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A Glimpse of Future War among Great Powers

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[A propos of Hiroshima’s 75th anniversary)]

Guest Article

By

William S. Lind

Several weeks ago, the world got a glimpse of what future war will look like among Great Powers. The weapons were rocks and clubs.
Indian and Chinese troops battled each other over worthless ground along their undefined border high in the Himalayas. It was a classic case of two bald men fighting over a comb. But at least 20 Indian soldiers died, along with an unknown number of Chinese.
What is interesting about this skirmish is the weapons employed. Both India and China have sizable arsenals of modern weapons. They employed none of them. Instead, they fought with rocks and clubs.
It helps acheter viagra pfizer to balance sexual hormones in women and also make sex hormones. Half of the participants in the study were overweight, while buy discount cialis half of them had a history of heart attack. Try not to merge two dissimilar drugs free samples viagra together at a time. The benefits of commander viagra are enumerated below Improved potency Improved sexual activity Increased blood flow in penis Erection for a longer period Because of the presence of conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. I find the deafening silence over this choice of weapons, including from the U.S. military, to be interesting. It certainly should draw the attention of anyone who studies where war may be going. Why did such a bizarre scenario unfold? Because both countries have nuclear weapons.
It is probably true that neither India nor China wants a war at this point. But what limited both countries’ soldiers to the weapons of cavemen was something with general import: so terrifying is the prospect of nuclear war to anyone threatened with it that governments are willing, even eager, to go to seemingly ridiculous lengths to prevent it.
Prevention begins with avoiding the escalatory ladder. And that is what led to a fight with rocks and clubs. Both countries rightly feared that if they went to the weapons of, let’s say Sung dynasty China or Moghul India, they would set foot on that ladder. So rocks and clubs it had to be. Even a battle with those so alarmed Beijing and New Delhi that they quickly sought to settle the dispute diplomatically. Many weapons have claimed the title of “the Peacemaker”, but nuclear weapons actually deserve it.
This offers us a look at what war between other nuclear powers, let’s say the U.S. and China, might be like. The driving consideration for both countries’ leadership would be avoiding escalation. Since any confrontation would probably be a sea and air war, it might look something like the Cod Wars between Britain and Iceland. Ships might ram each other (not too hard). Water cannon might be employed. Chinese sailors might throw bao at American crews, who would volley back hamburgers in return (the Americans would end up with the better lunch). Fighter aircraft might engage, at least to the point of seeing who was better at staying on the other guy’s six. Would they shoot? If they did, both capitals would be frantic, trying to de-escalate.
Since both countries now have obesity problems among their youth, my proposal for an escalation-safe war would be vast eating and drinking matches between their respective ships’ and aircrafts’ crews. Just imagine what the Navy PFT might look like! It would do wonders for qualifying recruits. Join the Navy and become the world!
The really funny thing here is that both the U.S. and China are spending vast sums buying weapons and generating forces for a conventional war. That is not going to happen, barring outright insanity in both capitals at the same time. Unless the inmates are running the asylum, both countries will seek to de-escalate rapidly from any accidental clash that might occur (things can happen; remember the War of Jenkins’ Ear). Rules of engagement would quickly be established that would take both sides back to rocks and clubs, as India and China had already done.
The fact is, the whole China Scare is a sham, at least as far as a shooting war is concerned (our economic conflict is real, as President Trump understands). It’s one more con job on the American people, intended to keep the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex rolling in dough. When the massive defense budget cuts hit, which they soon will, remember my suggestion; let both countries’ navies roll in real dough. That we may still be able to afford.

* 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 8 July.2020.

Guest Article: The Suicide of the Left

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By

William S. Lind

The cultural Marxists think they are riding high.  Thousands of kids are demonstrating for “Black Lives Matter”.  The Left’s long-running war on police is surging as panicked politicians throw the cops under the bus.  Not only Confederate war memorials but those to Union forces as well, along with the World War ll memorial in the Washington mall, are desecrated.  A commune is declared in a six-block area in Seattle.  Anyone in the Establishment who offends in the slightest, most trivial way against Political Correctness is off to the guillotine.  The Terror is again in full swing and the Jacobins are elated.

What is really happening here is not the triumph of the Left, but its suicide.

As I wrote in my last column, the young demonstrators are out there just to be out there, after two months of confinement, “social distancing”, masks, etc. have left them bored out of their skulls.  Their commitment to “Black Lives Matter” (except to other blacks, who kill each other like flies) is a mile wide and an inch deep.  The “cause” could as easily be vegetable rights, Save the Cockroaches, or banning discrimination against bovine flatulence.  Anything that justifies their getting together in large numbers and making trouble works for them.

