy.  Mistakes would be inevitable and success would be extremely difficult to achieve, but that does not remove the necessity to do it.  The simple fact is that we can not continue to spend more money than we have.  Borrowing from others, as we are doing now, only works as long as others are willing to loan us money.  The difficulty that we are having controlling our economy and maintaining the value of our currency is already weakening our ability to borrow.  China is leading the charge against us in this realm at the same time that it is challenging us in virtually every other arena - including nuclear arms.

My assessment is that our greatest vulnerability is economic and, in my mind, that stems from the nature of our society.  We are, as a society, fat, lazy, cowardly, greedy and naive.  Very nice, very well-educated, very polite cowards.  Very different from the poorly educated, hard scrabble, riff-raff that built this country.  Those folks had heart and balls enough to get the job done - however they could, whatever it might be.  We seek legislation to protect our rights in the bathroom and demand that our feelings be protected.  My assessment is, that unless we grow a pair and have an epiphany as to the relevance of the need for all people to live a decent life, we will eventually be forced into a nuclear exchange with one or another foreign antagonist.  The state of our economy at that point in time will be largely irrelevant.

Is nuclear war inevitable?

I do not claim any particular wisdom regarding conflict between humans, but I have ninety years of being exposed to personal conflicts and thirty years of being exposed to various international conflicts, sometimes up close and very personal.   I have inevitably developed some theories.  I remember, vaguely, conflicts that developed on and around the schoolyard, in which I learned the hard way that I needed to stand up for myself when confronted by bullies.  Not to do so, resulted in unacceptable relationships. I also well remember my father’s futile efforts to educate me about the realities of the street.  It was not until he forced me to act, that I learned anything valuable.  When I finally stood up for myself physically, I remember being surprised at how easy it was to dominate another human being. It was a lesson that I saw reinforced over and over again in international affairs.

All of that has been a good and proper foundation for foreign policy since humans first stood up on two legs.  I argue that the invention of nuclear weapons has changed things.  I am not a storied warrior, but I have been involved in person-to-person conflict, country-to-country conflict, and I have even tried to moderate, if not resolve, international conflict.  My expectation is that, although there are no guarantees, Trump will manage to reduce open conflict in both Europe and the Middle East, but he will not do the things necessary to avoid the threat of nuclear obliteration arising again in the not too distant future.  A leader, no matter how wise, can not do more than lead a population where it wants to go, and the American public is uninterested in helping the rest of the world live a better life.  What that means is that conflict will continue to bubble up and eventually some idiot is going trigger the exchange of nuclear weapons.  After the combatants that live through the mindless firestorm that results decide who won, they will face the challenge of growing food in poisoned earth and coping with the aftereffects of radiation poisoning in the people who were not blown away in the nuclear firestorm.

I see the nuclear warfare solution to the gross over population of the finite earth to be a less attractive solution than helping one’s neighbor live a better life and I do not see space exploration as being a viable solution, let alone timely enough, to offer any hope.  I argue that we are left with only one choice and that is to be nice to one another.  Apparently something that humans in the aggregate are either unable or unwilling to do.

Trump and Syria.

Politico has an article out today that refers to recent comments by President-elect Trump regarding the situation in Syria.  The essence of the article is captured in the opening sentence:  “Turkey controls the militants that ousted former Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.”  Trump goes on to talk about the situation in a manner consistent with my earlier reading of his probable policy in that beleaguered region.  I would quibble with his choice of words, but not with the general conclusion that he reaches.  I don’t think that Turkey controls the people that have taken over Syria, but I do believe that Ankara is VERY influential and played a key role in supporting their rebellion.  I do not believe that Assad would have fallen without Turkey’s involvement.  As is the case with Putin and XI, Trump claims to get along well with Turkish President Erdogan and that too supports my guess as to his policy inclinations.  

I believe that unless something changes on the ground, Trump will continue to draw down our military presence in the region and will look to Erdogan to sort things out.  As this policy unfolds, his critics, including me, will point out that he is throwing the Kurds under the bus and risking a reemergence of Radical Islamic domination of some part of the Syrian hinterland.  The determining factor being Erdogan, not Trump.  Trump will be comfortable with all of that and the judgement of history will depend on how well Erdogan deals with the various forces at work in the region.  My guess is that he will be driven to damage the Kurds as gravely as possible and will tolerate a more radical form of Islamic governance in Syria than most will like.  Depending on a mountain of imponderables, the possibility is that Riyadh will support Ankara in all of this and that too will tend to make Trump feel that things are moving in the right direction, particularly since it will tend to weaken Teheran.

PS:  What is needed is a rapprochement between Erbil and Ankara, but that utopian dream will not take place while the current leadership controls the two sides of the deep cultural divide.  Ankara would have to ceed control of a large portion of Eastern Turkey in order to pacify Kurdish nationalism.  Radical Islamists will continue to be the only ones offering a third way forward.  Trump is correct in his assessment that there is very little that our military forces can do to address the basic situation that underlies the constant violence.  He oversimplifies when he argues that we have no role to play.  The role that we should be playing is not primarily military in nature.  It is diplomatic and economic in nature, but we are poorly equipped to play in that complicated arena, due to a lack of knowledge about the complexities of human relationships in the region.

