How do the Wars End?

The West Faces a renewed National Socialism and a neo-Pagan Death Cult

We now have three active wars where a member of the Axis is fighting an ally of the United States and we have Axis members fighting wars against peoples or countries where the United States would like to have influence but does not.    Iran and Russia are active in the middle east and Africa and Iran and China have made inroads into South America.  The United States as of this writing has no aircraft carriers in the Pacific Ocean for the simple reason that it is trying to prevent Israel from destroying Iranian infrastructure and the only way to do that is to prevent an Iranian attack from hitting Israel. 

The Biden-Harris-Blinken theory of global conflict is based on de-escalation at all costs, even, as in the case of Afghanistan, it means defeat.   It is not clear if this has trickled down to the US military senior commanders yet, but it is certainly the view of the State Department.   The problem with their view is that while for the United States a “small” defeat can be an option it is not true with their allies.   The three allies fighting against the Axis today are Ukraine, Israel and the Philippines. 

Only with the Philippines does the US have a full Mutual Defense Treaty and yet, while China attacks civilian and military ships of the Philippines in a fight over small Philippine islands in the South China Sea, the US has yet to intervene.  There is now talk of the US Navy escorting Philippine ships in the area but without a single carrier in the area it is not clear if that commitment can be attained.  While US strategy and public diplomacy is centered on Taiwan, what if China wants to push the Philippines out of the US orbit before it moves onto Taiwan.  The Philippines already withdrew from the MDT once – albeit for just 6 months – but what if they decide they can’t depend on the US for defense against China and exchange US bases for Chinese ones?  Or what if a potential China-Philippines agreement is just to remove US bases? 

A quick look at the map shows that with the Philippines in Chinese hands or even  a Finalndin-ized Philippines could be the first step in ridding the region of US forces.  The US makes a mistake in assuming that China wants a frontal war with it just like it is mistaken in thinking that Iran wants a full war with Israel.   Iran wants to destroy Israel, that is obvious enough, but they understand, as does China with Taiwan that that job is only possible “on the cheap” if the US is out of the region.   Iran sees that clearly now as the US led coalition that helped shoot down 300 Iranian missiles, rockets, etc aimed at Israel has since increased its defensive  firepower.  Iran can’t afford another failure but they are still threatening to hit Israel, keeping US forces in the Mideast.  Is this part of China’s plan to empty the Pacific of the US Navy so it can move more easily on the Philippines, Taiwan and the rest of the region?

It seems to me that the current administration has decided that preventing Israel from attacking Iran is more important than defending a treaty ally, The Philippines, from Chinese domination and this makes the Chinese and the Iranians very happy.  How wonderful the Islamic Republic of Iran must feel to be an equal of the US and more feared than China. 

Which brings us to Europe and the Russian-Ukrainian War.  Chasing the US from the Mideast or even the western Pacific will be an easier task than pushing it from Europe.   I say this even knowing that a Trump administration will make threats regarding NATO because the NATO countries will have no choice but to raise their defense spending to levels they always should have reached years ago.  They can’t afford to lose US protection and an additional per-cent of GDP in exchange for the US military umbrella is still a bargain. 

How do these wars end? 

In the Pacific the United States has a choice to make.   Does it stand by its treaty partners and not allow them to take on China on their own as it is currently doing in the Philippines?  Does it expand the one smart Biden initiative – AUKUS - or does it let it slide as it is now doing? Or does it (belatedly) tell China that some things are off limits and if China wants to risk its economic and military ruin, so be it?   Standing up to China now and reiterating its backing of South Korea, Japan and Australia and including them in the defense of Philippines will make China think twice about Taiwan and the South China Sea “islands”.  The fact that no one has stopped China there until now means it could be too late.  

If it is too late the war ends with a very bloody and costly victory for the West or a very bloody and costly victory for China.  Or more likely, it doesn’t end.  Niall Furgeson has deemed these time Cold War II but in this Cold War, hot confrontations between the US and China become more likely every day.   Even it they do not “escalate” into a full-fledged hot World War, it is pretty clear that we are now past Cold War II and in the Sudetenland stage of WWIII. 

This can go on in the South China Sea for years and China can escalate into the Pacific Ocean itself surprising and confusing the Biden-Harris-Blinken team because its precious de-escalation will have run its course.

In Russia-Ukraine it is even more confusing.   This can end in a negotiated armistice in which neither side recognizes the borders of the armistice – much as happened in Israel in 1949. There we had the 1947 partition borders decided as only the UN could decide them, followed by a war to annihilate Israel which ended not with a peace treaty but with an armistice that gave Israel a bit more land and caused about 1.5 million refugees – half, Arabs from Israel to Arab lands and half Jews from Arab lands coming to Israel.

A Russian-Ukraine war could end with similar agreements which will inevitably lead to more wars over the next 50 years.   After WWII there were “exchanges of populations” in Europe to coincide with the new borders and without the powerful nuclear powers facing off against each other, we might have seen ethnic wars popping up all over (as we did with the breakup of Yugoslavia and miraculously did not see with the breakup of Czechoslovakia). 

For those who see the end of this war either by a Russian victory or a coup to replace Putin or a Ukrainian victory with Putin in place or not – dream on.   Russia and Ukraine will not be friends for the coming 50-100 years or more.   Too much blood has been spilled and there is no longer a power (or two) that can force the issue.  If the West thinks it can force Ukraine’s hand and permanently give up land in a formal treaty – enough Ukrainians will oppose it to make it irrelevant.  As for Russians giving up Crimea in a treaty – well, even if they do, they will be back. 