As the Left gives ordinary Americans a choice between the cops and the vandals, looters, and arsonists who have destroyed small businesses in too many of our cities, the people are lining up with the police.  Here in Cleveland the anger over the destruction on Euclid Avenue in the heart of our downtown is deep and lasting.  People had put their lives into building those businesses and restaurants and now they have to start over.

If you want to make people fight, there are few better ways than attacking their ancestors and war memorials.  The Left will find Confederate flags flying more places, not fewer.  I hope southern towns and rural areas will start erecting new Confederate memorials as the Left vandalizes old ones.  There are plenty of Confederate reenactors who would be delighted to defend statues honoring their ancestors, perhaps with some brass 12-pounder Napoleons loaded with grape.

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What we are witnessing here is the Brinton Thesis in action within the Left.  The Brinton Thesis, created by historian Crane Brinton based on his study of the French Revolution, says that revolutions move in a series of coups leading ever-farther to the extreme until the coup of Thermidor brings it all back to the center.  He was looking at countries as a whole, but in this case his thesis can be applied internally to the Left.  (Now you know why in my photo, I’m dining on Lobster Thermidor.)

In America as a whole, I think the reaction will go far beyond a return to the center.  In response to the cultural Marxists’ threat to the majority’s culture and its freedom of thought and expression, we are likely to see a massive shift to the Right.  When reality returns, it will come in a tsunami.

I fear the blacks may bear the brunt of the reaction.  The cultural Marxists are using the blacks as weapons against whites, much the way Reconstruction in the South after the Civil War used local blacks against whites.  That poisoned race relations in the South for a century.  I don’t want to see the same thing happen nationwide now.  Most blacks just want to live normal, middle-class lives.

The irony is that cultural Marxists, who pretend to be black’s “advocates”, did the black urban community in this country more damage than Simon Legree and Senator Bilbo put together.  It was cultural Marxism that, from the 1960s onward, preached a culture of instant sensual gratification in books such as Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization.  In college, white kids “did their own thing”, then got MBAs and law degrees and went to work on Wall Street.  In the ghetto, blacks just kept on doing it, creating the widespread moral and cultural collapse we now witness in our black inner cities. 

The real enemy of whites and blacks alike is cultural Marxism.  I hope the day comes when we unite to fight it.

* 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 22.6.2020.

Guest Article: Lessons for America from COVID-19.

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By

Larry Kummer*

Summary: A crisis strips away the pretense and reputations to shows a nation’s true self. COVID-19 revealed two stories about America. First, how the nation best prepared in January became one of the worst affected. Second, how our reaction to this showed America’s senescence. That is, we have become the equivalent of a cranky old guy – dysfunctional but certain that others cause all his problems. Perhaps it will help ignite a spirit of reform.

America at the beginning of the pandemic

“Obviously you need to take it seriously and do the kinds of things that the CDC and the Department of Homeland Security are doing. But this is not a major threat to the people in the United States, and this is not something that the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about.”
— Dr. Anthony Fauci on Newsmax, January 21.

That day the first case in the US was confirmed and immediately isolated. Then the CDC activated its Emergency Response System and deployed a team to Washington. Read the transcript of the press conference with health officials of the CDC and Washington State. They were confident that everything necessary was being done. This was also the consensus of US health care experts at that time (e.g., on January 21 by Vanderbilt professor William Schaffner, on February 8 by USC professor David Agus).

Were Fauci and others right, based on available information?

This post described America’s large (and expensive) preparations for an epidemic, including stockpiles of drugs and equipment. Several simulations tested America’s preparations for an epidemic – producing useful recommendations (e.g., Dark Winter in 2001, Crimson Contagion in 2019). A 2016 report on America’s response to Ebola also gave valuable recommendations.

We have the largest and most sophisticated health care system in the world. Not just our large number of ICU beds and high-tech devices per capita), but also of talent and infrastructure in the health sciences. Also, in 2009 the USAID began the PREDICT program to monitor zoonotic infectious diseases around the world (capable of jumping from animals to humans) to help provide early warning of pandemics.

The 2019 Global Health Security Index calculated that America was by far the nation best prepared for an epidemic. Statista wrote more about this on 28 February 2020. Also see “The Countries Best Prepared To Deal With A Pandemic” by Niall McCarthy at Statista, October 2019.

