Happy Anniversary, My Blog

Posted on February 18, 2021 by Martin van Creveld

The first time on which this blog went online was on 9 April 2013 and has never missed a week since. Today’s post is number 250; time to celebrate, I think. My way of doing so will be to re-post a piece I first posted two years ago. Except for the first sentence, which I have deleted, word for word.

No, my site has not drawn very large numbers of readers and has not developed into the equivalent of the Huffington Post. And no, I do not do it for profit; though at times I was tempted by offers to open the site to advertising, in the end I rejected them all. As a result, never did I receive a single penny for all the work I have been doing (normally, about two hours per week). More, even: since I am not very computer literate, I rely on my stepson, Jonathan Lewy, to run the site for me. But for him it would not have been possible. So let me use this opportunity to thank him from the bottom of my heart.

What I have received and am receiving is feedback. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Some people have used the appropriate button on the site to say what they think of my work or simply in order to get in touch. Others suggested that they write for me or else responded to my request that they do so. Others still have asked, and received, my permission to repost my work on their own sites. A few have even taken the trouble to translate entire articles into their native languages. Except for a few yahoos who ranted and swore, almost all my contacts with the people in question, many of whom were initially complete strangers, have been courteous, informative, and thought-provoking. Thank you, again, from the bottom of my heart.

Most of the ideas behind my posts are derived from the media. Others have to do with my personal experiences; others still, such as the series on Pussycats, have to do with the research I am currently doing or else were suggested by various people. Perhaps most important of all, I often use my posts as what Nietzsche used to call Versuche. By that he meant attempts to clarify his thoughts and see where they may lead. The most popular posts have been those which dealt with political and military affairs. Followed by the ones on women and feminism, followed by everything else. Given my background and reputation as a longtime professor of military history and strategy, that is not surprising.

At one point I tried to enlist the aid of a friend to have the blog translated into Chinese and make my posts available in that language too. No luck; I soon learnt that the Great Chinese Firewall did not allow them to pass. Why that is, and whether my work has fallen victim to some kind of dragnet or has been specifically targeted I have no idea. Thinking about it, the former seems more likely; to the best of my knowledge I have never written anything against China. But one never knows.

That brings me to the real reason why I write: namely, to exercise my right to freedom of thought. And, by doing so, do my little bit towards protecting it and preserving it. My heroes are Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. The former because he has exposed a few of the less decent things—to put it mildly—out dearly beloved governments have been saying and doing in our name. The latter, because he has shown how vulnerable all of us are to Big Brother and called for reform. Both men have paid dearly for what they have done, which is another reason for trying to follow in their footsteps as best I can.

Freedom of speech is in trouble—and the only ones who do not know it are those who will soon find out. The idea of free speech is a recent one. It first emerged during the eighteenth century when Voltaire, the great French writer, said that while he might not agree with someone’s ideas he would fight to the utmost to protect that person’s right to express them. Like Assange and Snowden Voltaire paid the penalty, spending time in jail for his pains. Later, to prevent a recurrence, he went to live at Frenay, just a few hundred yards from Geneva. There he had a team or horses ready to carry him across the border should the need arise. Good for him.

To return to modern times, this is not the place to trace the stages by which freedom of speech was hemmed in in any detail. Looking back, it all started during the second half of the 1960s when it was forbidden to say, or think, or believe, that first blacks, then women, then gays, then transgender people, might in some ways be different from others. As time went on this prohibition came to be known as political correctness. Like an inkstain it spread, covering more and more domains and polluting them. This has now been carried to the point where anything that may offend anyone in some way is banned—with the result that, as Alan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind has shown, in many fields it has become almost impossible to say anything at all.
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Let me give you just one example of what I mean. Years ago, at my alma mater in Jerusalem, I taught a course on military history. The class consisted of foreign, mostly American, students. At one point I used the germ Gook. No sooner had the word left my mouth than a student rose and, accused me of racism. I did my best to explain that, by deliberately using the term, I did not mean to imply that, in my view, the Vietnamese were in any way inferior. To the contrary, I meant to express my admiration for them for having defeated the Americans who did think so. To no avail, of course.

And so it goes. When the Internet first appeared on the scene I, along with a great many other people, assumed that any attempt to limit freedom of speech had now been definitely defeated. Instead, the opposite is beginning to happen. Techniques such as “data mining” made their appearance, allowing anything anyone said about anything to be instantly monitored and recorded, forever. All over Europe, the thought police is in the process of being established. Sometimes it is corporations such as Facebook which, on pain of government intervention, are told to “clean up” their act by suppressing all kinds of speech or, at the very least, marking it as “offensive,” “untrue,” and “fake.” In others it is the governments themselves that take the bit between their teeth.

