Tag Archives: civil war

Quo Vadis, Israel

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In my last post I tried to explain the nature and purpose of the various parties represented in Israel’s parliament (the Knesset). Consquently, a friend of mine, the award-winning painter Bob Barancik (see on him https://www.creativeshare.com/bio.php) confronted me with some questions of his own. So here are my answers—for what they are worth.

Q: Did the recent raft of insubordinations among reserve air force pilots and IDF officers permanently damage the security of the state against Iran and other hostile Arab states?

A: Possibly so. War being what it is, the most important factor in waging it is not technology, however sophisticated. It is, rather, fighting spirit which in turn can only rest on mutual trust (as people used to say when Germany still had an army, today it’s you, tomorrow it’s me). The way some Israeli pilots, flight controllers, drone-operators ground officers and of course lawyers see it, that trust has been violated by their political superiors who, by seeking to drastically increase the power of the executive in particular, are weakening the judiciary and preparing a dictatorship. This, on top of demanding that the police and the military resort to draconian measures to break the resistance of the occupied Palestinian population—so draconian that, should they be implemented, they have an excellent chance of causing those who carry them out to be dragged in front of the International Court for War Crimes in The Hague.

The problem is like cancer. The longer it persists, the worse it will become and the harder it will be to repair the damage already done.

Q: Could there realistically be a putsch orchestrated by IDF generals and/or security services to forcibly remove Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben-Gvir from office?

A: I very much doubt it. Do not forget that the IDF, unlike most modern armed forces, is mainly made up not of professionals but of conscripts and reservists. They will be split in the middle, just like the rest of Israeli society. The outcome will be total disintegration.

Q: Could the Camp David Accords simply be ignored by Egypt and a return to old hostilities?

A: Such a move almost certainly will not come all at once but take time and psychological preparation among the masses. Also, an extreme provocation such as an Israeli attempt to expel the Palestinian population of the West Bank. But yes, it could happen.

Q: Do the Arab countries and Iran need Israel to continue to exist as a domestic “punching bag” or is the hatred so great that there could be a genocide of Israeli Jews ala Mufti of Jerusalem?

A: You ask as if Arabs and Iranians were made of the same piece. But they are not. Among the Arabs, the masses, including the better educated, hate Israel more than the government does. In Iran the situation is the opposite.

Incidentally, did it ever occur to you that things may also work the other way around—i.e that, vice vice versa, it is some Israeli circles that are using the threat as a punching bag?

Q: Is it likely that Hezbollah aka Iran will unleash a sustained barrage of missiles that would cripple Israeli infrastructure? Or will Israel’s nuclear capacity continue to deter the mullahs in the short run?

A: Israel has never published any nuclear doctrine it may have. At the same time, the general belief is that its leaders will only resort to nukes in case the country faces complete defeat—as by having its army reduced to the point where it can no longer fight, its logistic infrastructure knocked out, and a considerable part of its territory and population overrun.

With the worst will in the world, Hezbollah does not have what it takes to achieve these aims; so it will depend on Iranian (and Syrian) support. A bombardment with Iranian and Syrian chemical weapons might indeed lead Israel first to threaten and then use its weapons of last resort.

Q: Do you see an exodus of the “best and the brightest” if Bibi and company continue to hang on to power?

A: This is already happening. Many—no one knows just how many—academics, physicians, and other kinds of highly qualified experts are leaving or looking for ways to leave. The shekel, which for several years used to be called the strongest currency one earth, is falling. Tens of thousands, including some members of my own family, are trying to obtain foreign citizenship in addition to their Israeli one. While there are no statistics, my guess would be that there are few Israeli families left that have not considered this possibility more or less seriously.

Q: We live in the postmodern world, where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain.

A: How true. But it does not make forecasting the future any easier. If anything, to the contrary.

Q: Do you believe as someone said, that “This too shall pass”?

A: I think the threat is the most serious one Israel has faced since 1973. Unless very, very great care is taken by Netanyahu, his government and his successors civil war, not just between Jew and Arab but among the Jews themselves, is inevitable. Such a war, especially one that leads to foreign (Arab and Iranian) involvement, might very well mean, finis, Israel.

Michel Houellebecq, Platform, Kindle Edition, 2004

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Famed French author Michel Houellebecq does not need an introduction. That is why, instead of reviewing the book in the normal way, I decided to simply present some passages I found particularly striking. Not necessarily nice or pleasant—Houellebecq is not the kind of writer who makes you feel good about yourself, let alone the society in which you spend your life. But striking. Especially when I read them for the second time. Readers are welcome to agree, disagree, or add any others of their own; after all, though I expect to be censored every day, so far my blog remains free.

The words in italics after some paragraphs are mine.

p. 104.

“Further along there was a table of Hong Kong Chinese – recognizable by their filthy manners, which are difficult for Westerners to stomach, and which threw the Thai waiters into a state of panic, barely eased by the fact that they were used to it. Unlike the Thais, who behave in all circumstances with a finicky, even pernickety propriety, the Chinese eat rapaciously, laughing loudly, their mouths open, spraying bits of food everywhere, spitting on the ground and blowing their noses between their fingers – they behave quite literally like pigs. To make matters worse, that’s an awful lot of pigs.

Based on personal observation, I agree.

p. 112-13.

“At the time when the white man thought himself superior, racism wasn’t dangerous. For colonials, missionaries and lay teachers in the nineteenth century, the Negro was a big animal, none too clever, a sort of slightly more evolved monkey. At worst, they considered him a useful beast of burden, capable of performing complex tasks; at best a frustrated soul, coarse, but, through education, capable of elevating himself to God – or at least western reason. In both cases, they saw in him a ‘lesser brother’, and one does not feel ‘At the time when the white man thought himself superior, racism wasn’t dangerous. For colonials, missionaries and lay teachers in the nineteenth century, the Negro was a big animal, none too clever, a sort of slightly more evolved monkey. At worst, they considered him a useful beast of burden, capable of performing complex tasks; at best a frustrated soul, coarse, but, through education, capable of elevating himself to God – or at least western reason. In both cases, they saw in him a ‘lesser brother’, and one does not feel hatred for an inferior – at most a sort of cordial contempt. This benevolent, almost humanist racism has completely vanished. The moment the white man began to consider blacks as equals, it was obvious that sooner or later they would come to consider them to be superior. The notion of equality has no basis in human society… Once white men believed themselves to be inferior,.. the stage was set for a different type of racism, based on masochism: historically, it is in circumstances like these that violence, inter-racial wars and massacres break out. For example, all anti-Semites agree that the Jews have a certain superiority: if you read anti-Semitic literature, you’re stuck by the fact that the Jew is considered to be more intelligent, more cunning, that he is credited with having singular financial talents – and, moreover, greater communal solidarity. Result: six million dead.”

Western society seems to be determined to making men qua men feel inferior. That, my dear feminists, is when things become really dangerous for you.

p. 113-14.

“Racism… ‘seems to be characterized firstly by an accumulation of hostility, a more aggressive sense of competition between males of different races; but the corollary is an increased desire for the females of the other race. What is really at stake in racial struggles…is neither economic nor cultural, it is brutal and biological: it is competition for the cunts of young women.”

p. 115.