I Googled “Radical Islam”

I Googled “Radical Islam” and got the following:  “The academic definition of radical Islam consists of two parts: The first being: Islamic thought that states that all ideologies other than Islam, whether associated with the West (capitalism or democracy) or the East (communism or socialism) have failed and have demonstrated their bankruptcy.”  People living in Europe or the United States do not comprehend the potency of this kind of thinking among populations that are living marginal existences in the Middle East and Africa.  We tend to believe that we can counter the threat of Radical Islam through the use of force.  I accept the necessity of using force, but believe that it must be accompanied by meaningful economic development.  Not just payments to corrupt, self-serving governments, but rather actual economic development that demonstrably improves the lives of populations currently living in poverty.  I have tried to do it.  It is unbelievably difficult and discouraging, but it remains the only way to avoid an eventual nuclear holocaust.

Nowhere in the developed world do I see this motivation driving policy.  Instead, I see the governments of developed countries, our own included, squabbling among themselves for economic dominance.  Among all of the examples out there, the Chinese Communist Party is, presently, the only group that understands the issue, and it is bent on manipulating it to achieve its own very partisan objectives.  Beijing’s Belt and Road has economic development programs in countries around the world, but despite their rhetoric, they are crassly attempting to use those programs to control the populations that they are assisting.  (Their domestic policy that aims to eliminate Muslim thought inside China is a further strategic impediment that weakens their position, despite their tactical success in dealing with major Islamist governments.)  Western governments, to include our own, invest in foreign countries with the sole objective of benefiting themselves, despite mountains of lofty rhetoric to the contrary.  The success of our own economy over the past couple of centuries has made us the envy of the world and that has adverse, as well as positive implications.  Radical Islam is, in my mind, the most extreme reaction facing us today.  Populations infected with this thinking are willing to engage in suicide bombing in protest.  That is about as extreme a human reaction as it is possible to imagine and understand, particularly for very well-fed Americans.

Because we can not conceive of the issue that I here describe, none of our policies are helping defeat the threat posed by Radical Islam.  Killing contrarian leaders does not eliminate the threat.  All it does is improve upward mobility among professional malcontents and further diversify the concepts of hatred that motivate the ideologues.  If you want to eliminate Radical Islam you must, repeat must, improve the lives of all people living in Africa and the Middle East.  In so doing you will, among other things, eliminate suicide bombing and its Western, mindless reaction - over-the-horizon missile strikes.  The task facing humanity is enormous, but it is the only way to avoid an eventual nuclear exchange that poisons some portion of the earth.  I am not optimistic, but I remain hopeful.  After all, our grandparents figured it out while fighting Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo.  It’s just that those of us who came after that Greatest Generation, couldn’t stay focused and wasted the opportunity that they gave us.

Unexplained aerial events..

The same people that reassured us about the Chinese balloons are now telling us that we don't know what we are seeing in the sky over various parts of the country.  I haven't got the faintest idea what is going on, but I am not reassured that my government is doing its job. I should also admit that I have not seen any strange things flying around over my head.  I can easily conceive of the possibility that there is indeed nothing out of the ordinary happening.  A citizenry that is seeing things that are not there or a government that does not know what is going on.  Both are, unfortunately, equally credible.  If I were influential, I would give fair warning and then instruct the Air Force to shoot one of these things down.  (The same solution that I advocated with the Chinese baloons.)

Trump and Syria.

 I am too far away from Syria to know what is happening, let alone be in a position to predict what the future holds.  Having said that, here is what I think might happen as the new Trump Administration addresses the situation.  I see absolutely no evidence that Trump wants to continue to be in between a huge mix of factions that hate each other.  He is pragmatic enough to recognize Ankara’s position and will want to make a deal with Erdogan, the parameters of which will include a Turkish commitment to keep ISIS in check, as America continues its withdrawal from Syria and lets Erdogan call the shots on the ground.  Assuming that things do work out this way, Kurdish interests will continue to suffer and Damascus will continue to emerge as an ally of Ankara.  Because this development would tend to minimize Teheran’s influence, it would be welcomed by our Saudi allies.  I can not know how Erdogan’s relationship with ISIS will develop, but I do not believe that it will result in a resurgence of a radical caliphate in the region.  Erdogan is more than willing to talk to and work with Islamist leaders that most Americans would consider to be too radical, and his success in helping shape the rebellion in Syria would tend to indicate that he is accomplished in these types of dealings.  This policy will, of course, be criticized by many, given the Kurd’s important assistance in defeating the ISIS caliphate, but I don’t believe that will deter Trump.  An important question mark surrounds the future of the prison camps housing ISIS radicals that are currently guarded by Kurds.  Should the Kurds abandon their role in guarding those prisons, that action will be used by Trump to support his policy.  My guess is that Erdogan would like to be in a position to negotiate the future of those camps, but I am certain that the Kurds would oppose that happening without significant assurances that Erdogan would be unwilling to make, or honor, if he did make them.