Regrettably, one of the governments which is doing so is that of the U.S. Naively, I hoped that Trump’s election would signify the beginning of the end of political correctness. Instead, he is even now trying to prevent people in- and out of the government from discussing such things as global warming and the need to preserve the environment. Not to mention his attacks on the media for, among other things, allegedly misreading the number of those who came up to witness his inauguration. Should this line continue and persist, then it will become imperative to do without him and go against him. Not because of what he has to say about both topics is necessarily wrong, but to ensure the right of others to think otherwise.

This won’t do. That is why I promise my readers, however few or many they may be, one thing: namely, to go on writing about anything I please and go on speaking the truth as I see it. The English poet W. H. (Wystan Huge) Auden, 1907-1973, might have been referring to blogging when he wrote:

I want a form that’s large enough to swim in,

And talk on any subject that I choose.

From natural scenery to men and women

Myself, the arts, the European news.

The Defeat

Posted on January 30, 2020 by Martin van Creveld

Why the President Trump’s plan for Palestine represents a resounding defeat for the Palestinians hardly requires an explanation. If—and a great if it is—the plan is ever implemented, they will not obtain the right to a fully sovereign, contiguous, territorial state. They will not obtain East Jerusalem as part of their territory, let alone as their capital; instead, the idea is to take a miserable township not far away and rename it, Al Quds.

And this is just the beginning of the list. The Palestinians will not gain control over the Holy Places, including, above all, the Temple Mount. They will not be allowed to build armed forces of their own. They will not rid themselves of the dozens of settlements Israel has scattered throughout their territory over the last half century. They will not gain free access to their Arab brethren in the Middle East but will remain dependent on Israel for border control. They will not obtain sovereign rights over the water under their land. They will not obtain sovereignty over the air- and electronic space above their land. They will not be able to exercise the “right of return.” They will not and they will not and they will not. The entire thing looks suspiciously like the Bantustans, meaning semi-autonomous black enclaves, which the late unlamented Apartheid government of South Africa was trying to establish back in the 1970s. No wonder the Palestinians, with Abu Mazen at their head, refuse even to talk about the so-called plan. If I, a Zionist and a patriotic Israeli who has lived in his country from the age of four (I am now almost seventy-four years old) were in their place, I would do exactly the same. As, no doubt, would the vast majority of Israelis.

However, the plan represents a defeat for Israel too. Forget about the details—the impossibly complicated complex of convoluted roads, bridges, tunnels, viaducts, crossing points, what have you, needed to make it work. Forget, too, about a number of other points that will probably meet with more domestic opposition than can be managed, such as handing over some sovereign Israeli territory to the Palestinians. The real reason why it is a defeat is because it puts an end to the dream of setting up single, unified, contiguous, Jewish state with the vast majority of its inhabitants consisting of Jews. In other words, to the Zionist dream.

These are serious problems. Still arguably the greatest defeat of all is neither that of the Palestinians nor that of Israel. It is, rather, that of international law. I am referring to the 1945 UN Chapter which rules that there can lawfully be no territorial gains from war, even by a state acting in self-defense. Since then it has been confirmed several times by several U.N resolutions.
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Like every other kind of law since the world was first created, international law is full of holes. Probably more than every other kind of law since the world was first created, absent a firm suzerain hand to make it work it has often been violated. Nevertheless the principle has worked well on the whole. If not in the sense that invasions and annexations came to an end, at any rate in that obtaining international legal recognition for them has become almost impossible. For example, just two countries—Britain and Pakistan—have ever recognized Jordan’s 1948 annexation of the West Bank. No country has ever recognized Morocco’s annexation of the Spanish Sahara. Out of some 190 U.N members only fourteen have recognized Russia’s annexation of the Crimea. So effective has been the non-annexation regime that most invaders did not even try to obtain international consent for their conquests. For some the solution was to open negotiations aimed at restoring the status quo ante, as happened e.g between India and Pakistan back in 1966 and 1971. Others pretended that their continued presence was a temporary matter to be settled by eventual negotiations; whereas others still set up “independent” republics as the Russians did following their conflicts with Georgia and the Ukraine.