“[In Europe] it’s not the whites that make the law any more … I predict an increase in racial violence in Europe in years to come; it will all end in civil war… It will all be settled with Kalashnikovs.”

p. 188-89.
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“As we get closer to suffering and cruelty, to domination and servility, we hit on the essential, the intimate nature of sexuality… “Cruelty is a primordial part of the human, it is found in the most primitive peoples: in the earliest tribal wars, the victors were careful to spare the lives of some of their prisoners to let them die later, suffering hideous tortures. This tendency persisted, it is constant throughout history, it remains true today: as soon as a foreign or civil war begins to erase ordinary moral constraints, you find human beings – regardless so. Cruelty is a primordial part of the human, it is found in the most primitive peoples: in the earliest tribal wars, the victors were careful to spare the lives of some of their prisoners to let them die later, suffering hideous tortures. This tendency persisted, it is constant throughout history, it remains true today: as soon as a foreign or civil war begins to erase ordinary moral constraints, you find human beings – regardless of race, people, culture – eager to launch themselves into the joys of barbarism and massacre. This is attested, unchanging, indisputable, but it has nothing whatever to do with the quest for sexual pleasure – equally primordial, equally strong.

p. 211.

A source of permanent, accessible pleasure, our genitals exist. The god who created our misfortune, who made us short-lived, vain and cruel, has also provided this form of meagre compensation. If we couldn’t have sex from time to time, what would life be? A futile struggle against joints that stiffen, caries that form. All of which, moreover, is as uninteresting as humanly possible – the collagen which makes muscles stiffen, the appearance of microbic cavities in the gums.

p. 240-42.

“Something must be happening to make Westerners stop sleeping with each other; maybe it’s something to do with narcissism, or individualism, the cult of success, it doesn’t matter. The fact is that from about the age of twenty-five or thirty, people find it very difficult to meet new sexual partners; although they still feel the need to do so, it’s a need which fades very slowly. So they end up spending thirty years of their lives, almost the entirety of their adult lives, suffering permanent withdrawal.

Halfway along the path to inebriation, just before mindlessness ensues, one sometimes experiences moments of heightened lucidity. The decline of western sexuality was undoubtedly a major sociological phenomenon which it would be futile to attempt to explain by such and such a specific psychological factor… You have several hundred million Westerners who have everything they could want but no longer manage to obtain sexual satisfaction: they spend their lives looking, but they don’t find it and they are completely miserable. On the other hand, you have several billion people who have nothing, who are starving, who die young, who live in conditions unfit for human habitation and who have nothing left to sell except their bodies and their unspoiled sexuality. It’s simple, really simple to understand: it’s an ideal trading opportunity.

p. 244-54.

“Giving pleasure unselfishly: that’s what Westerners don’t know how to do any more. They’ve completely lost the sense of giving. Try as they might, they no longer feel sex as something natural. Not only are they ashamed of their own bodies, which aren’t up to porn standards, but for the same reasons they no longer feel truly attracted to the body of the other. It’s impossible to make love without a certain abandon, without accepting, at least temporarily, the state of being in a state of dependency, of weakness. Sentimental adulation and sexual obsession have the same roots, both proceed from some degree of selflessness; it’s not a domain in which you can find fulfilment without losing yourself. We have become cold, rational, acutely conscious of our individual existence and our rights; more than anything, we want to avoid alienation and dependence; on top of that we’re obsessed with health and hygiene: these are hardly ideal conditions in which to make love. The way things stand, the commercialization of sexuality in the East has become inevitable.”

p. 361.

“More than any other people, [the Germans] are acquainted with worry and shame, they feel the need for tender flesh, for soft, endlessly refreshing skin. More than any other people, they are acquainted with the desire for their own annihilation. It is rare to come across the vulgar, smug pragmatism of Anglo-Saxon sex tourists among them, that manner of endlessly comparing goods and prices. It is equally rare for them to exercise, to look after their bodies. In general, they eat too much, drink too much beer, get fat; most of them will die pretty soon. They are often friendly, they like to joke, to buy a round, to tell stories; but their company is soothing and sad.

I have lived in Germany and am fluent in the language. I’d say that hardly any German over 13 is free from the burden: the more they deny it, the guiltier they feel.

I understand death now… I don’t think it will do me much harm.”

But life can.

How the Republic Collapsed

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No more than anyone else, and in spite of having written Seeing into the Future: A Short History of Prediction, do I have any idea as to the way the current U.S turmoil may end. If, indeed, there is such a thing as an “end.” I am, however, a little familiar with the history of Rome, the empire with which the US is often compared. Hardly a US city of any size and importance where buildings in Graeco-Roman style may not be found. To say nothing of a certain institution known as the Senate (ultimately derived from the Latin word senex, old). So I thought a little timeline of the way Rome turned from a free republic into a slavish empire might not be out of place.

*

205-146 BCE. Following a series of successful wars against foreign enemies, enormous amounts of booty as well as tax money flow into Rome. Including tons and tons of bullion, many hundreds of thousands of slaves, and countless objects d’art of every kind. As always, most of the wealth in question sticks to the hands of the upper classes which provide the republic with its rulers and senior commanders. Whereas the poor, repeatedly conscripted to do long periods of service abroad, neglect their farms and grow poorer still. Inequality reaches unprecedented heights. A few own enormous farms, worked by slaves; most hardly have a stone to rest their heads on. While not new, from this point on this kind of inequality will play a critical role in the events that ultimately led to the fall of the republic.

133 BCE. Following four centuries of near complete domestic peace—perhaps the longest of its kind in the whole of history—an elected popular tribune, Tiberius Gracchus, is beaten to death by a group of Senators. Their leader is none other than the chief priest, Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio, a diehard conservative and a former consul. The background? A controversy over Tiberius’ “Leftist” (as it would be called today) plan to confiscate some of the land of the rich in order to distribute it among the plebeian poor.

121 BCE. For the first time, the Senate passes a Senatus consultum ultimum. No translation needed! The purpose? To grant the elected consul, Lucius Opimius, emergency powers to defeat the partisans of Gaius Gracchus who had been following in his dead older brother’s footsteps. Gaius is killed.

107 BCE. Gaius Marius, one of Rome’s most experienced and finest soldiers with strong plebeian sympathies, is elected consul. He uses the opportunity to reform the military; opening what had previously been a citizen army that only existed when there was an enemy to fight into a standing force made up of full time professionals. He also passes some other military reforms, but these do not concern us here. More and more, the soldiers look to their commanders, rather than to the Senate, for pay, promotion, and benefits. Including, above all, land to settle on after their discharge.

105-101 BCE. Marius inflicts a series of heavy defeats on the Germanic tribes in the north. Or about three hundred years thereafter, all serious military threats to Rome will be internal rather than external.

100 BCE. Marius is serving as consul for an unprecedented sixth time. A popular tribune, Lucius Apuleius Saturninus takes up the Gracchis’ cause by proposing the distribution of land to Marius’ veterans. The outcome is envy and resentment among the Roman proletariat. To push his measures through, Saturninus has an opponent, the consular candidate Gaius Memmius, assassinated in the midst of the voting for the consular elections for 99 BCE, leading to widespread violence. The Senate orders Marius, as consul, to put down the revolt, This he does. Saturninus and his chief colleague are killed.