For those who have read and appreciated Russian literature they know that a vast Russian democracy that wants to become part of the West is something that will never happen.   The West constantly ignores other cultures in spite of their utopian attempt at multicultural societies.  Russian “interests” are not the same as Western interests.

This gets us to the current Iranian-Israeli war in the middle east.   So many things are happening at once that it is difficult to see where all the pieces will fall.   Israel is currently fighting for its life with military and political leadership that is not up to the job.  There are three very active fronts in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank – with Syria on the horizon.  The only saving grace is the quality of the population and officer corps (until and including division commanders)  in Israel compared both to its leadership and to the quality of those in its near and distant neighbors.  This is not an “Israeli supremacy” statement but rather a look at the will of the people who are fighting to live and not to die.   We have been told time and again that the Arabs have an advantage because they don’t care about dying and the response to that absurdity is fighting to live, grow and be successful.

The pagan death cult that has grown around, ironically,  the world’s most fanatically monotheistic religion is a liability for the Arab world when facing Israel.   To use pagan-Dionysian values and actions in the name of the One God’s Truth is to take is to worship the many gods of the underworld.  That is what I mean by the different quality of the populations.  Much as the United States sent soldiers to fight in WWII to, in the world of Patton, make the enemy SOB’s die for their country so that our soldiers (SOB’s or not) can live for theirs  - Israel too sends it soldiers to fight so that we can live.  The Iranian backed “opposition front” fights to die.  Their opposition is to civilization.

But with that being said, the Israel-Iran war will go on for the next few years be it wars of attrition or of attack one of these things happen.  The first would be regime change in Iran which would end the Iran-Israel war but leave the Israel-Palestinian war intact.  The second will come with a change in US and Israeli leadership – one that will abandon post-modern ideas of geo-politics that divides the world by races in which one is always in the right and the other never is.   This change of leadership will bring back what is sorely missing in the West these days - self confidence that your way of life is worth fighting for.  For Israel, this change of leadership will either come from this war, or will not come at all.   For the United States, the change of leadership will come from where it always comes from – the American heartland – meaning the American ideas of freedom and prosperity.    I know that Harris is not that candidate and I can’t say Trump will have the ability to rid the foreign and security policy team of all the damage that post-modernism has caused – but he is a one term President and he may be able to build the infrastructure necessary for true leadership to rise.

My guess is that the coming election in Israel (whenever that one is) will be transitional.   The Prime Minister after the next one (even if the next one is the current one) will give way to a new leader – one not yet known to the public.

Until one of those things happens the Israel-Iran war will continue.

This world war, which I think has already begun will continue on various fronts for years.   It could be that the US homeland will be spared again from the ravages of war but that too, is not certain.   Terrorist cells and more numerous proxies can be infiltrated in ways that could not have been dreamed of in the past.   Drones,  rockets and explosives can be homemade and attacks can come from anywhere. 

We are in a period where brave, independent and creative leadership is both necessary and missing and that is the reason why I feel that these wars are the start of something bigger.  There is no one to deter the Axis because their “interests” are measured in ways different than ours.     For the Chinese, their hegemony in the Indo-Pacific and their dream of being THE global power takes precedence over the welfare of their people.  If the United States today wants to be the global power, it is because it wants to continue to prosper and it understands that no one else is there to protect the global freedom necessary for prosperity.   The Chinese on the other hand want the power first and prosperity will or won’t come with it.  What is in their national interests is to dominate other countries for the sake of dominance and national pride.  They are not capitalists and not concerned with the welfare of individual Chinese citizens.

They are, for lack of a better term – National Socialists.  They want to expand their borders to and return to some perceived national greatness and want to punish those who oppose it – or, in the case of the Moslem Uighurs, put them in concentration camps until they lose their will to be who they are. They are not internationalists as the original Soviets were – but they are fanatical Chinese nationalists who want to impose their socialist will on their people and have the rest of the world recognize Chinese greatness.

Iran too, does not see its national interests in terms of prosperity or economic development.  Israel’s threat to destroy their oil refineries will not hurt the people but the IRG that owns and operates them.  The nuclear facilities it has invested so much in has no benefit for its “people”.  It has external threats only in relations to the threats it makes on its neighbors. 

Russia too, like China feels it has an ancient right to control territory it once controlled and to further the “spirit” of Russian nationalism at the expense of its neighbors (and not just Ukraine).  Even if there is some armistice in Ukraine it will turn its troops to Central Asia (before returning to Ukraine and Europe)0.   Russia feels it has a divine right to be great and to be recognized as great in the world – and no amount economic impoverishment or military defeat will negate that right.

We have barely touched Africa, where jihad is turning what small amount of stability there was into utter chaos – with the help of Russia and their Wagner force.  South America too is in flux as the American left still can’t manage to shake its tolerance if not love for any thug who calls himself socialist. 

None of this means that the West is in terminal decline or that there is no future.  Leaders arise from places they are least expected.  FDR, Ronald Reagan People John Paull II imposed their will and the people followed them.  In Israel, Ben-Gurion went against all his putative allies advice and demands and declared and built a country.   Churchill – you just have to mention the name.   De Gaulle built postwar France, Adenauer turned Germany around and neither of them were national leaders until the situation demanded it from them.  

A new moral and geo-political vision for the West is needed and if the leaders won’t supply it the people will have to demand it.  The United States is the only country that can take the lead in this new vision but that does not exempt the rest of the West from making the same changes. This is as true for Europe as it is for Israel as it is for Japan, South Korea and Australia.   And for Taiwan if it wants to retain its independence. 

Although we are, I believe in WWIII – it doesn’t mean it has to be as bloody as the previous 2 world wars  - although it could be more bloody and it certainly doesn’t mean it has to take the same trajectory or the same results.