Now this regime, imperfect as it may be, is in danger. Not because some half-assed dictatorship has violated it; but because the most powerful country on earth seems determined to put it aside. Two early signs of this were President Trump’s recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights back in 2017 and 2019. Now he is going further still, announcing his intention to recognize its sovereignty over large parts of the West Bank as well. Whatever this means for Israel and the Palestinians—and I strongly suspect that, “on the ground,” as Israelis say, a long, long time will have to pass ere it comes to mean anything—from the point of view of international law it is a defeat.

A defeat of everything legal. Of everything decent. Of everything good. And also, I am afraid, of much that is Israeli as well.

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

Posted on November 7, 2019 by Martin van Creveld

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 4^thGeneration Warfare Handbook (2011) as several other volumes that deal with war. This article was originally published on traditionalRight on 4.11.2019.

Gusst Article: The Special Relationship after Brexit (Beatrice Heuser):

Posted on August 15, 2019 by Martin van Creveld

Beatrice Heuser*

web_Trump and Johnson

Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, respectively at the helm of the US and the UK, invite caricatures: two shockheaded blonde self-promoters allied against the EU and committed to the revival of narrow selfish nationalism. This is where the similarities stop: one is an American businessman who can hardly string together sentences of more than six words, the other an English establishment journalist-turned-comic-turned-politician with a knack for colorful rhetoric and metaphors. Where will they take the relationship between their countries? If the past is guidance to the future, it is so in two ways: first, to emphasize that everything is flux and changes, and secondly, that there were reasons why certain configurations arose in the past: if they disappear, these configurations should do as well.

First, then, let us remember that the United Kingdom was the USA’s first ever state-enemy. Moreover, the English, the lead nation within that Kingdom, were the oppressors from whose poor governance generations of Irishmen and Scots and Welshmen fled to America. To this day, the villains in Hollywood movies are identified by upper-class English accents.

Second, when the United Kingdom gradually advanced to become the USA’s tacit partner in keeping the world in order, and later America’s ally (in some respects its closest ally), there were reasons. US President Monroe’s Doctrine proclaimed the Western Hemisphere (the Americas) to be America’s chasse gardée which only worked if somebody else kept the Eastern Hemisphere (everything else) in some modicum of order. This presupposed a power that could do so, which the British managed to do, with a lot of bluff, in their world-wide-empire. That condition for partnership is gone.

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Then, the USA became Britain’s ally in two successive world wars because Britain (partly along with France) was a great power with colonies around the globe. Today, both powers are shorn of all but the last islands of their empires, with the lingering ghosts, the Commonwealth and the Francophonie, both more culture clubs than alliances. Indeed, even in the Second World War, Britain’s colonies Australia and New Zealand were forced to turn to the USA for defense support and have relied upon Washington, not London, ever since (a relationship enshrined in the ANZUS Treaty of 1951). In the two world wars, Britain was France) the major defender of Western Europe until GIs debarked in Europe. Today, Britain’s forces are withdrawing from their long-term deployment in Germany (the British Army of the Rhine) and have been downscaled to the point where Britain’s own military despair of her overstretch. Moreover, the UK is about to withdraw from its unconditional and all-out defense commitments in the Lisbon Treaty, while the NATO Article 5 commitments leave it utterly open to each member what it decides to do in case of an attack on another: protest loudly … or launch its entire nuclear force against the aggressor.

In the two world wars and for a long time after, Britain was America’s “unsinkable aircraft carrier”, the secure base from which American aircraft and later missiles could fly on missions over Europe. The extended reach of aircraft and the development of intercontinental missiles and air- and sea-launched ballistic and cruise missiles has long depressed the value of Britain in this respect. Potential theatres of US operations have moved to the East, and if bases are really needed for frequent shorter-range operations, Britain is too far away from where it all happens.

From the date of its entry into the European Economic Communities (later renamed the EU), the UK was useful to the USA as the defender of an American viewpoint, and the key brake on the development of a European defense organization independent of NATO. With the UK out of the EU, it can no longer stop European initiatives. The French warning that Europe must hedge against an Amereican withdrawal can now be heard more loudly – for which there is, of course, a further reason: not just the muffling of European initiatives, but the alarming noises coming out of the USA itself.

So, just as Britain is losing the last of its assets that once made it so valuable to the US, President Trump is signaling that America’s commitment to NATO might not be eternal. Where since 1949 Britain and France merely provided useful complements to an American guarantor of the security of Western Europe, in the light of a gradual reduction of US forces in Europe since the 1990s, the importance of the two larger military and nuclear powers of Europe, Britain and France, becomes greater than ever. Yet it is just at this juncture that Britain is preparing to withdraw from the EU, instead sending its aircraft carrier to the South China Sea to show solidarity with faraway powers. But the aircraft carrier has no aircraft, substituting US fighter-planes for its own, as those have not yet come off the assembly line.