91-88 BCE. Rome’s unfranchised allies in Italy engage in open warfare against their mistress. Though little is known about the so-called Social War, it seems to have been waged with great ferocity. Militarily the forces answerable to the Senate are successful, but politically the war ends with a victory for the allies. They obtain the vote as well as other privileges associated with Roman citizenship.

88 BCE. Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the principal Roman commander in the Social War, serves as consul. He prepares to fight Rome’s enemy, king Mithridates VI of Pontus (in today’s Turkey). Behind his back Marius and the Senate reverse his appointment as commander in chief in that theater. Whereupon Sulla, having narrowly escaped with his life, leaves Rome. He raises six legions (approx. 35,000 men in all) and marches on the city, violating the traditional ban that prevents armies from entering it. He purges the Senate of its “left wing” members and declares Marius and his supporters, several of whom are killed, public enemies.

87 BCE. Now it is Marius’ turn to escape. Going to Africa, long a Roman province, he raises new armies. Making use of the fact that Sulla is away, again preparing a campaign against Mithridates, he invades Italy. He enters Rome for the second time and sets out to kill Sulla’s supporters in the Senate. He declares Sulla’s reforms and laws invalid, officially exiles him, and has himself appointed to his rival’s eastern command as well elected consul for 86 BCE. Two weeks later he dies, leaving Rome under the control of his colleague to the consulate, Lucius Cornelius Cinna.

85 BCE. Sulla, who has been warring against Mithridates, concludes a treaty with him. Now he has his hands free to return to Rome.

83-78 BCE. Sulla and his army land in Italy. They proceed to Rome where they proscribe and kill thousands of their opponents. That done, Sulla has the Senate declare him a dictator with unlimited powers. He increases the number of Senators from 300 to 600. He puts into effect various measures designed to prevent any further challenges from the populist “Left” and takes away some of the popular tribunes’ authority. That done, in 79 BCE he resigns. A year later he dies.

78 BCE. No sooner has Sulla died than another commander, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, marches on Rome in attempt to reverse the late dictator’s reforms. In this he fails.
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78-70 BCE. Sulla’s reforms to turn the clock back notwithstanding, by now the authority of the central government in Rome (i.e the Senate) has been decisively weakened. Any number of wars break out both in the provinces and in Italy where the slave revolt, with Spartacus at its head, has to be put down. Out of the confusion and the bloodshed there emerges, as the victor, a single General: Gnaeus Pompeius, soon to be nicknamed Magnus. Vaguely associated with what we today would call the Right, in 70 BCE he violates the constitution by being elected consul without going through the prescribed, much less important, offices first.

70-63 BCE. Now a pro- (meaning, ex) consul, Pompey turns to the east. Waging war first on the pirates of Cilicia (in modern Turkey), then on Mithridates, then on the Seleucids in Syria, and finally in Palestine where he deposes the reigning Hasmonean dynasty. On the way he annexes most of the eastern Mediterranean. Often without so much as informing the Senate of the measures he is taking.

63 BCE. In Italy, a “Lefty” Senator by the name of Lucius Servius Catilina, having failed to be elected to the consulate, twice tries to have the consuls murdered and take over power himself. Or so his opponents, led by the famous orator and consul (in 63 CE) Cicero, claimed. However, his small army was defeated and he himself killed while fighting at its head.

60-57 BCE. Having returned to Rome, Pompeius celebrates an enormous triumph. Next he forms an alliance with two other generals, Gaius Julius Caesar and Marcus Licinius Crassus, intended to secure their joint rule over Rome. In 59 BCE Caesar, his term as consul over, leaves for Gaul where he spends ten years fighting until the local tribes are finally subjugated. In 57 BCE Crassus, making war against Persia, is defeated and killed. This leaves Pompeius and Caesar in sole control.

49-48 BCE. Caesar, his conquest of Gaul completed, fears what his enemies, with Pompeius at their head, may be doing in Rome. With his army, he crosses the Rubicon, the river marking the border between Cisalpine (meaning, “nearer”) Gaul and Italy. Marching straight on the capital, he forces Pompeius and his followers to flee to Epirus (present day Albania). Caesar turns to Spain, where Pompeius has some supporters, and defeats them. Next he follows his enemy to Epirus. Their armies meet at Dyrrhachium and Pompeius is defeated. He flees to Egypt, which was not yet part of the Roman Empire. As Caesar follows him there, he commits suicide.

48-44 BCE. When Caesar arrives in Egypt the country’s eighteen-year old queen, Cleopatra, throws herself at him and becomes his mistress (he himself is fifty-one years old). Next he defeats the rest of Pompeius’ supporters in Africa and Spain. On 15 March (the “Ides of March”) 44 BCE he is assassinated by a group of Senators who fear he is about to proclaim himself king.

44-43 BCE. It is discovered that Caesar, in his will, has appointed his great-nephew, the nineteen-year old Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, as his successor. Octavianus joins forces with Caesar’s most important general, Marcus Antonius, and with another general named Aemilius who is Marcus Aemilius Lepidus’ son. Together they form a triumvirate for governing Rome. They purge Caesar’s opponents in the capital. Among the dead is Cicero. Next they make war on the conspirators. Defeated, the latter are forced to withdraw to Epirus.

42 BCE. Octavianus and Antonius defeat the conspirators’ army at Philippi, in present day Albania.

33-32 BCE. Octavianus and Antonius, having pushed Lepidus aside, divide the empire between them. The west, Italy included, goes to Octavianus; the east, to Antonius and his wife, who is none other than Queen Cleopatra of Egypt.

30 BCE. Agrippa, Octavianus’ admiral, defeats Antonius at the naval battle of Actium (in western Greece). Antonius and Cleopatra flee to Egypt, where both kill themselves.

28 BCE. Octavianus adds “Augustus” to his name. His title, as supreme ruler, is princeps (first prince). His reign is by no means as bad as that of some of his successors. However, what twenty or so generations of Romans understood as libertas finally comes to an end.

*

Some believe that history, with its infinitely numerous and infinitely complex details, never repeats itself and hence can tell us nothing about the future. Others, that it always repeats itself; socio-economic inequality, as well as tensions generated by the fact that some have rights others do not, leads to conflict. The military and the police are divided like anyone else. New leaders emerge and put themselves at the head of the contending factions. Prolonged and horrific bloodshed ensues. The final outcome is dictatorship.

Which one will it be?

Guest Article: The View From Olympus: A 4GW Impeachment?

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By

William S. Lind*

As I have said many times, Fourth Generation war is at root a contest for legitimacy.  On one side is the state. On the other is a vast array of alternate primary loyalties: religion, race, tribe, gang, and locality, among others.  Around the world, the contest is going poorly for the state as a growing number of people shift their primary loyalty to one of the many alternatives, for which they are willing to fight.

Washington does not perceive it, absorbed as it is in its own struggles for power and money, but the same contest is going on in this country.  So far, to our great benefit, it has remained on the peripheries. Urban police know they are confronting it in the form of ethnically-based gangs, which are illegal business enterprises that fight.  But the mass of the American people appear still loyal to the state.

The appearance is, I think, deceptive.  On both the Left and the Right, doubts about the legitimacy of the federal government are growing.  Mostly, the doubts are about the legitimacy of the current President, although polls show public perception of Congress is also strongly negative.  There is no question many on the Left regard President Trump as illegitimate. Should a hard-Left figure such as Warren win in 2020, the Right will doubt her legitimacy.  But considering the current President illegitimate is different from thinking the state itself has lost its legitimacy.