Hyatt Tahir al-Sham and President Trump

 According to The Moscow Times, “Russian troops have requested Turkey’s support for their safe exit from Syria.”  This tells us a great deal about what just happened in Syria and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s role in it.  The article goes on to explain that, although Russian troops are leaving, Moscow has not conceded control, of its airbases or seaport in Syria.  That is to be negotiated  with “whomever” turns out to be in control, following the ouster of Assad.

I was, quite frankly, asleep at the switch regarding the imminent removal of Bashar Assad.  I had not thought deeply enough about the implications of Ukraine and Gaza/Lebanon regarding Russian and Iranian ability/willingness to continue to prop up Assad, nor did I understand the degree to which Radical Islamists had succeeded in convincing Syrian nationalists to cooperate militarily in the removal of Assad.  I missed the timing, but I continue to believe that I have the fundamental relationships about right.  Nothing that is happening on the ground, other than timing, is surprising, and the timing would not be surprising if we could have seen into the Idlib enclave.  Turkey did a superb job, as did Hyatt Tahir al-Sham, in disguising their readiness to move on Baghdad.

Now, the question is how the new Syrian leadership will resolve their own internal differences and how that will impact regional relationships.  My assessment, from afar, is that Hyatt Tahir al-Sham has not changed its Radical Islamist spots and that the other Syrian groups are not positioned to contest its leadership.  I believe that Turkish president Erdogan will cooperate with Hyatt Tahir al-Sham’s policies inside Syria in an effort to control the political situation in the immediate region, particularly the threat that Ankara perceives from the Kurds.  Erdogan will argue that Kurds represent a threat to both Baghdad and Ankara.  An enormous question mark in my mind is what the more radical Islamists in the region can and will do and how they will relate to our various military outposts in the region.  The newly elected American president is also something of a question mark, but I believe that the president elect would dearly like to get out of the argument, seeing Syria as none of our business as long as it does not do any immediate harm to any of our interests as he understands them.  

If Baghdad agrees with Ankara to go after the Kurds, I see a very real possibility that the Kurds will have to give up their management of the rudimentary prison system housing a large number of people designated as radical Islamists that currently exists in the region.  As I now understand it, most of the people in those “prisons” are women and children, but their release will be ballyhooed as another victory for Radical Islam, even as the internecine fighting between radical Islamist factions is every bit as intense as any of the other fights that are going on anywhere in the world.  I will be surprised If the Trump Administration makes any major effort to influence the elimination of those prison camps, as long as there is no perceived immediate threat to our interests in Israel or Saudi Arabia.  Washington will, however, bemoan any decision by the Kurds to walk away from the prison camps and use it to support their own desire to reduce our support of their fighters.  I believe that the Trump Administration will basically see Syria as none of our business, even as they have serious doubts about Erdogan’s role in international affairs generally.  This policy approach will enjoy immediate benefits in that it will reduce our involvement in fire fights, but it will also result in the continued growth of Radical Islam, which is, in my view, one of the most dangerous threats to our very existence.

Syrian opposition continues to advance on Damascus.

 Syrian opposition continues to advance on Damascus and Assad’s army does not appear to be responding adequately to deter their advance.  Assad’s international allies do not appear to be assisting him adequately either, although Hezbollah is reported to still have fighters in Syria.  There are even reports that Russia is moving ships out of their base in Syria for fear they will be caught up in the fighting.  Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, is projecting the image of a uniter and it would appear that a majority of the domestic opposition to Assad has accepted his leadership - at least tactically.  Ankara is, of course, clearly, if clandestinely, supporting the effort to overthrow Assad.  In the past, Teheran and Moscow would have stepped in to bolster Assad, but it would appear that they are too busy elsewhere to provide adequate support.  Should Hyatt Tahir al-Sham succeed in ousting Assad and taking power in Damascus because of the support of Turkey’s Erdogan, it would represent a significant setback for the Kurds and I would not be surprised to see the radical Islamist “prisons” in the region abandoned by their Kurdish jailers as that group tries to consolidate its defensive posture.  My guess is that the people currently incarcerated in these camps will enthusiastically join in the anti-Assad movement - at least for a time.  Much as we might dislike Assad, what is happening in Syria is not in our national interest.  Al-Jolani is not a moderate and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is not a democratic organization.  What appears to be happening in Syria is a brand of Radical Islam is on the cusp of replacing the thuggery of the Assad family.  More broadly, in the immediate region, Erdogan’s brand of Islamist governance is being strengthend.  I give the Syrian opposition full credit for managing to stay alive under extremely difficult circumstances and Turkey for succeeding in supporting them in the face of opposition from both Washington and Moscow, but I do not like the political direction that they are headed, and I do not believe that anyone in power in Washington is remotely aware of the fundamental issues involved in all of this.