In short, since outright enmity between Britain and the USA ceased in the early 19^th century, Britain has never been of such limited value to the USA as today, when leading advocates of Brexit secretly want to turn their country into something like the 51^st state of America, with further reductions in social benefits and social security, with zero-hour employments and one-pound jobs, without statutory sick leave or holidays. Pity only that they can’t tow Britain across the Atlantic. Moreover, the entrepreneurs backing Brexit want to transform the medium-sized country with its 67 million inhabitants and an average per capita GDP of just under € 40 000 into a financial center comparable to the city-state of Singapore with its under 6 million citizens and an average per capita GDP of over € 91 000. Which presupposes that (a) the unemployed steel workers, car manufacturers and miners of the UK can all become bankers and insurance brokers, and (b) that the world needs umpteen millions more bankers and insurance brokers.

For America, this would mean competition for Wall Street, not necessarily something that would be celebrated in Trump Tower. While in the 19^th century, the British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston proclaimed that Britain had no permanent friends but only permanent interests, British diplomats and military men have since the Second World War believed that Britain has no permanent interests other than to keep the USA as permanent ally, and that just about any sacrifice should be made to keep this “special relationship” alive. It remains to be seen if Trump’s gut support for the Brexiteers will survive his realization that in relations between nationalist states, there are no allies, only competitors.

* Prof Beatrice Heuser is an historian and political scientist whose publications include many works on strategy. Currently she holds the chair of International Relations at the University of Glasgow.

Guest Article: How to Avoid War with Iran

Posted on July 11, 2019 by Martin van Creveld

William S Lind*

When President Trump called off an airstrike on Iran with the planes already in the air, he justified the hopes many of us had placed in him in 2016. No other president would have had the guts to do that.

Unfortunately, while that action avoided war with Iran last week, the danger of war remains high. The confrontation between the U.S. and Iran is almost certain to continue. It is strategically disadvantageous for both parties. But powerful domestic political factions will continue to drive it nonetheless. In Iran, the Revolutionary Guard Corps needs the American threat to justify its own domestic power and the benefits of corruption that flow from it. In Washington, the Likud lobby, which includes people highly placed in the White House, desperately wants a war between the U.S. and Iran so Israel’s Likud-led government can seize the West Bank (see my column, “Bait and Switch”, in the latest issue of The American Conservative). So, the question becomes, how do we continue to confront Iran without war breaking out? That seems to be the best realistic objective.

Both sides may have offered up the beginnings of an answer. President Trump called off the airstrike when he was told it would kill around 150 Iranians. Iran had only shot down an American drone. No American lives were endangered, and the Pentagon has no shortage of drones. Similarly, the Iranians said they did not shoot down an American P-8 naval patrol aircraft they claimed had also invaded their airspace because doing so would have killed Americans. In other words, both sides called a halt at the point where their actions would have caused casualties.

The same has been true of Iranian attacks on tankers in the Persian Gulf–if the attacks were in fact actions of the state of Iran, which is by no means clear. They could have been done by elements of the Revolutionary Guard Corps that do want a war, without authorization. Those Revolutionary Guards could have been in the pay of another power that wants a war, such as Saudi Arabia or Israel. The “Iranian sailors” could have been German soldiers dressed up in Polish uniforms. History has witnessed such things.

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This kind of ritualization of war is historically common. Ritualized war is in fact far more frequent than total war. The reason is obvious: the cost is lower. Each side gets to preen, pump, do its victory dances and so on while their respective societies carry on normal life. Think of it as the NFL without the big salaries.

After a campaign of mutual annoyance but not war has gone on long enough, both Iran and the U.S. may come to realize a negotiated solution would benefit both. President Trump has made it clear he is open to that outcome. So far, Iran’s leadership is not. But I suspect the Iranian people are, and the Ayatollah cannot ignore them forever.

What everyone needs now, except Likud and its American agents, is no war, i.e., no casualties. If President Trump continues to insist on that rule and the Iranians do the same, the war fever will eventually break.

Full of Kunstim, Isn’t He?