Impeachment could change that.  President Trump’s supporters regard his election as proof their voices can be heard, that their interests will be considered in Washington.  They know that to virtually all Democrats and some Republicans, they are “unpersons”. Why? Because they are White, male, or non-feminist female, straight, and mostly Christian.  They are also struggling economically, which means they are not contributors to politicians’ campaigns. The coastal elites dismiss them as rubes and hicks inhabiting “flyover land”.  The Democratic Party, which has embraced the ideology of cultural Marxism, considers them all inherently evil “oppressors” fit only to kiss the feet of blacks, immigrants, gays, feminists, etc., PC’s sainted “victims” groups.

About 18% wanted to address male and female factors, 17% came just for male infertility and 12% came just for female infertility. cheapest price on viagra This can also increase muscle power and can also be used as a cure for men’s impotence. tadalafil generic Here viagra sample pills are some hints on the Do’s and don’ts of being a pretty girl? Now we read that Oprah Winfrey is opening a school for young girls in South Africa. It does not give the user an automatic erection simply clearing the way for the blood to get along into the male reproductive organ for longer time. viagra sales online greyandgrey.com Again, should a Warren win in 2020, President Trump’s supporters will not consider her (or him) a legitimate President.  But if the unholy alliance between Democrats and the Deep State succeeds in driving President Trump from office through impeachment or some other means, that will be a very different story.  At that point, the message to President Trump’s supporters will be, “Your votes don’t matter, because even if you elect a President, we will drive him from office and reduce you to a silent serfdom.  You and your views are entitled to no representation. You are and will remain ‘unpersons.’”

At that point, in the vast electoral sea that is red America, the legitimacy of the system itself, i.e., the state, will be brought into serious question.  And when that happens, the chance of Fourth Generation war here on a large scale will rise dramatically. When you tell people they cannot achieve representation through ballots, they start to think about doing it with bullets.

That electoral map, the one that shows the results of the 2016 election by county, has significant military meaning.  The blue votes are concentrated in cities, which cannot feed themselves. As Chairman Mao said, “Take the countryside and the cities will fall.”  Nor can they be supplied from the sea, because most of the people in the military are Trump supporters, which means the red side will get most of the ships and planes.  The military problem is really quite simple, and need involve virtually no shooting or destruction. You just put the cities under siege and wait for the starving people to come out.  It won’t take long.

The message to Washington is clear and direct: if President Trump is driven from office by anything other than a loss in the 2020 election (if he runs), the legitimacy of the state will be brought into question.  That is a dangerous business that politicians of both parties would be wise to avoid. After all, they will be the first people hanged from the nearest lamppost if widespread 4GW comes here. An impeachment that leads to the checkpoints going up all over rural America is a very bad idea.

* William S. (”Bill”) Lind is the author of the Maneuver War Handbook (1985) and the 4thGeneration Warfare Handbook (2011) as several other volumes that deal with war. This article was originally published on traditionalRight on 4.11.2019.

Guest Article: Where Syria May Be Going

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By

Karsten Riise*

The situation around Russia in Syria is up for debate. No doubt, Russia would like to lead a reconstruction effort in Syria, in harmony with all relevant partners, including the UN, the EU, the USA, China, India, Turkey, Iran, Israel, the Sunni Arab states including the Golf Council Countries (GCC-states), Egypt and Morocco. However, many of the parties on the list of wished-for partners are strongly hostile to each other, and it might therefore perhaps not be possible for Russia to make all these ends come together, or to cut through the proverbial “Gordian Knot”. If Russia cannot create a reconstruction for all of Syria, which is what Russia wants most of all, then Russia will have to think about a “second option” for Russia’s future presence in Syria.

What might be a “second option” for Russia in Syria?

It would not make sense at any rate for Russia to leave Syria completely. After all, Russia has spent a lot of blood and treasure to achieve the stabilization now achieved, it does not want a resurgence of Sunni extremism by groups like ISIS and similar, and it has strategic interests in Syria, including an air base and a naval base.

However, as a “second option”, if the preferred cooperation for reconstruction of all of Syria should not be achievable, would be for Russia to concentrate and reduce her presence to a part of Syria. Russia can entrench itself in north-west Syria, creating its own zone of exclusive Russian military control and administration together with Syrian forces which are sympathetic to Russia as well as to Syria’s current government. Such a “Russian” zone could consist of a square of Syria consisting of Latakia, Tartus, Homs, and Ma’arat-Al-Numan.

The area mentioned above is already mainly controlled by Russia (incl. Russia-friendly units). Good. The area contains the air and naval bases pivotal for Russian military power. Good. The area will enable Russia to keep naval and air supplies possible from outside. Good. The area is strategically located to enable Russia to reenter all other parts of Syria, north, east and south. Good. The region mentioned contains a great deal of Syria’s population, including many of the Alawites, of which a large part support the existing Syrian government under President Bashar Al-Assad. Russia can thus expect to achieve social stability, without having to allocate a lot of military resources to constantly handle large-scale hostile actions inside this zone. The area holds a great part of Syria’s economic and reconstruction-potential. Good. The ports are open for imports of food, medicine, and raw materials—and being the only ports of Syria, they even control import-export of goods to the rest of Syria. Excellent. The ports will facilitate a reconstructed economy in this area. Great.

Russia might create success here, and control this part of Syria more or less indefinitely. In time, because the area is limited, and the preconditions are favorable, Russia could lead a rather successful reconstruction of this part of north-western Syria. Even tourism on the coast might be redeveloped over time, because there is an airport for travel, and stability can be maintained.

Russia can even prepare the possibility for a “second seat” for the official government for Syria, to be used, in case continuation of official governing from Damascus should become physically impossible. In other words: Russia can if need be, offer Syria’s government a place to move to and continue the statehood of the UN-recognized sovereign government, if Damascus should fall into the hands of others. For this purpose, Russia could supply a small élite unit for the official protection (and if need may be, evacuation) of Syria’s government in Damascus, but otherwise, Russia would stay out of Damascus.

In neighboring Idlib, Russia will in time (now or later, as may be) act in a yet unspecified, but flexible and highly decisive manner as need be – in accordance with the developing situation . If opportune for Russian interests, with friendly forces after a clearing of the area Russia might establish control over some of Idlib, but not necessarily. Russia would stay then out of all the Syrian border-zone to Turkey and also stay out of Kurdish areas. In northern and eastern Syria Arabs, Kurds, and Turkey might then “negotiate” their own balance (maybe fighting bitterly).

If ISIS should rise anywhere in Syria again, Russia would offer the supply of air power to any party fighting ISIS—be as it may, Kurds, west-supported rebels, Iran, whomever – but nothing more than air power.

Bottom line would be, that the whole area south of Homs (including Damascus) all the way down to Golan, with such a Russian strategy, would be “free-for-all”. Between Golan and up to the south of Homs, Iran and Israel might then fight each other if they want to—as much as they please—and for as long as they please—without Russia interfering.

What might the consequences of such a Russian strategy be for different parties?

Russia probably can live with all this—not happily, but well enough, at least as long as ISIS does not reemerge.

Syria may be reconstructed in the north-west in the area under Russian influence, the Kurds will probably survive in a clamped position—but the rest of Syria, including the large population areas south of Damascus, may continue in some kind of chaos.