Some among us are proud of having assassinated Osama bin Ladin and “destroying” ISIS, but we are currently in the position of choosing between a thug and a Radical islamist in a country where we have American personnel with guns and no clear purpose.  Al Qaida and ISIS are nothing more than the current face of the danger that we face and Syria is but one of the geographic hot spots where we are in actual contact with it.  Radical Islam is amorphous, just as it is crystal clear in its opposition to Western thought.  It does not hold sway anywhere where people are living a good life - no matter their culture.  Individuals may be infected with it, but not well-fed populations.  In countries with advanced economies and a decent standard of living, individual radicals are an irritant, not a threat.  In poor countries the reverse is true.  Wake the hell up folks.  Over-the-horizon assassination is NOT the solution to the threat.  It is, at best, a tactical tool that almost certainly results in more long term damage than short term success.  Building a strong military is a critical necessity, but it is not a fundamental solution.  Bread and rice are far more important than guns and bullets.

Turkey.

When I served in Turkey, decades ago, the Turkish government was dominated by the Turkish military and Turkey was a very reliable member of NATO.  The United States had several important military bases in Turkey and most of the Turkish military leadership had received extensive training in America.  We regarded Turkey as a reliable anti-Soviet anchor at the southern corner of NATO.  Pretty much all of that has changed.  Today, Erdogan has successfully purged the military out of all civil leadership, subordinated the Turkish military to his control, and has fundamentally changed Ankara’s relationship with Moscow, moving it from one of animosity to one of friendship.  I believe that Erdogan and Putin have a close personal relationship stemming from Putin’s having warned Erdogan of the military effort to arrest him years ago.  (Putin’s telephone call probably saved Erdogan’s life and Obama didn’t call.)  As this change progressed over the years, our own relationship with Turkey continued to deteriorate.

Erdogan correctly sees Turkey as a crossroads connecting Europe and Asia, Christianity and Islam, modernity and tradition.  He aspires to be a peacemaker, but few of the regional players agree with the parameters of his peace plans.  His regional critics see his machinations as being an effort to re-establish the Ottoman Empire.  He is able to craft a succession of political initiatives designed to deal with specific political issues, but he is unable to achieve any lasting solutions to any of the regional issues that plague the region.  He is bent on reversing the Europeanization of Turkey that the Ataturk Revolution initiated and he is succeeding at the same time that Europe is tiring of Turkish involvement in Europe - domestically and internationally. 

 

We tend to focus on Turkey in connection with whatever Middle Eastern political situation has our attention at the moment and we lose sight of the long term deleterious change that is taking place in our relationship.  Were I sufficiently influential, I would establish a goal of changing our relationship with Turkey to take advantage of its geopolitical position at the intellectual cross roads of Islam and Christianity.  This kind of thinking is what we will need when and if we ever attempt to deal with the challenge of Radical Islam.  Our blindness to this kind of thinking ensures that we will go to war instead, and that is way too bad, because it will eventually be nuclear war. 

The Fall of Aleppo.

 Syria is back in the news because “insurgents” have taken control of Aleppo.  I don’t pretend to understand what is going on in that far distant place, but I see it as an apt example of the “Radical Islamist Problem” that I try to argue is the most difficult political problem facing humanity.  My guess is that a close look at the Syrian situation would result in the conclusion that Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham is the principal force behind the recent developments in Aleppo.  Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham is an outgrowth of Al Qaeda and represents one of the most viral radical Islamist organizations anywhere in the world.  The problems that we face in resolving the fighting in Ukraine pale in comparison with the problems that we face in Gaza, and those pale in comparison with the problems that we face in Syria.  Over a very long period of time, the Syrian Government, with the assistance of Russia, concentrated the most radical elements of the Opposition to Assad in a northern corner of the country.  The attack on Aleppo came out of this salient and, while it represents an enormous embarrassment for Damascus, it probably does not presently risk spreading to the rest of the country.  All it means is that a lot more people are going to die in more mindless warfare.  Turkey will keep close watch on the situation and will involve itself wherever and whenever the fighting threatens to spill over into Turkey and will take every opportunity to use the situation as cover for its campaign against Kurdish political and military machination inside Turkey.  My guess is that Russia will not be able to devote as much attention to the situation as it would like because of Ukraine, and Teheran will not because of what is happening in Lebanon and Gaza.  Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham intends to take full advantage of the situation, but I doubt that they will be able to go on and overthrow Assad as they would dearly love to do. 

I offer Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham as an example of the difficulty that we face in dealing with Radical islam, not as a significant threat in and of itself.  The particulars involved with other Radical islamist groups are different, but the challenge that arises from the world view that these Radical Islamist groups have in common is the threat that I am trying to identify.  Give them nuclear weapons and some of them will advocate using them to purify humanity.