Plus, we had two months to mobilize our material resources and people. WHO gave early warnings (see page 2 of this), and CDC accordingly quickly responded. On January 6, the CDC issued a travel watch at Level 1 for China. On January 7, the CDC established a 2019-nCoV Incident Management group. On January 8, The CDC began alerting clinicians to watch for patients with respiratory symptoms and a history of travel to Wuhan. On January 15, a leading scientist at the CDC assured local and state public health officials “that there would soon be a test.” On January 17, the CDC issued an updated interim Health Alert Notice (HAN) Advisory to inform state and local health departments and health care providers about this outbreak and begin screening of passengers on flights from Wuhan to five major US airports. On January 31, the Trump administration announced that they were blocking the entry of Chinese nationals and requiring mandatory quarantines on US citizens returned in affected parts of China (this was widely mocked as panicky and foolish).

On January 29, Trump formed the White House Coronavirus Task Force. On February 26, Trump announced that VP Pence was “in charge.”

See my summary timeline and the larger one at Wikipedia. Fauci’s optimism on January 21, and that of other health care officials and experts in the next two weeks, was reasonable.

What went wrong?

Yet all this early action was followed by epic inaction and mistakes by Federal agencies through late March. These stories are now well known.

“As early indications of China’s coronavirus outbreak emerged in late December, the Trump administration notified Congress it would still follow through with its plan to shutter a US Agency for International Development surveillance program tasked with detecting new, potentially dangerous infectious diseases and helping foreign labs stop emerging pandemic threats around the world.” (From CNN.)

Little effort was made to screen people at our borders. Screening at airports of people from hot spots was grossly inadequate – usually none. There are reports that the Diamond Princess’ passengers were quarantined at Travis by people inadequately trained and equipped (details here).

There was no planning for a large epidemic by Federal and State health agencies. There was not even good coordination among the many Federal and State health care agencies, all running business-as-usual in their bureaucratic orbits until mid-March.

There was no mobilization of America’s vast resources of medical personnel, inventories of medical equipment, and manufacturing.

The FDA and CDC totally screwed up the provision of desperately needed tests (see a WaPo article about this sad story). As late as March 16, the CDC and FDA are announcing there is an inadequate supply of reagents used in the tests, a bottleneck that should have been recognized in January. This is inexcusable, since the rest of the world has run hundreds of thousands of tests by now.

It was quickly apparent that only forced quarantines (not absurd “self-quarantines) and cordons sanitaire are the most effective containment methods. China proved their effectiveness. Yet the US government made little of them, allowing hot spots to form and the virus to spread from these across the nation. So they used lock-downs, with their devastating effect on the economy.

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From the start, Trump’s statements have varied from calls to war against COVID-19 to saying its little more than the flu (even as late as March 9). See this “Timeline: Trump’s efforts to downplay the coronavirus threat.” Also see the Trump’s many factually false statements about COVID-19 (e.g., this list) and the warnings from his experts that he ignored. I showed these quotes to a brilliant conservative with long experience in government service. His reply: “fake news.” This is America, where only tribal truths are seen.

Much of the Right followed his lead. For example, see this about coverage by Fox News. Also this article putting Fox News’ coverage in a larger context: “The network has conditioned its viewers to hate experts and to trust miracle cures for 25 years.”

This lack of leadership from the President and VP had ill effects at all levels of America. Federal agencies were slow to mobilize. Key responses were an uncoordinated mess by State governments.

To demonstrate that this senescence affects the full US political leadership – not just Republicans – Biden and Sanders (Trump’s equally elderly challengers) were dormant, and the Democrats fought the epidemic riding their hobbyhorses of racism and climate change.

Without strong support for experts from US leaders, the public fell prey to rumors and misinformation. Many quickly turned to amateurs for information – so that the most ignorant and boldest claims dominated. See this debunking of a nonsensical theory by a right-wing historian cosplaying an epidemiologist: bogus but went “viral” anyway. For more examples, see The info superhighway makes us stupid about COVID-19). This inevitably leading to panic. As with the hysteria about masks. WHO and CDC said that the general public should not use masks unless required (e.g., when caring for someone infected) while medical personnel lacked them (e.g. see this statement). Rabble-rousing hysterics screamed that experts at CDC and WHO were lying about masks and putting us in danger!