Turkey might also live with all this. The US might be okay or not too happy, but will not reenter Syria in forceful numbers when they are mostly gone—that is relatively certain (though nothing is of course ever certain in politics). The EU would definitely be very unhappy with such a situation because, with continuing hostilities in Syria, millions of Syrian refugees in Europe could not be sent back to Syria. But the EU would not be asked—the EU would just have to send more élite soldiers, if ISIS should reemerge. Lebanon would also not be asked.

Iran might be somewhat divided. Circles around the President and Foreign Minister of Iran might not be too pleased with such a situation. But it is imaginable, other important circles in Iran may even welcome and know to militarily fully exploit such an arrangement.

But Israel?
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Potentially, such a situation can become absolutely devastating to Israel.

Iran and Hamas can use the area from Damascus and south to Golan for sending missiles into Israel from a big number of mobile and hard-to-hit positions. Iran can continue doing this again-and-again for years—indefinitely. Israel can hardly stop that, unless it controls and holds all of Syria all the way up to and including the great city of Damascus. However, if Israel invades to “clear-up” or even hold the area, Iran and Hamas have a fantastic strategic option simply to withdraw their forces further north, stretching the Israeli forces thin. This is what Hamas did several times in Lebanon.

So what would Hamas and Iran than have to do, to win?

The first thing needed for Hamas and Iran to win against Israel in southern Syria would be to not “hold ground”. When their enemy, the Israelis, advances, they fall back; when their enemy retreats, they advance. Their geography works to their advantage in that they will have plenty of strategic depth to fall back on.

The second thing needed for them to win is to protract the war indefinitely. “Losing” every battle, but winning the war. Both Mao and later Vietnamese general Võ Nguyên Giáp (two of the greatest military strategists and battle-leaders in history) very clearly stated this, and they both proved that it leads to victory.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) would then have to fall back to positions closer down to Golan sooner or later—and Iranian forces and Hamas will then simply follow after the IDF down southwards, continuing to harass and attack the IDF and send more missiles into Israel. Hamas knows how to fight the IDF. Hamas are the only fighters who have ever defeated the IDF, and they have done so rather thoroughly with fewer means then they have now, backed by Iran. Very probably, Hamas and Iran will be able long-term to manage the situation and over years bleed-out the IDF here.

Hamas and Iranian soldiers with similar skills like Hamas. No air force needed for Hamas and the Iranian units, they’ll take the pounding from above, but will not be defeated on the ground. They need short and mid-range missiles to fight Israel, and they have plenty of those. Would that be possible? Yes. Though nothing is sure in war, it could very likely be possible.

Hamas has no air force but was successful in Lebanon. Hamas once even stalled an Israeli attack with top-modern Merkava tanks already at a short distance into Lebanon. Taliban also has no air force, but still is again (after fighting the Soviets, and now the US for another 16 years) successful. North Vietnam had little air defense against the USA—and Viet Cong had none. The Vietnamese won not only against the US but also without air force against France before that. The Algerians kicked France out—they also had no air force. So yes, even without air power, such a strategy, as I describe here, could actually be winning for Hamas and Iran against Israel in southern Syria.

What could Israel do to counter this?

Israel could then try 2–3 things, which they tried in southern Lebanon, but which eventually never gave Israel any peace or victory which they can live on.

Firstly, Israel could try to recruit, organize and supply friendly Syrians (a “free” Syrian force) to make them put up a buffer zone, a statelet or “free Syrian territory” by whatever name, they can come up with. From this area, the Israelis could use “free Syrians” as their own proxy-forces against Hamas and Iran. This strategy (even after criminal atrocities in Shabra and Shatila) eventually didn’t work for Israel in southern Lebanon—and it won’t work for Israel in a southern Syria either.

Secondly, Israel could, for instance, try to bomb Damascus flat, in order to put pressure on the opposing forces. This, Israel did in Beirut, bombing large residential areas flat. It worked to some limited degree in Lebanon because Lebanon has a number of different factions who were impacted. But a similar strategy won’t work by bombing Damascus, because neither Hamas nor Iranian forces have families resident there—on the contrary, an Israeli large-scale bombing of residential areas in Damascus will only increase great hostility against Israel, creating even more enemies fighting against them.

Thirdly, Israel could assist Sunni circles to recreate ISIS-like fighting groups inside Syria, to weaken the Shia Iranians inside their strategic hinterland inside Syria. However, facilitating a reemerging ISIS in Syria would create a terrorism problem in the EU, Turkey, Russia in other places—and if discovered, would severely degrade international diplomatic support for Israel.

Looking at all the options, it remains hard to see, how Israel can ever win or even manage such a scenario. Not only will the military situation be difficult for Israel—the diplomatic situation would become very difficult for Israel too, especially in relations to the EU. Because the EU wants peace and stability, and wants to return millions of Syrians back to Syria—and the ongoing war in southern Syria would make that impossible.

 

* Karsten Riise is Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from University of Copenhagen. Former senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden with a responsibility of US Dollars 1 billion. At time of appointment, the youngest and the first non-German in that top-position within Mercedes-Benz’ worldwide sales organization. This article has been previously posted on RIAC.

In the Turbulent Middle East, Anything is Possible

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As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been saying for over a decade now, Israel considers its most important enemy to be Iran. That is good news: it means that enemies who are less than a thousand or so kilometers away no longer exist. The impressive Arab coalition which used to face Israel during its early years has long since collapsed. With some of its members, i.e. Egypt and Jordan, Israel is now officially at peace. Other enemies have been demolished either by external defeat, as happened in Iraq, or by civil war, as in Syria. Occasionally they have suffered both. Various terrorist organizations apart, this leaves Iran as the one enemy Israel has any real reason to fear.

Saudi Arabia is also worried about Iran. In part, this is because of the age-old and often bloody rivalry between the Sunni and Shi’ite sects of Islam of which Riad and Tehran are the chief representatives, respectively. In part, it is because of Iranian support for the Houthi rebellion in Yemen which threatens to put the Saudis between Scylla in the north and Charybdis in the south. And in part it is because of Teheran’s nuclear ambitions which, should they bear fruit, threaten to spark off a nuclear arms race and destabilize the entire region.

My enemy’s enemy is my friend. No wonder Israel and Saudi Arabia have got closer together than at any time since the former was established seventy years ago. Top Israeli officials have repeatedly hinted at the existence of intelligence links between the two countries. There have also been rumors about Israeli sales to the Saudis (by way of South Africa) of anti-missile technology; it may be no accident that, each time the Saudis intercept a Houthi missile fired at them, the news is prominently displayed in Israel. Other rumors point to the possibility that, should Israel decide to strike at Iran’s nuclear program, its aircraft will be allowed to make use of Saudi air space.

A letter sent by the Israeli foreign ministry to its representatives abroad, written in Hebrew and leaked to the media, instructs them to do what they can to help the Saudis in Yemen. All that explains, among other things, why Israel did not raise any difficulties when Germany sold 200 tanks to the Saudis back in 2011. Also, why it did not oppose the transfer of some small islands in the Straits of Sharm al Sheik from Egyptian to Saudi Arabian sovereignty in 2017. In trying to prevent Iran from establishing itself in Syria, Israel and Saudi Arabia have found themselves fighting on the same side.

