Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000
RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.
Countrymen,
ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT
The Three Brothers Doctrine series of posts is available here.
The whole world, almost, is pulling for Putin. Related.
And those are not Russian troops. They are operators in Russian SOF unit(s). They appear to be very good at what they do, and they have decisive command structure guiding them. They have executed a long-held plan. Their logistics appear adequate at least.
I would say Ukraine is undergoing partition, with an eastern part, far larger than Crimea, that returns to Russia and a western part that returns to something of the Polish-Luthuanian Commonwealth.
The east is all Putin can hold, and if he is smart, all he should want.
He is a prodigy, very good at what he does and people admire that, the good at what he does bit.
Remarkable that as criminals dream of centralizing world government/money/tax/[theo]bureaucracy in their hands, the actual world is decentralizing and diversifying. All socialists are criminals, whether they are seen as fascists or as communists. They are criminals.
Who knows that communism does not work? Practically everyone. Who knows that fascism does not work? Very few.
The Russians are wrong to blame fascists for the impulse to self-determinism in western Ukraine. But they are right to claim external fascist meddling in Ukrainian affairs against Russian interests. Those external fascists are the EU and US [theo]bureaucratic regimes, who dream of dominating a single world-wide government.
Putin is pugnacious, but these fascist [theo]bureaucrat domineers are evil. Putin admits to being a strong-man but with morals. These [theo]bureaucrat domineers claim preturnatural moral purity and authority and, in any case, immunity from scrutiny and evaluation. Rather like mullahs and imams.
There are no good guys and bad guys in that area, or any other. But there is one who is right and one who is wrong in this matter. Putin is right and the EU/USA is wrong. Russia needs her warm-weather port in Crimea, has owned it historically, fair and square, never gave it to a foreign sovereignty and can be depended on to fight to keep it until the last man. Also gas pipelines vital to Russia go through there. So let them have it, let them be comfortable. Why make them feel insecure? Especially when their intentions are not imperialistic, as they were in the Soviet days. They know their Turanian model — government is the center of authority — is incompatible and un-mixable with the Latin model — individual is the center of authority — of Europe, the Americas and parts of the Pacific region. Not only do they not want that fight, they know they cannot win it. But about their near abroad they are and will be adamantine. So let them have it. What difference, at this point, does it make? It will not include western Ukraine, which should go Europe and interact normally with Russia. The Russians are unprincipled business people, but they are not alone in that regrettable posture. So what? They can be dealt with as any other such can be, firmly, skillfully, with the end in view of mutual benefit.
(Russians today speak gulag rather than cultured Russian. Their sensibilities reflect gulag argot. Their military is/has been professionalizing and will be/is the first element of their society to refine tastes.)
EU/USA should not move to threaten — in the eyes of Russia — Russia’s western frontier, with Europe. Doing that implies fear of Russian political/military imperialism westward. That fear is stupid. Economic imperialism, no doubt, but that can be dealt with economically in the hurly-burly of life. Political (i.e., military) imperialism? No, they cannot and, if they could, would not. That is not the world in which they want to live. Nor can they. Yes, they consider themselves morally superior to the West. But that is old, Czarist and Soviet both. Rising from the Orthodox Church, with a long history. And that pretension can be held at bay, even possibly disabused if met firmly. The best response to pretension is, So?
The worry here is China (and here). China, too, is watching the pusilanimous sanctimony of the USA’s Turanian government and drawing conclusions. China (and here) is both economically and politically/militarily imperialistic. She is considering how far eastward she can reach into America’s oceanic lake and is gathering thoughts regarding Hawaii.
None of this would be a conundrum if USA had a grand national strategic goal. This Turanian government has none and considers that a point of pride. So, hoping, prodding, encouraging them to make one is wasted effort. They do not want one. Where USA as a nation is five, ten, thirty years from now is of no concern to these fascists. Only extending their authority across the globe matters to them. So Russia is entitled to think they are beset by fascists domineering EU/USA. They most certainly are. But they are beset also by China, as are EU/USA.
China (and here) is the world’s Enemy Number One.
In exile now but not for always, rational, Latinate leaders should set as task number one the creation and concurrence of a USA grand national strategic goal. Reject the delusion that the nation state is an obsolete, dying phenomenon. Reject the delusion of Europe — excepting Poland — as a political/military ally. Europe is an economic interlocutor, only. Nothing more. Poland excepted. Poland is an ally.