The US was slow to provide funds for a global response. Worse, we seized vital medical supplies manufactured here purchased by our allies – while triumphantly concluding that nations were foolish to rely on China for vital medical supplies. They will not soon forget this. See Canada’s reaction here and here. A German minister condemned as “piracy” the US seizure of masks going to Berlin. Rather than a leader of a coordinated response of the West, Americans attempted to outbid France for masks already loaded on a plane for export from China.

This may be another step in the world seeing America differently, as described by Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, in Foreign Affairs.

“Just as consequential as U.S. policy choices is the power of America’s example. Long before COVID-19 ravaged the earth, there had already been a precipitous decline in the appeal of the American model. Thanks to persistent political gridlock, gun violence, the mismanagement that led to the 2008 global financial crisis, the opioid epidemic, and more, what America represented grew increasingly unattractive to many. The federal government’s slow, incoherent, and all too often ineffective response to the pandemic will reinforce the already widespread view that the United States has lost its way.”

A competent response: Germany

Many nations competently responded. For example, we could have learned much from the successful responses by East Asian nations. And we could learn from Germany. NYT describes their success as “The German Exception.,” with this summary by Professor Kräusslich.

“Maybe our biggest strength in Germany is the rational decision-making at the highest level of government combined with the trust the government enjoys in the population.“

China: first hit, its success copied by others

On March 10, China closed the last of its 16 temporary hospitals in Wuhan. As I wrote on March 30, China is restarting – slowly, carefully – its economy. On April 7, China ended Wuhan’s 76 day lockdown. US media reported this mournfully (e.g., NYT and CBS), rather than as a success.

The more obvious the gap between their effective response and our clownshow, the stronger the need to create an Potemkin Village reality (easy since no matter how often our leaders lie, we believe what we are told). Right-thinking Americans know that all numbers by China are probably wrong. If more were infected than China reported, that means that their success was even larger – so their success must be doubted. Tell an American that there are many foreign observers in China confirming their approximate accuracy and see the incredulous response (after all, what about the Bamboo Curtain between China and the rest of the world).

American’s were told of that the response of China and WHO were terrible with no supporting evidence. Compare this timeline of China’s response to COVID-19 with the CDC’s timeline of the US response to the 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) epidemic – remembering that the US has almost 4x China’s per capita income and spends 2x to 3x more of its GDP on health care than its peer nations. We were told that the epidemic was China’s fault, for which it should be punished. Just as the 2009 Swine Flu epidemic emerged in the US and spread across the globe. There is also evidence that the first appearance of the H1N1 influenza virus in 1918 also originated in the US (details here and here). Whatever the source of the virus, we contributed to its spread (see “How {US} Generals Fueled 1918 Flu Pandemic To Win Their World War”).

As the clownish response by the US government became brutally obvious, the search for others to blame became more intense. Conservatives’ suspicion of international agencies was exploited to blame WHO. With its broad range of responsibilities and microscopic $4.2 billion budget, they blame it for not performing miracles. In the real world, WHO ably performed its primary roles as a global collector of information and coordinator of national responses.

All this probably will make impossible much effective learning from COVID-19 by America.

Conclusions

COVID-19 is a dress rehearsal for more serious crises that lie ahead. It has shown America’s senescence. Top to bottom, leaders to followers, nothing worked well. This makes our pretense of global leadership a sad joke, like somebody attempting to wear too-large shoes. If this decline continues, even our prosperity will be at risk.

Posted by permission of Larry Kummer, owner of the Fabius Maximus website.

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.

Arms and the Men

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The annual report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute—which in spite of its name, is a strategic studies think-tank much like the rest—makes fascinating reading. Between 1991 and 1998 global defense expenditure fell. Since then it has been rising slowly but steadily; until, calculated as a percentage of global output, it is now as high as it was during the last years of the Cold War. Much the greatest single spender is the U.S with $ 682 billion in 2013. Next come China (166 billion), Russia (91 billion), the UK (61 billion), Japan ($ 59 billion), France ($ 59 billion), Saudi Arabia (58 billion), India (46 billion), Germany (46 billion) and Italy (34 billion). Together these ten countries account for three quarters out of the global total of $ 1,756 billion. The rest is shared by the remaining 184.