Posted on June 27, 2019 by Martin van Creveld

When I was a child in Ramat Gan, a town not far from Tel Aviv, my mother used to speak of kunstim. I am willing to bet that, with the possible exception of my younger brothers, no one in the world knows what the term means; so let me explain. In 1950 my parents, Leo and Greet van Creveld, left their native Netherlands for the young state of Israel. As time went on they both learnt to speak decent, though not quite perfect, Hebrew. My mother in particular used to speak of kunstim. In Hebrew as it was spoken at the time, a kunz—not, pay heed, kunst, but kunz—stood for a cheap trick. Obviously my mother confused this term with kunst, the Dutch (and German) term for art (as, for instance, in “the art of writing”). To kunz she added the Hebrew suffix im, used to turn nouns from the singular into the plural. It was as a result of this strange process that the word kunstim came into the world and was used in our home. As I just said, it mcant “cheap tricks.”

Over the last few months, The Donald has been engaging in kunstim. First, providing no new information whatsoever, he accused Tehran of violating the nuclear deal arrived at under his predecessor and announced that he was withdrawing from it. Next he said he had provided the Swiss Embassy with a number that the Mullahs could use to talk to him, should they feel like doing so (they did not). Next he sent some additional forces to the Gulf, albeit that they are not nearly sufficient for waging a full-scale campaign against a country as large and as powerful as Iran. Next, the Iranians having shot down an American drone, he said that the US would not simply let that incident pass. Next, apparently caught by his own words, he suggested that the Iranians might have intercepted the drone by mistake. Next, when the Iranians told him, loud and clear, that it had not been a mistake, he threatened retaliation. Next, claiming that the planned retaliatory strike as submitted to him by the Pentagon, was “disproportional” and would lead to too many Iranian casualties he cancelled it even though the planes were (or depending on whom you believe, were not) in the air. Next he let it be known that the attack had not been canceled, only put on ice. Throughout all this he keeps saying that he does not want war; but he also keeps threatening that, in case a war does breaks out, Iran will be “obliterated.”

Has the man gone bonkers, crazy, nuts? Quite some people, including not just the editors of Mad Magazine but some of his onetime closest associates as well, think so. After all, he has always been a megalomaniac and an unpredictable one at that. I, however, am willing to give him the benefit of doubt. Instead I suggest that, to understand what he is doing, we take a look at the principles of strategy. As everyone who has ever practiced it with some success knows, at bottom it is all a question of deception. If you are strong, pretend to be weak. If you are weak, pretend to be strong. If you are preparing to attack, pretend to be ready to defend. If you are concentrating at place X, pretend to be doing so at place Y. On some occasions you should go straight for your objective; on others, the best way is the roundabout one. Avoid the obvious and always do the unexpected. Threaten, relent, bluff. Mislead your opponent. Keep him off balance, put him into a situation where he is damned if he does and damned if he does not.

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All this, of course, means playing with fire. The more so because, amidst all the bluffs, the deceptions and the feints separating truth from falsehood, reality from make-believe, is very difficult. It may even be impossible. Devising kunzim to unbalance your opponent and cause him to lose his way, you are quite likely to lose your own.

And that, I suggest, is what is happening to Trump.

Crisis? What Crisis?

Posted on June 6, 2019 by Martin van Creveld

Weeks have passed since The Donald, by announcing the U.S withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (aka the Iran nuclear deal, aka the Iran deal), started a “crisis” in the Middle East. Such being the case, it is time to draw at least a temporary balance as to what happened, what did not happen, and what is likely to happen in what is known, euphemistically, as “the foreseeable future.”

So here goes.

Iran was and remains the largest and most powerful, state in the region around the Persian Gulf. That this Iran has its ideology, its interests, its objectives, its phobias, its friends, and its enemies just as any other country does hardly requires saying, To be sure, Iranian policy has its peculiarities. But no more so than that of any others.

As far as anyone knows, the Mullahs have now been working on their nuclear program, which they inherited from the Shah, for some thirty years. As far as anyone knows, Trump’s new sanctions have not caused them to greatly accelerate that program or sharply change its course towards bomb-making. The step they, responding to Trump, have taken, i.e. increasing the enrichment of low level uranium, is mostly symbolic, though this might change later if and when they feel they are in real danger of coming under attack.

As was to be expected, the U.S-led sanctions on Iran, while making life difficult for many ordinary Iranians, have not worked. Nor are they very likely to work in the future. To be sure, many Iranians have no special love for the Mullahs’ regime, which they see as fanatical, oppressive, corrupt, and unnecessarily bellicose. They would certainly like to get rid of it; however, they seem to dislike foreigners meddling in what they see as their own affairs even more. This aspect of the matter, whose importance is paramount, would surely remain in place even if the Mullahs were to disappear tomorrow.