Consider a political/military/economic alliance of USA, Russia and India to check and, as needed, defeat China’s political/military imperialism. We need to cut Russia some slack and grip hands with India and Russia. Without that alliance, USA lacks national integrity in fewer years than one might think.
Start with fresh, clean maps. Look at what actually is on them. Who is or can be a friend? Who is an enemy? Europe is not a friend — excepting Poland, who is. China (and here) is an enemy. Russia can be a friend. India wants to be a friend but for decades has been shunned, especially by Democratic Party presidents, ambassadors, diplomats and [theo]bureaucrats. A great loss of a natural ally. Easily corrected.
(Kurds, too, are a natural ally of USA, Russia and India, especially of USA. Rational USA leadership would foster that opportunity with fullest devotion.)
There is one reason for war: defense. Even perpetrators of offensive war drape their actions in the pretense of defense, so patent and potent is the single reason for war. All nations today, excepting three, are in defensive posture. The three in offensive posture are: Saudi Arabia, Iran and China. The aim of defensive war — which is the aim of war per se because only defensive war is legitimate — is annihilation of the enemy’s will to offend, their taste for belligerency. The will to offend is the enemy. Not a people, not a nation, not a culture, but their will, if that is to offend. That must be defeated. Not a people, a nation or a culture per se. When a people develop a will to offend, then they become an enemy. There is only one way to annihilate an enemy’s will to offend: march a victorious army into her capital city and occupy it until that enemy’s will to offend is certifiably extinct. This lets them know that they are well and truly licked.
The goal of war is to defeat a will to offend. The means to defeat such a will are military, financial and diplomatic victory followed by occupation. Not indeed permanent occupation, but long enough to drown and demolish the coals of belligerency.
Her land forces are a nation’s primary tool for conducting war (= defense). Only a land force can subdue an enemy’s lust. Air, sea, cyber and space forces can cause an enemy grief but cannot subdue her lust. That is the job of land forces fighting through full-spectrum warfare to victory and occupation until the enemy — the will to offend — has ceased to exist. However, land forces require land approaches to an enemy. Manageable and reliable ones. So, with respect to these three enemies — Saud, Iran, China — who are so by virtue of their offensive posture and not for any other reason, the question is, how to approach them by land and maintain communications with the attacking land force through those or other approaches subsequently created.
Defeat of the Saudi will to offend is not a difficult problem to solve. An army operating with the resources of full-spectrum warfare can get near her borders and into her capital city from several directions without too much difficulty. In the Saudi case, defeat of the will to offend requires hanging the scholars, sheiks, mullahs and imams — and their unsurrendered family members over the age of sixteen — and exiling the so-called royal family … and without their bank accounts and properties. Defeat of the Iranian will to offend is a difficult problem to solve. And daily it becomes more so. Temporizing is deferred cost. It has been so since 1979. But the problem is solvable, as all problems are. With full-spectrum military operations and participation of regional allies — Kurds, Jordanians, Israelis, Iraqis, Egyptians, possibly Russians, possibly Pakistanis — victorious land forces can roll into Tehran and Qom. There are both land and sea approaches to Iran capable of supporting full-spectrum military operations into and across the country. Ayatollahs and their unsurrendered family members over the age of sixteen dangling from lamp posts.
China, with North Korea as her client provocateur, is the major problem. It is rightly said — General of the Army MacArthur said it, for example — that no country in their right mind wants to conduct a land war in China (and here). The reason is the precarity of land force approaches to China and communication lines supporting them. This is the grand strategic security reason to seek alliance between USA, Russia and India. There are also cultural and economic reasons, but focus here is on the strategic security reason shared by USA, Russia and India. Even by Persia once free of the ayatollahs.
USA, Russia and India are three large nations in defensive posture. All have deep reasons for wanting China to climb down and join them in that posture. All know China will not do that voluntarily. China thinks long and patiently, and now imperialistically. War is inevitable. Why conduct it at China’s leisure? These three potential allies, with others, can be taken piecemeal by Chinese offensive war or be actual allies to haul down that belligerent hegemon to a normal defensive posture. The alliance creates sustainable land approaches to conducting full-spectrum war in China, the which only will subdue her rampancy to defense. March land forces of USA, Russia and India into Beijing, conduct a freedom occupation, extirpate PLA and Central Committee leadership — and their unsurrendered family members over the age of sixteen — and China will climb down.