Qualitatively speaking, the US remains in the lead. Outspending China 4.1:1, it is the only global power, unique in its ability to intervene anywhere it wants. America’s air force, navy, and network of command, control and communications are unrivalled. So are its capabilities in such critically important fields as intelligence, space warfare, electronic warfare, and cyberwarfare. However, there are problems. First, a considerable part of the US defense budget—as much as $ 100 billion in 2013 alone—has been wasted fighting useless, hopeless, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Second, as the national debt balloons, the budget is expected to shrink. These factors have caused US official doctrine to plan for just one regional war at a time, rather than two as used to be the case during the Clinton years. Judging by the recent refusal of Congress and people to intervene in Syria, indeed, it seems that America has lost its appetite for waging any war at all. By contrast, Chinese military spending has been rising and is expected to rise further still. Already today, calculating in terms of parity purchasing power, the difference between it and the U.S shrinks to 1:2.9.

The defense-related map of the world has also been changing. Throughout the Cold War the most heavily armed region was Europe, the “Central Theater,” as the Americans used to call it. It was there that both NATO and the Warsaw Pact concentrated their armies. The collapse of the Soviet Union ended that situation, causing the percentage of GDP most European countries spend on defense to go down. However, if trouble in Ukraine continues and spreads, then surely NATO’s East-European members will feel threatened. A considerable increase in European defense expenditure, aimed primarily at buying electronics, drones and anti-missile defenses, will become inevitable.

Much worse for Russia (and the world), should the Ukraine be engulfed by the war of all against all, as it well may, then Putin may have no option but to send in his forces. Militarily speaking, so weak is the Ukraine that Russia will have little trouble overrunning it. But what comes next? As the Soviet and American campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown only too vividly, in the modern world holding on to an occupied country is anything but simple. Just as the failure in Afghanistan contributed mightily to the disintegration of the Soviet Union, so failure to gain a fairly rapid and fairly bloodless victory in the Ukraine might have dramatic, even existential, consequences for Russia.

Another flashpoint is Southeast Asia. For the time being China is enjoying what may be the greatest economic boom in history. Aware that peace is vital for the continuation of that growth, it has been careful not to provoke is neighbors too much. It even seems content to rein in some of the more crazy initiatives of its North-Korean protégé and play down its long-standing conflict with Taiwan. On the other hand, growth has made it much more dependent on international trade. That explains why it has been building up its navy, including two small aircraft carriers. Beijing also has unresolved border disputes with most of the surrounding countries. Including, above all, the question of sovereignty over what it pleases to call the South China Sea and any riches it may contain. The outcome has been a re-shuffling of alliances and a great increase in defense spending all around.

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And how about the Middle East? In recent years, the region has been losing some of its importance. The main reason for this is that fact that, thanks to the discovery of vast gas reserves and new methods (“fracking”) for recovering both gas and oil, America’s dependence on the region is diminishing fast. Conversely fear of an American withdrawal explains the enormous Saudi figure. Yet the Saudis’ enemy, Iran, only spends about $ 6.3 billion (2012 figure) on defense. We may perhaps assume that these figures do not include either the Republican Guard or the nuclear program and that real spending is twice as high. Even so, the country is hardly the juggernaut it is often made out to be.

Finally, how about my own country, Israel? The country’s defense expenditure is around $ 16 billion per year. Whether that sum includes some 3 $ billion annually in US aid is not clear. Technologically Israel’s superiority over all its potential enemies is overwhelming. Even more important, over thirty peaceful years have passed since the Camp David Accords. Terrorism in Egypt seems to be under control, more or less. Shifting to Lebanon, Hezbollah was taught a lesson in 2006 and since then has shown little inclination to challenge Israel as it used to. The Syrians continue to butcher each other with the kind of ferocity only Arabs seem able to muster and, for the time being, represent no threat. Jordan resembles Egypt in that it is at peace with Israel and is not as unstable as many people have feared in the past. Iraq no longer exists. For all the bluster of its leaders Iran is much less of a threat than Mr. Netanyahu and others claim—on this, perhaps, in some future article.

All in all, and limited terrorism apart, Israel’s defense seems better assured than at almost any time in the country’s history. Unfortunately, as Israelis and Palestinians continue to hate each other and kill each other on occasion, the prospects for peace do not look good. The Palestinian Authority seems unable to accept an agreement that will not include provisions Israel cannot accept, including, above all, the so-called Right of Return. As for Israel, for almost half a century it has zig-zagged. Whenever things were quiet Jerusalem argued that there was no urgent need to negotiate. Whenever they were not it said that negotiations were impossible.

When, if ever, will the cycle be broken? Not under Netanyahu, whom many in Israel and abroad consider both a liar and a coward. Not under some eventual left-wing government which, barring some miracle, will be weak and ineffective. What is needed is a new Begin a new Sharon, a new Olmert even; but of them, there is no sign.