 Designing a Christmas Card for the real world, not the one that we pretend exists.

Surprise! President Biden has pardoned his son.

 President Biden has pardoned his son for a variety of crimes that Hunter appears to have committed over a long period of time.  I never had any doubt that the father would pardon the son.  He almost certainly had to do it, given his responsibilities as a parent, but it, none-the-less, requires the subordination of his responsibilities as president and that is the rub.  The fact that the President lied repeatedly, during his recent abortive effort to get re-elected by vowing that he would not to do it, is merely the jabber of a failed politician.  The elder Biden’s more important failure was during the decades that father and son were milking the American people for riches and living high on the hog at the taxpayers’ expense.  I might excuse some of it, if either one of them had done anything that merited praise, but they have not.  Hunter is merely a drug-ridden wastrel, and his father is a failed politician who never got anything, other than crass domestic political machination, right.  I am at a loss to decide where the father’s greatest failure lies, but his pardon of Hunter is not it.  I am torn between his current policies regarding Gaza and Ukraine, but I definitely believe that he warrants much criticism for his decisions over the years that have contributed mightily to the debilitated state of the world today.

The pundits are going to have a field day for a week or so as Republicans bellow “I TOLD YOU SO,” and Democrats attempt to “turn the page.”  I doubt that there are any Americans anywhere that are actually surprised at the President’s action.  I contend that we have, deep down, all known, all along, what is what, about all of this.  Our protestations to the contrary are as artificial as most of the other commentary that attempts to pass as the national dialog.  We are, after all, the root cause of all of the problems that we face throughout society to include our acceptance of corrupt, idiot leaders.  I contend that this IS a democracy and our national government truly reflects the will of the people.  The problem being that we don’t like what we are doing to ourselves and we refuse to see our own role in the travesty.  We adamantly insist that it is “the other’s” fault.  Half of us now want Trump to take the lead and redress all of the problems created by Biden and “The Donald” is already busy changing everything that Biden tried to do just exactly the way Biden did four years ago when he took over from Trump’s first presidency.  

Our elections are a series of binary choices.  I much prefer that to the confusion that a parliamentary system offers, but our political system depends on our generating intelligent candidates for the office of president and we are failing to do that.  Instead, we are electing partisans that reflect the current mindless opinion of just over half of the citizenry and that citizenry is increasingly partisan rather than national in outlook.  We are Democrats and Republicans before we are Americans.  This is NOT a new development.  It has happened repeatedly during our several centuries of existence.  The aspect of the situation that we are now in, that is different, is the nature of war.  Always before in our history, we dilly-dallied along, pissing on each other, until an outside threat came along that made us all Americans.  We then cooperated to defeat “the other.”  Nuclear weapons on satellite guided ballistic missiles have changed the viability of that approach to the problems that we face today.  Nuclear obliteration is literally a push-button away.  The sign on the bathroom door is NOT the most important challenge that we face, and our precious feelings are nowhere near as important as we now think.

Biden pardoning his son is not as important to our longevity as is the standard of living of people living outside of our non-existent borders.  What we need to understand is that we can not have a good life unless the rest of the world manages to live a decent life.  Hunter and Good Old Joe’s transgressions are old news that we cherish because we understand them.  World peace is beyond our ability to conceive, let alone promote effectively.  Nuclear weapons makes that situation more dangerous to our longevity than Joe pardoning Hunter.

BRICS and Tarriffs.

 According to press reports, President-elect Trump is threatening tariffs if BRICS members do not support the continued use of the US dollar in international trade.  I do not know how successful his threat will be over the long haul, but I suspect that it might be useful in the short run.  The United States is still the world’s most important market and most countries depend to some extent on trade with us.  They have, in the past, also seen holding the US dollar in their treasuries as being the best way to hedge against inflation.  Both of these rationales are weakening dramatically with changes that are occurring in this country and in the world around us.  Inflation is ravaging the value of our currency, our national debt is mounting steadily, and our work force is much less competitive than it used to be in many areas of the economy.

You and I look at all of this with a jaundiced eye.  We tend to see the economic challenge that we face to be governed by policy decisions made in Washington DC.  I agree that tactical decisions made in Washington are relevant, but the root challenge is out here in the American heartland.  You and I are not the hardscrabble riff-raff that built the world’s most powerful economy.  We are the sophisticates that have gotten used to having the world’s most luxurious life-style.  We are justifiably proud of the society that we built and we are convinced that, even with all of its injustices, it is the absolute best society in the entire world.  In our eyes, the most efficient way to do anything is to mimic us and we are improving on our society every day that passes.  We are righting old wrongs committed by people long dead, ensuring equality in bathroom use, and working diligently to ensure that we are not rude to one another.  All of this, while the rest of the world stupidly fights with each other over all kinds of less etherial issues - like accumulating enough calories every day to maintain one’s existence.