Sildenafil citrate is a typical type of chemical which prevents PDE-5 enzyme flowing in pfizer viagra for sale the blood and allow another enzyme i.e. cGMP to be more enjoying and satisfying. It is the same as the normal levitra canada price medicine in terms of new medical real estate improvement. If they fail in cheapest viagra doing so, then the motor may get dysfunctional at a short term. Kamagra jelly has been an excellent treatment since it is designed specifically for those who need progressive recovery options or order viagra usa http://cute-n-tiny.com/tag/corgi/ with very serious conditions. Partly because they are afraid of Iran, partly because they think they can see the age of oil coming to an end, and partly because of internal tensions between the country’s old elite and its growing young population, the Saudis have engaged on a thoroughgoing series of reforms. Including, if all goes well, the privatization of the economy; the construction of a huge new scientific-industrial complex on the Red Sea; a relaxation of religious discipline and the opening of the country to tourism; and, not least, changes in the status of women designed to create the impression that the country is indeed trying to join the modern world.

At first sight, improved relations with Israel, aided and abetted by the United States, would fit well into the new Saudi Arabia that the latter’s de facto ruler, Mohammed Bin Salman, is trying to build. Certainly they mark a great improvement on the time when Jews, even such as were citizens of allied countries, were not admitted into the Kingdom. And when US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, though allowed to enter, had a copy of the Protocol of the Elders of Zion presented to him by King Faisal. However, there are complications. First there is the question of Jerusalem, Islam’s second most holy city which the Saudis cannot simply put aside. Second is that of the Palestinians who have now been living under Israeli occupation for fifty-one years, no less.

Recent Saudi pronouncements on the matter, such as the one by Bin Salman that Israel has the right to exist and by his father that the two countries have some common interests, appear to be seriously meant, at least at the moment. Assuming this is so, they are welcome in Jerusalem, Washington DC, and many other capitals as well. However, be warned. A change of government in Riad, or else a Saudi attempt to acquire nuclear weapons, may still lead to a change of heart on either side.

In the turbulent Middle East, anything is possible.

Nemesis

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The name Enoch Powell is unlikely to strike a chord with most of those who are under sixty years old. Yet at the time I took my PhD in London (1969-71) he was all over, frequently appearing on TV (“the telly,” as people used to call it), radio, and the papers. Today it pleases me to write a few lines about him. My reasons for doing so will become clear by and by.

Enoch Powell was born at Stechford, a borough of the city of Birmingham, in 1912. The family was lower middle class; his father, Albert, was an elementary schoolteacher, his mother Ellen, a housewife. Their somewhat constrained economic circumstances did not prevent Enoch from receiving a first class education, first at home—it is said that by the age of three, he could already read fairly well—and later at various grammar schools. Typical of the age, the most important part of the curriculum was formed by the classics, especially ancient Greek (a thorough mastery of Latin was considered self-evident) in which Powell soon revealed himself as a real prodigy. Later, at Cambridge, he not only received the highest possible, and extremely rare, grades but added German, modern Greek, Portuguese, Welsh, Urdu, and Russian.

In 1937 Powell, having completed his studies, went to Australia where, employed at the University of Sydney, he became the youngest professor in the entire Commonwealth. From there he sent letters to his parents expressing his disgust at Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s “terrible exhibition of dishonor, weakness and gullibility” in his attempts to appease Hitler. “The depths of infamy,” he added, “to which our accurst ‘love of peace’ can lower us are unfathomable.”

Returning to England as soon as World War II broke out, Powell joined the army which appreciated his linguistic skills and put him into its intelligence service. By the time he got out in 1945 he was a brigadier general, the youngest in the entire service. Entering politics, he was elected to Parliament as a conservative member, making several speeches against Constitutional changes which, the way he saw it, were slowly but surely leading to the breakup of the British Commonwealth and of Britain itself. He wore his immense learning lightly; his measured, eloquent and, above all, extremely clear delivery—I remember watching him on TV—soon turned him into a star performer. Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s he occupied a variety of senior positions, reaching the peak of his career in 1962 when he was appointed Secretary of Health under Harold Macmillan. This post he occupied until 1964 when Labor under Harold Wilson won the elections, pushing the Conservatives into the opposition. In 1965 the Conservative leader Edward Heath appointed him shadow Secretary of State for Defense.

So, the possibility of a rupture of the bursa or a tear of one of the several medicines that people can discover in the market in cheap. tab viagra 100mg Opioid abuse, an all pervasive malady Opioid free cheap viagra misuse and abuse has pushed the United States into such a crisis that it has ultimately taken the form of an epidemic. Branded firms offer their medicines at a high cost to recover its investment and earn sale of sildenafil tablets profit. These days, male erectile issue is becoming a common problem for men, the demand and need for ED pills have grown viagra professional price over the years. It was during his time in the opposition that Powell first started drawing national attention by pointing out the danger of unrestricted immigration from Commonwealth countries. Especially Kenya which, over the previous few decades, had become home to many Indians and Pakistanis. Discriminated against and oppressed by the country’s new African rules, the people in question sought refuge in Britain. At the time I was living in Kilburn, a relatively poor neighborhood in northwestern London where I often encountered them. On one hand there were the Indians who set up small neighborhood shops and, by working themselves and their families very hard indeed, started their way up the social ladder. Contrasting with them were bands of young Moslems who, the papers said, were sometimes subject to what was popularly known as Paki-bashing.

It was a year or so before my arrival, on 20 April 1968, that Powell gave the speech for which he will forever be remembered:

As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood’ [referring to the Sybil in Virgil’s Aeneid]. That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the 20th century. Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now.

The reaction, both in Parliament and in the media, can be imagined. The day after he held the speech Heath, as leader of the opposition, took Powell’s post as shadow minister of defense away from him. The same Heath, however, later admitted, in private, that Powell might have been “prescient.” He remained a member of Parliament until 1987, but was never again offered a cabinet post. From then to the present, in spite of warnings more numerous than the stars in the sky, no British government has dared taking the “resolute and urgent action” required. Instead, it contented itself by inventing reasons why such action was not required.

And now, feeling abandoned to their fate, some of Britain’s people are beginning to take matters into their own hands.

At War for Aleppo

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For those of you who have forgotten, Syria’s civil war, which broke out in May 2011, reached Aleppo in July 2012. That was when the rebels, comprising a loose coalition of militias (at last count there were several dozens of them, some religious, others secular) entered Syria’s largest the city, estimated population three million, from the northeast. This caused it to be divided into two: an eastern part under rebel control and a western one held by government troops. That is how things remain down to the present, albeit that the militias have lost some ground and the government has gained some.

In the autumn of 2015 Russia, which up until then had been providing the Syrian Army with weapons and logistic support, joined in the fighting. Since then its combat aircraft and cruise missiles, including some of the world’s most sophisticated, have been hitting Aleppo (and other targets, but those do not concern us here) almost non-stop. In doing so they were joined by Syrian helicopters dropping their notorious barrel bombs. The total number of strikes of both kinds has been in the many hundreds, perhaps in the thousands.

helicopter-carrying-barrel-bombsThroughout the period in question, and indeed right from the beginning of the conflict, the rebels on their part did not possess a single weapon or weapon system capable of contesting their enemies’ near total command of the air. Even their anti-aircraft defenses, the kind that back in Afghanistan during the 1980s were said to have played a critical role in forcing the Soviets to concede defeat, were practically non-existent. Or else surely Assad would have had to withdraw his helicopters, which as weapons go are in many ways exceptionally vulnerable, months it not years ago. Just look at the above image!