The Houthi rebels of Yemen, presumably armed and instigated by Iran, have mounted some attacks on Saudi and other Gulf country targets. Going from strength to strength, they have shown that the Saudis are as incapable of giving a good fight as they were back in 1991. More attacks, apparently meant to deter the Americans without provoking them too much, are likely to follow. Nevertheless, contrary to the fears of many there has been no dramatic increase in terrorism in the Middle East.

However, your body viagra generika appalachianmagazine.com can only sustain so much toxicity before it starts breaking down, including but not limited to: Reducing the amount of good bacteria in your gut by 50% Cancer Auto-immune diseases (your own immune system attacks your body tissues), including Parkinson’s, celiac, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, etc. viagra soft tablets Many patients remain undiagnosed until their first fracture. In half an hour to 45 minutes, cialis cost low cialis prices article the pill begins to show results. Drinking water and urinating timely is advantageous to relieve the urine stimulation of the prostate, because levitra on line appalachianmagazine.com water dilute urine and take out bacteria. Contrary to the fears of many, too, there has been no dramatic increase in the price of oil. To the extent that the price has gone up, the greatest beneficiary has been America’s competitor, i.e. Russia. For your attention, Donald.

For Tehran, opposing and threatening Israel is the red flag with to attract sympathy and allies in much of the Arab world. For Netanyahu, Iran is the rod with which to attract followers inside Israel. He continues doing his very best to get the U.S to launch a war against Iran, and will surely go on doing so as long as he remains in the prime minister’s office and out of prison.

The “crisis” has caused some Arab countries, notably those of the Gulf, to further tighten their already quite close relations with Israel. To that extent, Israel has also benefited from it.

Trump’s bluff has been called. For all his bluster, he has not brought the Mullahs to their knees. Nor did he start a war, nor reinforced his forces in the Gulf nearly to the point that would be needed in order to do so. The telephone number he gave the Swiss has remained unused, leaving him in a weaker position than previously.

Meanwhile, some of the heavyweights in Beijing may not be at all averse to witnessing this latest show of American weakness. That weakness is certain to have consequences later on, though when they will emerge and what form they will take is hard to say. As in the song: “Don’t know where, don’t know when, but I know we’ll meet again.”

Finally: The Europeans do not count, since all the important decisions are made over their heads. As usual.

Happy Anniversary, My Blog

Posted on February 28, 2019 by Martin van Creveld

This I my 251^st post. Time to celebrate, I think. My way of doing so will be to re-post a piece I first posted two years ago. Word for word.

To return to modern times, this is not the place to trace the stages by which freedom of speech was hemmed in in any detail. Looking back, it all started during the second half of the 1960s when it was forbidden to say, or think, or believe, that first blacks, then women, then gays, then transgender people, might in some ways be different from others. As time went on this prohibition came to be known as political correctness. Like an inkstain it spread, covering more and more domains and polluting them. This has now been carried to the point where anything that may offend anyone in some way is banned—with the result that, as Alan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind has shown, in many fields it has become almost impossible to say anything at all.
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Let me give you just one example of what I mean. Years ago, at my alma mater in Jerusalem, I taught a course on military history. The class consisted of foreign, mostly American, students. At one point I used the term Gook. No sooner had the word left my mouth than a student rose and, accused me of racism. I did my best to explain that, by deliberately using the term, I did not mean to imply that, in my view, the Vietnamese were in any way inferior. To the contrary, I meant to express my admiration for them for having defeated the Americans who did think so. To no avail, of course.

I want a form that’s large enough to swim in,

And talk on any subject that I choose.

From natural scenery to men and women

Myself, the arts, the European news.