I hold that America has a range of enemies that want to take us down off of our high and mighty perch, and, because of the invention of nuclear weapons, a couple of them are infinitely more dangerous than any enemy that we have ever faced before.  Russia, China and Radical Islam are, in my eyes, the three most difficult - in that order of importance.  Russia is an old fashioned threat that we understand better than the other two and we are dealing with their most recent trouble-making in traditional, if ineffective, ways.  China is the most dangerous immediate threat, not only because of its growing nuclear capability, but because of the effectiveness, repeat effectiveness of their policies - BRICS being but one of the more immediate challenges to our supremacy.  Assuming that we manage to deal adequately with Moscow and Beijing, we still face the challenge of Radical Islam, which is made far more complicated by the fact that Radical Islamists operate with an entirely different world view making it difficult to achieve true consensus on virtually any subject.

What we need is a public ethos that values all human life.  We have a better start than any society before us in the entire history of humans on earth, but we are drifting away from the principals that our forefathers attempted to instill in us.  Moscow, Beijing, and Teheran are threats, but self-indulgence is what is destroying us.  Advances in technology are not going to reverse things.  They will, in fact, accelerate the process in a multitude of ways - the technology of nuclear warfare being the easiest to understand, but advances in the art of extending individual lives may be the single most problematic.

If I were influential, I would join with Beijing to perfect our outreach to the underdeveloped world instead of threatening tariffs designed to hold their economy back and I would make it crystal clear that their only alternative to honest cooperation was nuclear war.  Very unfortunately, in order to make that threat effective, I would have to divert large amounts of money and human resources to perfecting our military capability.  No amount of wishful thinking can eliminate that requirement.

“Misinformation”

 There is a lot of discussion of “misinformation” in the press these days.  Governments are trying to come up with legislation that would curb it and social media platforms are constantly talking about how they seek to minimize it.  What is misinformation?  The dictionary tells us that misinformation is “false or inaccurate information.”  I contend that too many of us have broadened the working definition to include ideas and theories that we do not like, and the result is massively detrimental to society.  Groups of us shun those that we disagree with about whatever and vote for politicians that are willing to work for the political utopia that our team champions.  Our press has joined the fight and is no longer neutral (if it ever was).  Social media companies cater to specific political groups and throttle dissent from their brand of truth.  Individual citizens reflect these differences in varying ways and to varying degrees, but we are all in the fight for truth as we understand it.  Few of us go out of our way to understand those that disagree with us.

I suspect that this is as it has always been and I ask myself why it seems so different now as compared to when I was a kid.  I believe that technology explains much of the difference.  Back when Neanderthals roamed the earth as the dominant species, communication was limited to very small groups of individual humans.  Truth and falsehood was defined by the strongest members of the group and the complexity of the issues discussed was very basic.  Today, communication is a network of conversations that stretch across continents and oceans.  The exact same principals are applicable, but the groups are infinitely larger and, because of their very size, are more important and powerful.  Here in this country, we have been taught to hold democracy and free speech to be sacrosanct, and we vehemently oppose dictatorship and censorship, so we define ideas that we dislike as misinformation and charge those that hold them with wanting to establish a dictatorship.  In the process, we are, of course, working to establish the very dictatorship that we claim to abhor.  Today’s version of the argument is MAGA versus WOKE and MAGA appears to have just won a battle.  WOKE is licking its wounds and attempting to mount its resistance.  In the tactical back and forth, we argue about misinformation rather than specific problems facing all of us - MAGA and WOKE alike. 

“Advances” in technology spread our message far beyond family groups to people living in technologically “advanced” countries all over the globe.  Western Europe is engaged in many of the exact same disagreements as are plaguing us here in this country, and we are letting our philosophic argument blind us to the intensifying danger that we all face -WOKE and MAGA alike.  I don’t mind using the exact same bathroom as a woman uses.  The bathroom in my own home is gender neutral.  I think that the childish argument about bathrooms is symbolic of the utter stupidity that has seeped into virtually every facet of modern life.  We ignore real problems because they are too big for our small minds and scratch around until we find alleged problems that we can better “understand.”  “Misinformation” is one of the more important tools that we use.  If you think too deeply about what we humans are doing to ourselves, it is embarrassing to be alive at this point in the devolution of the species.

The global climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan and nuclear war.

 According to NPR, “negotiators at a global climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, struck a last-minute deal for wealthy countries to help their poorer neighbors deal with global warming, saving the annual meeting as it verged on collapse.”  I am a strong supporter of wealthy countries helping poorer countries improve their economies, but I believe that this is the absolute wrong way to do it.  Large amounts of money transferred with little to no control over how it will be spent.  This wastes resources, fails to help economies, and discourages everybody with the wherewithal from trying to help their poorer neighbors.  Our own AID program suffered the same fate earlier.  Following WWII, the American people were willing to help poor countries, but we soon became disillusioned by our failures and turned against the fundamental concept of foreign aid.  “None of our business.”  “Too many problems here at home.”  “Foreigners need to help themselves.”  Etc, etc, etc…. The thinking behind the Mega movement is the logical result.