Of these three potential allies, two — Russia and India — remember centuries of Turanian offense, subjugation and, at least for Russia, gene-splicing. Americans have a usually unconscious awareness of ancestors threatened with or subjected to over-run by the Mongoloid/Turanian yellow horde.
In the case of a belligerent nation, note that the offending particular is in the dimension of pneuma — will — not in the dimension of psyche — mind — or the dimension of soma — body. However, because the human personality is a unified whole, to get to the problem at pneuma, transit must be made of soma and psyche. Thus Sir Basil Henry Liddell-Hart: The profoundest truth of war is that the issue of battle is usually decided in the minds of the opposing commanders, not in the bodies of their men.
USA, Russia and India share having been colonized nations. Not just occupied. Colonized. Poland too. USA, Russia, India and Poland have been obliged to fight for their independence. This is a deep bond uniting these nations. Has Germany been colonized? England? France? China? Japan? No. Two occupied but none colonized, at least not totally, China having been only partially colonized. USA, Russia, India and Poland have been colonized totally and for long years. And they have fought internal war to get free of colonial power.
Something to consider. USA, Russia, India and Poland are uniquely qualified to fight wars of independence from hegemons. And who are, for example, Caliphist hegemons attacking most? Why of course: USA, Russia and India! Each and all uniquely qualified to defeat those hegemons, having defeated others previously — and on their own soil. When assessing moral factors of who is right and who is wrong, this history of these great nations is of great moment.
No one is good or bad, but in every situation someone is right and someone is wrong. Use the unique qualification of these three nations, plus Poland, as successful freedom and independence fighters to assess in any conflict that involves them who is right and who is wrong.
Is it not deliciously ironic that, while fascist politicians and [theo]bureaucrats — and their jihadi counterparts in a parallel absolutism — dream of global hegemony, the world is decentralizing and diversifying?
The Three Brothers Doctrine series of posts is available here.
Update 1: From Spengler
Update 2: From The DiploMad:
They [admin in DC] have no overall strategic aim for our foreign policy; no clear idea where they want us to be in three, four, five years; simply put they don’t really care about foreign policy.
I commented:
For me, that is the heart of this fine post. Permit me to submit a clear idea of strategic aim for the long-term: USA, Russia and India ally to check — and defeat, if necessary — China (and here), the only real enemy out there at this point in history: real as in (1) whose strategic goals are not entirely visible, (2) whose long-term fitness for a multi-national community is problematic if not doubtful and (3) for whom uncertainty exists over means for its defeat.
Update 3: Angelo Codevilla enumerates problems solved, in principle, by the conceptual structure in the foregoing Update II.
Update 4: Paul Rahe
Update 5: Marek Jan Chodakiewicz exposits upon the Chinese threat matrix.
Update 6: David Steinberg
Update 7: Spengler, Cromwellians And Unitarians
Update 8: Good news election results in India and here
Update 9: Anne Applebaum at The Washington Compost
Update 10: And Al Saud intends to keep it up. See also here.
Update 11: Steven Hayward at Power Line, India, Defender Of The West?
From the comments: I’m growing rather fond of India of late. Good, with Russia and USA, India is a brother country and world history-maker far into the future. These three will disabuse the Chinese of aggressive intent … and also the Caliphists, a far smaller problem. And not as a global community in a global commons but as three allied, history-deciding nation states, like it or lump it.
Update 12: Paul A. Rahe: … the inexorable growth of the administrative regulatory, welfare state is itself a threat to our capacity to govern ourselves.
Update 13: J. J. Carafano treats well of a related alliance — The Quad — facing China (and here): USA, India, Australia, Japan. He should include Russia for a The Quint but his points regarding The Quad are sufficient unto the day.
Update 14: But a hardline with the Kremlin over Ukraine should be matched with efforts to build a strategic partnership with Moscow in the fight against Isis and Islamist terrorism, Lord Ashdown adds. Yea, Verily Yea!
Update 15: How about a RICO suit at Tom Steyer?
Update 16: An interesting comment string arose at Instapundit when Glenn Reynolds referenced Mark Cunningham on the subject of what The Fraud should say about Islam. I commented as follows, making an important observation regarding the effect of religion on affairs:
Were I to take Cunningham’s essay as serious thought — and I think it is not — I would say his face is too close to the canvas, he has seen a couple of swirls of paint and yelled, Eureka! Were he serious, he would pull back to ponder the whole canvas or at least more of it than has caught his fancy. His enthusiasm would, shall we say, moderate.