Not only were the rebels almost totally exposed to air attack, but at no time during the five-plus years that the conflict has lasted were they united under a single command capable of formulating a coherent strategy and carrying it out. Indeed one reason why the government has been able to survive at all is because, in addition to periodically butchering each other, they also had ISIS, coming at them from across the Iraqi border, to cope with. Not to mention Syria’s Kurds many of whom saw the war as an opportunity to rid the provinces in which they live from Damascus’ rule and set up their own militias. Facing the government forces and their Russian allies, basically all the rebels in Aleppo can do is take cover and hold out.

Whenever Western armed forces lose a war in the “developing” world, as they have regularly done for the last six decades or so, there is no lack of excuses and explanations. Here I want to focus on the kind of excuse that attributes the defeats to “Western values,” or “humanitarianism,” or “democracy,” or the “media.” Briefly the factors that allegedly made the troops fight “with one (or two) hands tied behind their back” and prevented them from “kicking ass.” See the American wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Vietnam. And see so many others, specifically including the Israeli ones in Lebanon in 1982 and, to a lesser extent in 2006, as to make one lose count.

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Yet none of these factors apply in Syria. Neither President Assad nor his patron Putin are Western, humanitarian, or democratic. Neither allows the media to operate freely in their respective countries so as to influence public opinion against the war, let alone interfere with military operations. Neither gives a hoot about the death and destruction their forces are inflicting on civilians; which is one reason why the latest estimates speak of half a million dead, more or less.

So why are Putin and Assad unable to recapture Aleppo, let alone the rest of the country, and how were the militias able to hold on? To use the terminology I first developed in The Transformation of War (1991), the war in Syria is a classical “nontrinitarian” one. That means that, on one side (the rebels) “government,” armed forces are not separate but thoroughly mixed so that distinguishing between them is often all but impossible. In this respect it resembles plenty of others. One characteristic that all these wars, without a single exception, had in common was that the “forces of order,” or “counterinsurgents,” or whatever they were called, had control of the air. Albeit that it was not always as absolute as it seems to be in Syria. Yet in not one of these wars did airpower on its own decide the issue, and in many cases it was unable to prevent dire defeat.

Bombing defenseless civilians in Aleppo is easy. But hitting the fighters who conceal themselves among them is very hard. To repeat, the Russian Air Force in Syria is using some of its most advanced weapons, specifically including the latest “precision-guided” munitions in its arsenal. Yet in the end those weapons too are unable to distinguish between civilians and the combatants with whom they share the same neighborhoods, the same streets, and often, the same buildings. That explains why, by some estimates, out of every hundred people killed by Russian and Syrian government forces in Aleppo only one is a militiaman.

Nor will even more bombing necessarily do the trick. As experience from Stalingrad, Monte Casino, and many other places proves, cities and buildings provide those who know how to fight in them with the best cover imaginable. Should they, the cities and the buildings, be thoroughly destroyed, then the only result will be to make them provide better cover still.

And when will America’s campaign in Afghanistan, started fourteen years ago and now conducted almost exclusively from the air against an enemy who is all but defenseless in that medium, finally end in victory?

Guest Article: Eritrea’s Journey From Soldier State To Pauper State

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by Miguel Miranda*

A glaring problem of our insulated consumer-driven society—the kind found wherever a solid middle class has taken hold—is it leaves people aloof and rather ignorant of how modern states are built.

Indeed, they need to be built. Whether erected from the ruins of war or assembled from disparate territories and then organized along lines that benefit its rulers.

Simply put, the rise of states and their armies are simultaneous phenomena essential to civilization as we know it. This led to the modern state that brought industrialized warfare to its peak. Today’s anxious global peace, where no world wars are taking place but so-called “low intensity conflicts” are common, is an achievement of hegemonic modern states.

Warfare as the ultimate tool for creating a state is practiced universally. This bloody effort applies to the United States of America, the whole of Latin America, my own country (the Philippines in 1897 and 1946), certainly to Israel, the up-and-coming world power China, as well as much of the developing world from Bosnia to Bangladesh.

Let’s not forget Eritrea. Aside from its picturesque geography it’s the Horn of Africa’s leading miscreant prone to North Korean fits of belligerence.

In the 1890s Italy conquered Eritrea and fashioned it into a colonial jewel along the Red Sea. Its hardy people, a patchwork of ethnicities, were organized into an administration and army.

The land called Eritrea was never supposed to be its own country, independent and sovereign. The United Nations made sure of this in 1952 when it ceded the territory to Ethiopia, one of Africa’s oldest insular countries with a long imperial tradition.

From the very beginning Ethiopia’s conduct along its northern frontier was fraught with oppression much worse than the Italians, who at least gave the Eritreans a composite national identity.

First under the aging Haile Selassie and then the socialist Derg the Eritreans were forced to abandon their local languages and customs. Open rebellion erupted soon after.

The long struggle to emancipate Eritrea was a strange one. It was completely out of touch with the Cold War and had few proxies, if none at all. Remarkably, the only evidence that the Eritreans received outside support was when the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson visited Eritrean Marxists in 1977 for paramilitary training. He was a young man then and soon left because of health issues.

After four decades of classic guerilla warfare against a ruthless adversary Eritrean forces seized Asmara and made it their capital when independence was declared on April 27, 1993. As for Ethiopia…it collapsed into civil war and remained a one-party third world basket case until Chinese foreign investment triggered its ongoing economic boom.

It was at that exact moment of triumph in 1993, however, that things began to unravel for the Eritreans. The former guerilla leader Isaias Afewerki, now a conquering warlord, assumed the role of dictator. His administration was the left-leaning People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), which began as a coalition of rebel groups in the bad old independence war days.

Given the benefit of hindsight, the nation building the PFDJ undertook in the 1990s was idiotic. Eritrea is a coastal nation at the mouth of the Red Sea that’s also a major international shipping route. It has large and wealthy commodity-rich neighbors such as Sudan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Instead of opening to the world, Eritrea hunkered down and settled on a command economy focused on ambiguous national “self-reliance” at a time when this approach was a recipe for disaster.

Following a bloody war against Ethiopia, which lasted from 1999 to 2000 and which killed 100,000 on both sides, Eritrea kept its armed forces fully mobilized. Worse still, the iron hand of authoritarianism blighted its citizens. How the Eritrean state actually functioned from this point onward is difficult to explain. However, with a growing population (now several million strong) and no significant industries or agricultural sector it began to languish.

Here’s the CIA World Factbook putting it nicely: “…Eritrea has faced many economic problems, including lack of resources and chronic drought, which have been exacerbated by restrictive economic policies.”

The Afewerki regime and its paranoia maintained Africa’s second-largest armed forces, allegedly 250,000-strong, equipped with leftover Eastern Bloc armaments, as well as a domestic security apparatus. What for? By 2014 the UN reported that 4,000 Eritreans were fleeing the country each month for Europe and the Middle East.

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At a time when globalization is allowing vast streams of capital to reach the developing world, the so-called “emerging markets,” Eritrea has missed the boat. The only semblance of a functional economy is a thriving black market and government-sponsored arms smuggling.