I contend that economic underdevelopment leads directly to war.  The details are always unique, but underlying them is the constant of economic inequality.  In the past, war was an acceptable solution.  One side eventually dominated the other and a new world order emerged.  That restructured the world economy and a fragile peace emerged that lasted for some period of time before being challenged by a new combination of political and economic factors upset the existing order.  We are in that cycle right now with China challenging our domination of the world economy.  Assuming that we continue along the historic path, we will eventually see war between ourselves and one or another other nuclear power.  I can not see the precise trigger for that conflict, but I do see its inevitability unless we figure out how to help all humans live a decent life.  Just giving poor people money clearly does not work internationally, just as it does not work here at home.  It is merely a miserly attempt to salve a guilty conscience, and feel a bit better about ourselves.

I believe that there are a multitude of ways in which a catastrophic nuclear exchange could come about, but I see Beijing as being the most likely antagonist to provoke such because of the economic issue.  Teheran and Moscow are indeed also threats, but they are primarily motivated by different immediate rationale.  Were I influential enough, I would partner with China to help other countries develop economically, instead of trying to compete with them for control of the world economy.  My objective would be to improve the lives of all humans inside and outside of our non-existent borders.  I am not deluded as to Beijing’s intentions and would insist that they approach the problem in the same spirit as are we.  I would offer all out war as being their only other alternative.

I do not expect any national politician to have the gumption necessary to advocate this approach to the problem.  They will explain that it is naive and unworkable and does not have the support of the American people.  That unfortunately ensures that we will continue to focus on the minutia that we can get our feeble heads around and continue to live on the cusp of nuclear obliteration.  I suggest that we actually think that nuclear war is so horrible that it is not a real threat and the most important choice that we have to make, is to either make America Great Again or invite the rest of the world to come live with us here in America.  We do not need to worry about the internecine slaughter that is going on in underdeveloped countries all over the globe.  We can deal with it by pontificating about the rules of war rather than getting our hands dirty improving the lives of seven, going on eight, billion people on a spinning rock of finite dimension and limited resources.

We are stupid.

President Xi laid down four red lines in his conversation with President Biden.

According to Business Insider, President Xi laid down four red lines in his recent conversation with President Biden. The four hot-button issues are Taiwan, democracy and human rights, China's path and system, and the country's rights to development.  I do not claim to understand exactly what any of these lofty pronouncements really mean, but I believe the essence of Beijing’s position is that the United States does not have the right to tell China how to define and organize its own country, nor to thwart it’s development.  In principal, I actually agree with that position, but the problem arises when China’s objectives threaten our own, and I believe that they constitute a major threat, not only to our objectives, but to our very existence.

American leadership is intent on maintaining American dominance of the way in which the world organizes itself.  We don’t like the term dominance and refer to it as world leadership, but many of our foreign friends see it differently, and are increasingly open to Chinese initiatives that appear to offer a better way forward.  Combine this with the ongoing breakdown of American society and you have a formula for World War III.  Too many Chinese and American politicians are too intent on quarreling with one another over issues that should be resolved through negotiations.  The fundamental problem facing us is how to transform that hostility into problem solving solutions that benefit all.  We can’t even do it domestically, so I am not surprised that we have trouble developing a foreign policy that can accomplish it out in the world.

As I have said repeatedly in previous articles, the problem is in us - you and me.  I suggest that we are more interested in maximizing our individual personal advantages than we are in helping our fellow human live a better life.  We scoff at those like myself, that argue that it is in our own narrow interest to look out for our neighbor, and insist that we will only help those that agree with us about everything that we deem “important.”  Were I influential enough, I would reestablish our military dominance and reintroduce our effort to improve the lives of all humans clinging to this increasingly small rock spinning aimlessly in space.  My pessimism derives not from Xi, Putin, or the Ayatollah, it arises because of what I see here in America, where you and I are tearing ourselves apart in a rich person’s argument about the sign on the bathroom door, the price of whatever, and our precious feelings.  You and I do not give a fig for the lives of the millions of people that are living miserable existences outside of our non-existent borders and we refuse to see the relationship of that to the growing foreign threat that exists.

We pretend to be ignorant of the fact that nuclear weapons have fundamentally changed things.

American manufactured long range missiles in Ukraine's war with Russia.

 I have absolutely no information as to why President Biden just authorized Ukraine to use American manufactured long range missiles in its war with Russia, but Ukraine President Zelensky has taken the public position that it will force Moscow to negotiate an end to the fighting.  Biden is making the argument that it is a counter to Moscow’s hiring North Korean mercenaries.  Putin is arguing that it risks precipitating the use of nuclear weapons in the fighting.  All of this in the context of former President Trump’s reelection.  My assumption is that neither Putin nor Zelenskyy see Biden as any longer being relevant to their conflict.  Both men are looking past Biden to Trump with hope and trepidation.  It would not surprise me if Putin suspected that Biden’s decision was aimed at helping Trump, but I am jaundiced enough to discount that possibility.  I can see an equally tempting argument that Biden wanted to go out of office as the tough guy that stood up to Moscow, while Trump is the one advocating for giving Putin what he wants at the expense of Ukrainian sovereignty.