Serious, productive thought cannot come from other than a monastic. Men and women bearing the daily burdens and cares of life, such as Cunningham, simply cannot and will not create intellectual and moral forms that benefit anyone lastingly. They are too busy, and justly so, one hopes. Such men and women can use such forms once they are created, but create them they can not and will not. Those stepped way back from the canvas — monastics — do that. The truth is the whole.
Update 17: What is Putin about? Also here.
Update 18: Richard Butrick, in 2012: It’s The Mullahs, Stupid. And in 2015: The Vast Majority Of Muslims
Update 19: Here an opportunity opens: Russia abandoning Assad
Update 20: Regarding developments in North Korea
Update 21: Bruce Thornton: The Truth About Colonialism
Update 22: Thomas J. DiLorenzo: Economic Fascism (also here)
It’s called fascism and that is what it should be called, over, over and over, to its face and from the rooftops.
Update 23: Something to consider: Could Russia Breakup After Putin?
Update 24: Mourning the passing of Robert Conquest at Legal Insurrection, Hoover Institution and Power Line.
Update 25: Russia toying with Iran for cash, but should be allied with USA and India to check Iran.
Update 26: India seeks a SOCOM of their own and the Red Fleet returns to the past. The great moral and physical power of Russia must be allied with India and the USA to set the tone of world politics for centuries to come. Russia must NOT be treated as an enemy of the USA. Alliance with Russia and India is fundamental to USA national sovereignty henceforward.
Update 27: Russian fighting ability is compromised by their fighting protocols, as illustrated by their horrendous casualty rates, especially compared to America’s.
Update 28: The American posture would be to ally with Russia in Syria, take out both Assad and ISIS, hold Iran at her border and beat her out of Iraq, help al-Abadi quiet and impartial-ize Iraq, invite India to join their alliance, tell other MENA governments to shut up and get out of the world’s face or else and then the three amigos, Russia, USA and India, pivot to face down humanity’s big and serious enemy; China.
Update 29: Richard Fernandez sparks a discussion on Russia and USA. Regular commenter Subotai Bahadur, dyspeptic as usual, expresses anti-Russian sentiment. I commented:
I cannot agree. Russia’s GDP is roughly the same as California’s. Her demographics are lethal. And Her grand strategic interests align with USA’s and India’s: extirpate Caliphism and ChiCom Imperialism. A USA statesman would say to Putin, Come, let us reason together. From strength. And they would. Already they even have ASKED to! They need USA support to succeed in Syria and Ukraine, just as they did — and got — in Georgia.
Of course, statesmen are in short supply in USA at the moment.
Regardless, it behooves intelligent USA patriots to foster the breed and work out their moves as if they could be implemented. For, nothing is less inevitable than the inevitable, and always, planning ahead for saner times is indicated.
Update 30: Russian defense industry on life support
Update 31: Israel pivots To Asia (actually, India)
Update 32: Putin on The Fraud
Update 33: Richard Fernandez tries to make sense of what Vladimir Putin is doing
Update 34: There is no reason to fear the Russian Navy, rather she should be allied with. Russia sees the grand strategic sitrep: Islam contra Christianity and is willing to work with the Latin Church to solve the problem. Original USNI report here.
Update 35: Moscow May Have To Open Third Front In Central Asia To Prevent Refugee Influx Into Russian Cities
Update 36: Michael J. Totten, as a bit wooly-headed, essayed importantly today under title Moscow On The Tigris: Russia Joins The Terror Nexus
I commented:
A proper transition to an inclusive and even quasi-civilized government in Damascus would first require the destruction of both the regime and the extremists, and right now no one is making any attempt to bring that about.
Point of fact, the Russians nearly have ISIS surrounded by severing his supply lines up against the Turkish border. This essay does not discuss Turkey, a weakness of the essay.
But more than that, the final phrase of the quoted sentence contains the germ of the solution to the problem the essay puzzles over. Putin already suggested the solution and the essay mentions that he did: alliance between Russia and USA to quiet the entire ME, for as long as it takes to do that.
Add India to the alliance — many and weighty reasons she would want that — and now three brother nations, India, USA and Russia, can jointly deliver the ME — and MENA as well — to whatever configuration suits their joint interests.