Guest Article: Losing at the Moral/Strategic Level

Posted on November 8, 2018 by Martin van Creveld

Bill Lind

One of war’s few rules is that failure at a higher level negates the successes at lower levels. This led to Germany’s defeats in both World Wars; she usually won at the tactical and operational levels but lost at the strategic level. The result was lost victories.
To look at our own situation today, we need to add John Boyd’s three levels of war, physical, mental, and moral, to the classic levels of tactical, operational, and strategic. If we plot these categories on a grid, we see that the highest and most powerful level of war is the moral/strategic. If we look at what we are doing around the world, we see that at the moral/strategic level we are taking actions likely to result in our defeat.
Your car gets to cialis tablets australia be more effective. Many individuals thought that it must be shameful once they will lay it open to anyone. viagra ordination report viagra cheapest pharmacy It’s not recommended to take the drug together with pharmacy cialis fat food or alcohol for it will reduce its efficiency. There is no medicine in the market that can be found though many stationery vendors brand cialis for sale online. Three examples come readily to mind. The first is North Korea. President Trump made a major breakthrough toward ending the danger of another Korean War by meeting with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un. Unfortunately, since that meeting, the President’s advisors have worked to undercut his achievement. Kim Jong-un wants the U.S. to declare a formal end to the Korean War, which at present is halted only with an armistice. South Korea favors it, Mr. Trump is said to favor it, and we risk nothing by giving it. But the President’s advisors are working against it. Their position is that we should give North Korea nothing until it completes denuclearization. That treats North Korea as something it is not, a defeated enemy. Not surprisingly, North Korea is rejecting that approach, which gives the foreign policy Establishment what it wants — a continuation of the Korean stand-off and all the budgets and careers that hang from it.
The second example is so bizarre it defies belief. Washington has placed new sanctions on Chinese companies and individuals because China bought weapons from Russia. Huh? What business it is of ours who China buys weapons from? Ever since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1950 China has bought most of the weapons it has imported from Russia. Of course it is going to continue to do so. It is not as if we want to sell weapons to China; we don’t. This action is so outlandish and absurd it turns the U.S. into Don Quixote, a madman wandering the world tilting at windmills. Who does Washington think it is?
The third case is similar, in that it is an attempt to dictate to other sovereign countries in matters that are none of our business. In one of his few serious foreign policy blunders, the President withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal with Iran. Wisely, the Europeans, Russians, and Chinese are working together to keep Iran in and thus avoid a war in the Persian Gulf, with all that would mean for the world’s oil supply. Washington has responded by threatening any foreign company or bank that does business with Iran. The October 10 New York Times quoted President Trump’s court jester, John Bolton, as saying, “We do not intend to allow our sanctions to be evaded by Europe or anyone else.” Again, who do we think we are to tell Europe or anyone else whom they may trade with? If the EU had a backbone, which it does not, it would forbid any and all European companies to capitulate to unilateral American sanctions.
Each of these cases represents something history has seen all too often, usually from countries that were past their peak as powers and on the downhill slide: the arrogance of power. We are playing the swaggering bully (just before his nose gets bloodied), wandering around the playground telling everyone else what to do. It doesn’t go over well.
But each case is more than that: it is a self-inflicted defeat at the moral/strategic level, the highest and most powerful level of conflict. Morally, it turns us into Goliath (a rather weak-kneed Goliath, given our military record), someone everyone fears but also hates and looks for a chance to get back at. Strategically, we are pushing China, Russia, and now Europe too, together against us. If, as Boyd argued, strategy is a game of connection and isolation, we are connecting everyone else and isolating ourselves.
Teddy Roosevelt famously urged America to talk softly and carry a big stick. Instead, we are yelling for all we’re worth while waving a broken reed, a military that can’t win, and that soon, thanks to feminization, won’t even be able to fight. That is not likely to end well.

The Good, the Bad, and the Befuddled

Posted on June 14, 2018 by Martin van Creveld

Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America, New York, NY, Tim Duggan, 2018

First, the story. If the author a well-known American historian with several other books to his credit, is to be believed, there are three kinds of people in the world. At the top of the heap are the Ukrainians. No one, perhaps not even the Jews, have suffered more! First, in 1914-17, they were occupied by the Germans as part of World War I. Next came the Civil War, which was fought in Iarge part on their territory. Next came Stalin’s war on the “kulaks” which resulted in millions starving to death. Next came the horrors of another German occupation about which nothing more need to be said.

Yet somehow, amidst all this, the Ukrainians managed to preserve their pristine virtues. A nation ancient and proud, for all the tremendous losses they took they never ceased hankering for democracy, socio-economic equality, and the rule of law. And ties with the West, of course. It was this people which, faced with a Russian invasion in 2014, threw aside any existing internal divisions between Ukrainian- and Russian speakers. Like one man they rose, defending their rights. True, the small Ukrainian Army was no match for the Russian one. The good Ukrainians did, however, manage to stave off the worst. While Russia’s wicked legions, firing at women and children, did tear off and overrun the Crimea and some of their southeastern provinces, their resistance, including several months’ worth of demonstrations at Kiev’s (which Snyder consistently spells, Kyiv) man square, sufficed to convince the bad people in Moscow that, in trying to re-absorb the country, they had taken on more than they could swallow.