As I have argued ever since before Moscow invaded Ukraine this time around, this conflict is massively harmful to the world order and to this country, and Biden should never have permitted it to happen.  The time to stop it was before it happened in our relations with both Moscow and Kiev.  Putin remembered that Biden had been part of the Administration that permitted him to take Crimea and assumed that Biden would acquiesce to his taking Kiev, but his military failed him when their blitzkrieg literally ran out of gas on the way to Kiev.  Had that not happened, I believe that Biden would have indeed permitted Putin to have all of Ukraine.  Our policy during the subsequent fighting has been equally stupid in that it prolonged the killing, spread the destruction across too much of the country, and adversely impacted far too much of the world economy.  Both Kiev and we have grown tired of the war and are now faced with stopping the killing and cleaning up the mess without either side being able to claim victory.  It is a situation where neither side is going to be content with the decisions made at the negotiating table.  Unlike Biden, Trump can be counted on to sincerely try to end the conflict and, although I believe that he has an excellent chance of success, it is equally certain that nobody is going to be satisfied with the results of the negotiations.

I want to add that these kinds of situations are bad enough, and there are presently far too many of them throughout the world, but we must understand that if any one of them goes wrong, we will be faced with nuclear war and it really does not matter very much who “wins” a war that involves the massive use of nuclear weapons.  You and I have grown numb to the violence that is plaguing far too much of the world and far too many of us assume that we can continue to ignore it unless it bothers us in our own city streets.  That ignorance results in our freely electing inadequate leadership that is attentive to our inane domestic squabbles concerning the proper use of pronouns, the sign on the bathroom door, and the price of whatever, but are grossly inadequate with regard to the issues that stem from too many human beings competing for a fixed supply of resources on an increasingly crowded sphere of fixed dimensions.

President Trump likes tariffs.

President Trump likes tariffs.  I am less enthusiastic than is he, but I see their usefulness as long as they remain a tactic and not a strategy.  China produces a number of goods for much less than it costs to make them in this country.  An argument can be made that placing tariffs on their import hurts the American consumer because it raises the price of the goods that were being imported and are now made locally.  The counter argument is that buying goods from China weakens the American economy and hurts American companies and workers.  This, in turn, spins the domestic economy down, weakening the country further.  Both arguments are valid.  Proponents of tariffs also point out that permitting China to produce things that we need gives them leverage over us should our diplomatic relations sour.  Pharmaceuticals being an excellent case in point.

My own view of the issue goes far beyond the dangers inherent in a trade war.  Fundamental to my world view is the need for all people, everywhere in the world, to have a decent standard of living.  Trade wars are the last thing that we need, if we are to promote a decent standard of living for all people in an effort to avoid conflict.  The theoretical solution touted by economists is for America to innovate and streamline its’ own production so as to compete more effectively.  Maintaining a decent standard of living while competing with an economy that pays its workers far less money is difficult, very difficult, particularly when you also have different environmental standards.  That leads inevitably to consideration of tariffs.  The idea being to raise the price of the imported good sufficiently to permit domestic production to compete.  

Trump, during his first term, did, indeed manage to bring much of our economy back home, in part through the use of tariffs, and he is indicating that he intends to do it again.  While I support this tactic, I fear that it will inevitably morph into a strategy, unless we manage to do the hard work necessary to make our economy more competitive.  Once again, I see the problem not being political as much as it is societal.  I believe that you and I have gotten fat and lazy and used to being the world leader.  We no longer have the drive that made us the country that we once were.  If I am right, and if you and I do not change, I continue to believe that we will eventually end up exchanging nuclear tipped missiles with one or another foreign antagonist.  Where we purchase our aspirin will be far down the list of problems that we have.

In this last election, Trump received a considerable amount of electoral support from labor.  I agree with the political pundits that argue that this indicates that he has the support of working class America.  While that has resulted in a political victory for “conservatives,” the practical definition of “conservative” has changed dramatically.  The modern American conservative favors the protectionism that is the reflection of the economic problem that we face.  Trump understands this fact of life, while Biden/Harris and their liberal colleagues do not.  The domestic political and economic impact is serious enough, but the impact that it will have on our foreign relations is of even greater import, because it inevitably encourages us to continue a foreign policy that does not adequately address the needs of the rest of the world.  I see this as being extremely dangerous, because several of our major foreign antagonists possess nuclear weapons and the delivery mechanisms necessary to not only destroy our infrastructure, but also to poison the land on which we depend for our sustenance.