For example, offer Putin Sirte, Libya, as another warm-weather port and hydrocarbon asset. With Sirte, he would triangulate the EU, who is an enemy of both Russia and the USA. Restructure the whole MENA to support Indian, American and Russian national strategic goals. That’s what power is for. That is what Salafist Jihadis and Shiia Jihadis are trying to do to India, USA and Russia.
And get rid of Kennan’s Containment Doctrine. In its place: Three Brothers Doctrine: expansion guided by grand national strategic goals of India, USA and Russia allied together.
One Turtler commented on mine above:
Point of fact, the Russians nearly have ISIS surrounded by severing his supply lines up against the Turkish border.
Then why is IS still receiving supplies?
Foreign Jihadists still make their way to the IS with very little trouble; and it should be considerably harder to get new recruits from outside the region entirely than to funnel supplies around within it.
This essay does not discuss Turkey, a weakness of the essay.
Agreed; suffice it to say my opinion on the Turkish government has never been high; this has just managed to sink it lower.
But more than that, the final phrase of the quoted sentence contains the germ of the solution to the problem the essay puzzles over. Putin already suggested the solution and the essay mentions that he did: alliance between Russia and USA to quiet the entire ME, for as long as it takes to do that.
The problem is that Putin IS NOT AND NEVER HAS BEEN interested in an honest alliance with the US (Gorbachev maybe, but not Putin).
Remember how he and his diplomats threw a hissy fit over the West using Manas as a transit base, and threw the weight of their diplomatic leverage and PR against a place that was dedicated largely to shuffling supplies and wounded around?
I don’t know anybody who died because of that, but I do know people who knew people that have. And that’s before outright backstabbing one of our allies in the MENA (Georgia) by attacking them while most of their top line military was deployed with us in Iraq.
That is not the actions of an ally. That is not even the actions of someone who could be an ally.
Add India to the alliance — many and weighty reasons she would want that — and now three brother nations, India, USA and Russia, can jointly deliver the ME — and MENA as well — to whatever configuration suits their joint interests.
Nice theory, but it’s also what was more or less tried for a good half century or so between the late 19th and early 20th century, when Britain dominated the Indian subcontinent and was looking to tone down The Great Game
It also didn’t work, precisely because no one configuration suits all three players. Russian interests are diametrically opposed to US and Indian ones. Russia has historically wanted a warm water port on the Indian Ocean, a divided and turbulent Indian subcontinent, hegemony over Central Asia, and a divided and turbulent Middle East. The added interest in high gas prices isn’t going to lessen that.
India wants its’ own back door secure (without the threat of Pakistani or Iranian apocalyptic nonsense) and access to Central Asia, while the US wants a stable Middle East (arguably too much so I would say) and dominance in the Persian Gulf.
It’s like positing that Napoleonic France and Georgian Britain could have ruled the world if they’d teamed up. Which is both true and irrelevant; it misses the key fact that they had Very Separate interests and goals which effectively precluded them from Ever Working Together in this particular area.
For example, offer Putin Sirte, Libya, as another warm-weather port and hydrocarbon asset.
If you offer Putin an inch, he will begin stealing a mile. Ukraine found that out the hard way when they renewed the Black Sea Fleet’s lease. I don’t see any reason to do so here.
Offering an advantage to someone requires some level of trust that they will appreciate it, and not use it to back stab you. Considering we are talking about an ex KGB spook who had NATO soldiers die because he could not STAND a transit center in territory he considered his lake, I have no reason to accord that trust to Putin.
With Sirte, he would triangulate the EU, who is an enemy of both Russia and the USA.
Hardly.
For as much of an enemy the EU may be, Putin is far worse of one. France may have caused a stink but they haven’t denied our wounded access to facilities on their soil.
And so on.
The US and EU are far more allied than either has been with Putin. That is a fact.
Restructure the whole MENA to support Indian, American and Russian national strategic goals.
As I stated before, one of those is not like the other. Russia’s national strategic goals are diametrically opposed to the other two’s.
That’s what Salafist Jihadis and Shiia Jihadis are trying do to India, USA and Russia.
Wut.
Salafist and Shiite Jihadis are trying to form some kind of grand Indian/American/Russian alliance?
Your writing is not making a whole lot of sense.
And get rid of Kennan’s Containment Doctrine.
WHY?
It has served us far, far better than ANY of Putin’s promises, or those of his apologists.
In its place: Three Brothers Doctrine: expansion guided by grand national strategic goals of India, USA and Russia allied together.
Once again, I already slapped this down.