Next, the Russians. Snyder has comparatively little to say about the people as such; instead he focuses on their leader, Vladimir Putin, who emerges as a diabolic figure with few equals in history. A sort of Hitler without (so far) the gas chambers, one might say. Originally he was a rather mediocre KGB officer who enjoyed life in East Germany but had no special attainments to his name. Assigned to St Petersburg after the Soviet Union’s fall, somehow he managed both to enrich himself and to have himself appointed Yeltsin’s successor as president. Once in power he set up a kleptocracy that easily made him the richest man in the word (by some accounts, his pile of about $ 200 billion is twice as large as the one figures such as Warren Buffet are sitting on). On the way anyone who resisted got crushed.

Putin’s ambition is to enter history as the savior of his people. Unable to improve the quality of their lives—not only is Russia the most unequal country in the world, but it also has a low standard of living and a low life expectancy—he turned to what Snyder calls “eternity politics.” By this view, whose chief propagator used to be one Ivan Ilyin (1883-1954), it is the Russians who have always been a victim of others. Including, to mention but a few, the Mongols, the Poles, the Swedes, the French, the Germans, and, most recently, the West. The latter, using its wealth and its alleged democratic values as battering rams, has consistently sought to set them against each other and weaken them. Yet in all this it was the Russians who somehow managed to maintain their pristine virtues, including patience, endurance, and sexual purity (which, Snyder says, is why Putin has turned to denouncing and persecuting homosexuals).

Starting a thousand or go years ago, Snyder’s Putin story continues, Russians and Ukrainians have always been one people. Hence the first order of business is to restore unity and prevent any more peoples forming part of the Russian Federation from breaking away. Putin’s efforts to achieve this goal have been truly Herculean. He has had his army fire at, and invade, parts of the Ukraine, ruthlessly killing civilian men, women and children on its way. He has engaged in every kind of bribery, corruption and deceit. And he has lied, of course. So much so, in fact, as to construct an entirely imaginary world in words not only mean exactly what he and his henchmen want them to mean but have often lost all link to reality.
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While the Ukrainians are Putin’s first target they are by no means the only one. It is here that Snyder’s third kind of people, meaning those of the West, enter the picture. So far Putin has not waged open war on any Western nation. Using every one of the remaining methods at his disposal, though, he has run any number of campaigns to undermine them all. And he is succeeding, Snyder claims. Not only has Moscow become a Mecca for European “Fascists” and “extreme right wingers”—in Snyder’s view, anyone who does not scrape and bow to the tenets of political correctness is an extreme right winger—but by bombing Syria so as to produce more refugees he has weakened the position of Angela Merkel who was forced to accept them. He has even succeeded in putting his candidate, a failed real estate mogul, into the White House. Quite an achievement, one must admit.

Still following this line of thought, Westerners seem to fall into two categories. On one hand are the scoundrels. With Trump at their head they will do every- and anything to gain power and set up their own version of kleptocratic rule. On the other are hundreds of millions of people on both sides of the Atlantic. Law-respecting and generally full of goodwill, they are too innocent and/or befuddled to understand what they are up against. At the time Synder wrote they still put their hope in Hillary Clinton. Clinton, however, went down to defeat. With Trump and his awful Republicans—Snyder does not try to hide his Democratic sympathies—in the saddle and the influence of European “fascist” parties growing almost by the day, things are going downhill fast. Indeed there is a real possibility that, instead of Russia becoming more like the West as many people in the early 1990s hoped, the West will become more like Russia.

Let others decide how credible this thesis is. In particular, let them ponder how good the Ukrainians (many of whom, as Snyder does not say, would have been more than happy to cooperate with Hitler in 1941-45 if only he had allowed them to do so) and how weak and deluded the West, really are. I, however, found the book fascinating in another way. It can be read as a sort of handbook for what is usually called hybrid war, what my friend Bill Lind calls fourth-generation war, and what I myself have long ago called non-trinitarian war.

In particular, the term hybrid war is misleading. As Snyder rightly says, though it may sound like war minus in reality it is war plus. Including, apart from the usual open clashes between regular armies (which, in the Ukraine, only played a relatively minor role) military operations mounted by every sort of militia, identifiable or not; assassinations, subversion, and bribery; cyberattacks aimed at every kind of hostile political organization as well as infrastructure targets such as websites, factories, electricity grids, and power plant; and, above all, propaganda. Partly generated by bots, launched both by way of the social networks and by more traditional means such as TV, that propaganda so massive as to eliminate the distinction between the real and the unreal, truth and falsehood—which, Snyder says, is just how “eternity” politics work. And so massive as to make one wonder how those who design it and spread it are able to retain their sanity among all the lies they themselves invent.

All in all, in spite of my doubts about whether the good are really as good, the bad really as bad (and clever), and the befuddled really as befuddlded, as Snyder makes them out to be, a thought-provoking work.