Instead of erecting attractive infrastructure (the Dubai approach) or creating business parks for outsourced factories (the Vietnam approach) Eritrea is feuding with its immediate neighbors Ethiopia (the arch-enemy), Djibouti, and Somalia. The Afewerki regime doesn’t seem to have any plans for the long-term other than perpetuate itself—not surprising, really.

Not even NGOs are spared and these groups have been outlawed since 2006.

Poor and isolated, Eritrea is now allowing Israel, Iran, and Saudi Arabia to run military facilities in exchange for unspecified aid. It’s also using the 18th century Hesse-Kassel model of exporting its soldiers—unconfirmed reports claim they’re being hired as mercenaries by the Saudis to fight in Yemen.

In 2015 the country was ravaged by drought.

Where did Eritrea go wrong?

Judging by the trajectories of failed states in the 20th century there are five outcomes for Eritrea in the near future.

  1. Regime change and democratic reformation.
  2. Whither away and collapse like East Germany.
  3. Become an aid-dependent hermit kingdom like North Korea that’s targeted for regime change.
  4. Break apart amid civil strife like Syria.
  5. Eventually be defeated and occupied by Ethiopia in a future war.

Students and scholars of the modern state have much to learn from the Eritrean experience. The simple lesson here is the military institution alone, while vital, doesn’t complete a country.

*Miguel Miranda is a writer based in the Philippines. He’s the founder of 21st Century Asian Arms Race (21AAR). It’s a website that follows commerce in modern weapon systems and their impact on ongoing wars and crises across the Eurasian landmass.

Guest Article – Sliding Towards Civil War?

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Europe: Sliding Towards Civil War?

by Renzo Verwer*

Day by day, thousands of asylum-seekers from Africa and the Middle East are entering the EU in search of their Promised Land. Germany alone expects 750,000 in 2015. Over the first half of 2015 the EU has admitted 400,000. This foreshadows a great increase over the figure for the whole of 2014, which stood at 562,265. To be sure, not all these people will be allowed to stay. Far from it. But many will remain, legally or not.

fighting-chimpanzee-bonobo-pan-paniscus-democratic-republic-congo-africa-36707241As any child can understand, this vast inflow, both legal and illegal, will necessarily have consequences for European society. Yet quite a few European leaders claim that nothing will change. Or even that immigration will have a positive effect on the society in question; for instance, by providing industry with labor. Not so. First, the fact is that each immigrant costs the country in which he or she chooses to settle tens of thousands of Euro a year. Second, their arrival often means that religious and ethnic tensions start being imported. Having seen how these things developed in an Amsterdam flat shared by Ethiopians and Eritreans, I can bear personal witness to this problem. Not nice; not at all.

Take a look at the following piece of news, originating in a mall Dutch village blessed by a center for immigrants in search of refugee status (http://www.nrcreader.nl/artikel/9622/in-oranje-ben-je-voor-of-tegen-de-asielzoekers: in Dutch).

A fascinating quote: “Feije handles the money. Angela [Feije’s wife] has stopped doing so. ‘As a woman, a group of Arab inhabitants did not accept me. They did not want to give me money.’

‘That is not how we would like to run our shop,’ says Feije. “This is the Netherlands.’ ‘But here is no point in trying to resist,’ says Angela. ‘We have switched roles. Now it is I who do the administrative work, order merchandise, and look for suppliers. Soon we shall start selling toys too.’ They must change, so as to make a living.”

Is this kind of discrimination legal in the Netherlands? In Europe? If not, where is the police? The United Nations, which is always busily fighting Islamophobia, does not say a word. Nor does anybody else. Feije and Angela have accepted the new situation. When I raise the question among anti-discrimination groups on Facebook, or among self-styled opponents of discrimination, many of them—even women—answer by saying: “Yes, the Christian Church did not believe in women’s equality either.” Discrimination used to be prevalent in the past. Ergo it is OK now.

European customs have already started changing. For the better? What do you say?

Or take a look at the following pieces of news:

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/16/europe/italy-migrants-christians-thrown-overboard/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3229134/Syrian-ISIS-suspect-sleeping-rough-Calais-refugee-camps-hope-sneaking-UK-wage-terror.html

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Life in the refugee camp “jungle” near Calais is hell. Muslims who convert do so at the risk of their lives. Muslims look down on blacks. Those responsible for running the camp are considering separating people of both sexes as well as those belonging to different religions. In other words, we are importing apartheid and social regression. Europe’s key values, such as women’s emancipation and religious freedom, are being thrown overboard.

Conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims (in which the Muslims are often the aggressors) have become part of daily reality. People who oppose immigration and the emergent multicultural society are often called xenophobes and/or racists. The Dutch liberal MP, Alexander Pechold, whose party came second in the polls, has said of them: “What can one do? Some people just cannot take a little fresh air.” The comment is both depreciating and coarse. To believe him and his fellow liberals, the terrifying monster is not IS. No; it is the media and the “extreme right.”

As to officialdom, its “strategy” is to deny reality. In every clash it is the unbelievers who must retreat, the Muslims who win. And the more Muslims enter the Continent, the more true this becomes.

I often think we have already missed the boat. Civil war in Europe cannot be ruled out—even though most of us feel things will not reach that point anytime soon. My own Dutch countrymen are naïve beyond belief. Over a decade after the murder, at the hands of a muslim fanatic, of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh, and politician Pim Fortuyn by an activist, both politicians and ordinary citizens are still astonished by the fact that “here in the Netherlands, such things can happen!”

Tensions between Kurds and Turks, Jews and Muslims, are growing. Many of our people reject our incompetent governments or even despise them. Social life is becoming more and more troubled. As history teaches us, these are just the factors that lead to civil war. In our great cities religious fanaticism and ethnic conflicts are becoming part of daily life. You can see it happening in the suburbs of Paris. And in those of Amsterdam where Muslims are demanding segregated swimming lessons and Jewish schools are being protected by the police.

No, disturbances will not break out in all places at once. Certain parts of the country will surely be spared, more or less. But I think that, 10-25 years from now, the pot will start boiling. Civil war will force people to choose sides… to look away… to fight… to resist… and become friends with farmers, of course.

Civil War is something we in the Netherlands can hardly imagine. Think of armed ethnic and/or religious gangs fighting each other in the streets. Of difficulties with the supply and distribution of goods. Of states within states. Of no-go areas and police forces which refuse to enter certain neighborhoods. Of bands of street fighters robbing, beating up, and killing people just as they please. In particular, being Jewish will not be fun.

And terrible things, things we do not even dare think about, will happen. Those who collaborate with the stronger side will survive. My advice to you good Europeans: accept discrimination against women and start hating Jews. And agree that your Western tradition is in urgent need of modification. Be nice to Muslims, and everything will turn out OK.

It is high time we started thinking whom it is that we admit. Not all refugees are “miserable.” They include a great many assholes as well as people who do not belong here at all.

Or else the day will come when Europe as we know it is gone.

* Renzo Verwer (Woerden, the Netherlands, 1972) is an author and a dealer in antiquities. He has published books about love, work, and the chess master Bobby Fischer. His most recent one (in Dutch) is titled Freedom of Thought for Beginners. His website is www.artikelzeven.nu