India and the US may ally with each other, but they will not ally with Russia. Even at the height of Soviet-Indian relations it was hardly a full alliance. And now with Russia’s gravitation towards China and hostility towards Indian policy in the Northwest that is dead.
This reads like the writing of someone who has never actually studied the history of the region, these three powers, or what they want.
I replied to Turtler:
Wut.
Salafist and Shiite Jihadis are trying to form some kind of grand Indian/American/Russian alliance?
My bad, too cryptic. My point is, those Jihadis are trying to restructure USA, Russia and India — and their underlying Christian and Hindu religions. And they will not back down until driven down. So, do undo them before they do unto us. Because upon the question of who is right and who is wrong, we (Latin/Greek Christianity) are right and they (Salafist/Shiia Islam) are wrong.
As for the rest of your comment, thank you for using the time and energy to rebut, point-by-point, my comment. I feel honored that you did.
I have studied the history. I am not bound by the history. Nor, I think, should USA, Russian and Indian diplomatic, financial and military powers be bound by the history. They should, and any time they screw up the courage they can, make history rather than recapitulate it.
We live in an era of new being. That is arguably the salutary legacy of the current White House Occupier: that s/he and minions have so thoroughly ripped up legacy assumptions, procedures and networks of statecraft that opportunities, unexpected, for re-canalizing the vectors of grand national goal and strategy beckon the brave and studious. Also, of course, the malign and impulsive.
Allow me to suggest an exercise: list interests, of all possible kinds, shared by USA, Russia and India. Further, contemplate said list as viewed between brother nations rather than inferior/superior ones. Finally, consider the vectors of diplomacy, finance and war fighting as converging rather than competing national assets.
I learned long ago that one certain about what can and cannot be done, should and should not be entertained, especially if they anchor their proclamations on historical records summoned for the purpose, affirms an occasion for conception exceeding their wishes and possibly their abilities.
The English of which is, please draw the curtains and open the windows. The birds are chirping and the brooks are babbling.
Turtler replied:
My bad, too cryptic. My point is, those Jihadis are trying to restructure USA, Russia and India — and their underlying Christian and Hindu religions. And they will not back down until driven down. So, do unto them before they do unto us.
Ok, thanks for the clarification.
And on this much I agree absolutely.
Because upon the question of who is right and who is wrong, we (Latin/Greek Christianity) are right and they(Salafist/Shiia Islam) are wrong.
And on that much I agree. Though what about….saaaaay… the Bengali Muslims that the Pakistani government mass murdered by the hundreds of thousands out of a mixture of jihadist zeal and ethnic supremacism? Where do they fit?
Ditto the Catholic Slovenes who were invaded by essentially the rest of the crumbling Yugoslav confederation under Milosevic in an attempt to force them into subjugation to Belgrade?
The Orthodox Ukrainians who have been belittled and even had their very existence downplayed by Russian imperialists (just look at Putin’s rhetoric)?
And of course this is before we talk about and ask the massive problems like the PRC and North Korea. Who are neither Jihadist or even Muslim but also aren’t Christian.
The idea that the world can be divided neatly into two camps while ignoring all the tension and even active conflicts in them is naive to the extreme, and in this case it’s unworkable.
As for the rest of your comment, thank you for using the time and energy to rebut, point-by-point, my comment. I feel honored that you did.
No worries, it is my standard procedure for it. Glad you liked it.
I have studied the history. I am not bound by the history.
Everybody is bound by the history (I challenge any Ukrainian or Crimean who denies the genocidal enslavement that was conducted from 16th century Kaffa). But that does not mean they are bound to only one future.
So the question is if someone is incapable of letting go of the past or burying the hatchet. And I think it is fairly clear that Putin is such a man.
Nor, I think, should USA, Russian and Indian diplomatic, financial and military powers be bound by the history.
On this much I believe it should be cautious. We are not obliged to defend France irrationally if France becomes a Jihadist state, and I think that is proper. I also believe we should be open to possible openings.
But I do not think we should casually discard the lessons of history or the precedent established there, in part because it explains where we and the other players are now but also because it can teach us something.
As distasteful as I find much of the EU they are not our enemy (except perhaps in the extent they are their own worse enemy). France does not show any indication that it wants to reconquer Canada or fight another Quasi-War, in large part because it was capable of changing from the past.
But the fact of the matter is that the Kremlin that rules over Russia is bound to stamping its’ boot over Eastern and Central European politics as heavily as it can, and is continuing a very nasty and very old brew of highly inaccurate propaganda (all propaganda is somewhat inaccurate, but while we can argue about the Iraq War being sold using exaggerated estimates we can not claim that the new Ukrainian government is simultaneously controlled by Neo-Nazis and Jews) and saber rattling.
That is not the kind of regime we can hope to court as a permanent ally except in very limited cases (like the pact between Stalin and the West during WWII). Especially if they flatly deny our right to accept the allies that Did join with us as they have with the myth about No NATO Expansion.
I can certainly hope that Russia gets a better regime than it has now, and I do not expect that an allied Russia would have to sacrifice all of its’ own interests (for instance, even the most pro-Western Russian government imaginable would still benefit economically from high oil prices while the West would otherwise).
But I have no hope that Putin or his current regime will be an ally unless he has absolutely no other choice. In which case we probably have far worse problems looking at us down a rifle scope.
They should, and any time they screw up the courage they can, make history rather than recapitulate it.
All choices make history, even the most derivative and repetitive.
But as for course, a lot of times it is not a matter of courage as much as it is a matter of other things. It does not matter how courageous we are in being willing to hash out deals with the Iranian dictatorship or IS if the other side has absolutely no desire to deal with us or even allow us to exist. We should have learned that before we screwed up with Iran.
Likewise, it doesn’t matter how courageous the General Secretary of NATO or the President of the US or the President of Ukraine is if the Kremlin still insists that the newly independent states of Eastern Europe had no right to join NATO voluntarily, denies the existence of the Ukrainian people as separate from Russia (as I stumbled across due to watching the new Taras Bulba and seeing how Putin was directly tied to it), and is more interested in playing chicken with the West than fighting mutual enemies, or will privilege the PRC over India.
Courage is valuable indeed in diplomacy, but courage alone does not bring victory. Just ask the IJA. It’s marrying courage to other things, like pragmatism, experience, and knowledge.
I do expect that if the Jihadis stopped committing pin-pick terrorist attacks and the hundreds of thousands of ambiguous refugees and started marching into Europe and India as part of a hundreds of thousands strong army of conquest with banners flying, the Kremlin would indeed sign on for the common cause out of self preservation.
But that would not be because of the bright new possibilities with the Kremlin, but because of the situation that everybody has to react to.
We live in an era of new being.
Agreed.
That is arguably the salutary legacy of the current White House Occupier: that s/he and minions have so thoroughly ripped up legacy assumptions, procedures and networks of statecraft …
I doubt it.
Because for as much as Obama and his cohort have tried, they really have not changed that so much. For instance, take a look at the map of NATO or the US’s Most Favored Nations at the start of Obama’s presidency, and take a look at it now.
They are basically the same, and not surprisingly. By and large our allies are more disappointed at us and our enemies are emboldened, but there hasn’t been a whole lot of switching from category A to category B or even to Category Neutral. There are examples, but not many and certainly not on this vast scale.
… the more that opportunities, unexpected, for re-canalizing the vectors of grand national goal and strategy beckon the brave and studious. Also, of course, the malign and impulsive.
Problem I see with this is that this was precisely the kind of thinking the sitting POTUS came to the table with. We see it in the Nuclear Deal with the Tyrants of Tehran or the Castros. That he had the courage and vigor to bridge the half century or so of chasms.
And it didn’t work. For all the tactical interest the Guardian Council that has lorded over Iran may have in a temporary deal, they are still totalitarian Jihadists who want all of us dead, enslaved, or converted. While the Castros are still a rogue state in the Western Hemisphere dedicated to retaining power by any means necessary and demonizing their neighbors (especially the US) in order to justify the semi-permanent state of siege.
There is certainly room for change and evolution, but we cannot ignore the fact that we cannot change who Raul Castro is. Pretending we can is not going to do us any favors.
Allow me to suggest an exercise: list interests, of all possible kinds, shared by USA, Russia and India.
I could probably list a fair number, but the problem is that it is not always *shared* interests alone that
Further, contemplate said list as viewed between brother nations rather than inferior/superior ones.
That has- or is supposed to be- the diplomatic norm since Versailles, and certainly since the fall of the Soviet Union. A world where the nations of the world have multiple forums to discuss, where the votes of Belgium or Georgia or Cambodia can matter as much (or nearly as much) as those of the United States or Russia; and where each nation is meant to forsake spheres of influence and imperial ambitions regarding things like coastal waters.
And in many ways that is why the EU and even Mercosur- for all the massive messes they are- have turned their continents into the least bloody and contentious they have been in their history, even factoring in the massive illegal alien invasion in the former and terrorist groups like FARC in the latter.
It was obviously not perfect, and every single one of the major powers has had some violations on it’s hands (including the US and India). But by and large? It has succeeded. That is why a divided and ravaged Germany (especially poor Eastern Germany) was able to unite in spite of objections from no less than Great Britain, Panama has the canal that bears its’ name, and nations like Switzerland and Sweden can exist- neutral, outnumbered, and independent- in the center of alliances like they never could have before.
The problem with this picture is not what has been accomplished or the concept, it’s that a good chunk of the bigger players not only refuse to admit it, but aggressively reject it. Russia being one of the key ones; and you can even see it with the rhetoric used openly by Putin’s government (like with the PRC).
Russia had a chance to enter a brave new post-Cold War world where it would no longer have to fear war from the West or tensions with its’ neighbors (at least in the West or Caucasus front). And for a while it looked like it would work.
But it didn’t, in large part because of the rise of people like Putin who flatly reject the very concept of a brotherhood of nations without superiors or inferiors. And that is why Kennan’s assessment still rings true today, even compared to what Kennan himself thought.
If Putin’s Russia can have only vassals or enemies at its’ borders and some of those that border it are allies of the US and India (or others), how do you resolve that dilemma?
Finally, consider the vectors of diplomacy, finance and war fighting as converging rather than competing national assets.
They both converge and compete, so I would agree with caveats.
I learned long ago that one certain about what can and cannot be done, should and should not be entertained, especially if they anchor their proclamations on historical records summoned for the purpose, affirms an occasion for conception exceeding their wishes and possibly their abilities.
The English of which is, please draw the curtains and open the windows. The birds are chirping and the brooks are babbling.
And I have learned long ago that elegant words and ornate prose have their own merits, but those merits do not translate into logical merits. A case is just as valid as if it is argued as beautifully as poetry or as crudely as *uck.
What matters are the merits of the case at hand.
And the fact of the matter is simple.
The European Union is not our enemy.
The Russian Kremlin under the rule of Vladimir Putin is.
Putin is not even remotely interested in an alliance with the West against Islamist totalitarianism, he showed that hand very clearly when he gave supplies to Iran (capitol of Shiite Islamism today) and Assad (a secular sponsor of them).
He is also not interested in a brotherhood of equals, as we see with his extortion of virtually every country on his nation’s borders and his invasion of several of them.
What he is interested in is forcing the world to recognize Russia as a Great Power which has a cemented dominance over virtually every place in Russia’s neighborhood.
That is not a power that can be allied with on its’ merits, it is not a power that can be trusted.
Perhaps Russia as a whole- and/or a new government of it- might. But we have to work with the case as it is now.
And while the birds chirp and rivers gurgle, men and women are dying in absurd conflicts started and maintained on behalf of a Greater Russian Empire (that is quite literally why the separatists in Ukraine operate under the term Novorossiya, an ancient colonial frontier of Moscow’s) and propaganda is spewed from almost every outlet of the Kremlin’s media that skewers everything about your concept.
To which I replied:
Thanks for the good, fun and informative discussion! At this point, I am going to be brief.
Russia IS a Great Power. Treat her as such. Despite a GDP roughly the size of California’s, and a cratering demographic — both transitory phenomena — Russia thinks like a Great Power, both politically and theologically (both Christian and Moslem), and has deep history of acting as one. She has been both a vassal and a sovereign. Her near abroad defensive arrangements are comparable to USA’s Monroe Doctrine, both in principle and in some particulars also in execution.
An ally does not have to be a friend. In fact, sovereign nation states do not have friends. They have opportunities, in exactly the way there is no security in this life, personal or corporate, only opportunities.
The goal of international association now is birthing embodiments of freedom. Not democracy, freedom. Not a form of government, a road of freedom. Russia, India and USA are the Great Powers extant who can and would like to do that. The other Great Power, China, is a slave state uninterested in freedom.
The proximate task is to quiet Salafist and Shiia Jihadis, and their sympathizers, pinning freedom to their backs with a bayonet if need be. This is easier done than is said, especially with India, Russia and USA acting in concert at the points of decision (supply lines).
The ultimate task is to quiet China, who has few sympathizers. With China moving on Siberia and Russia, the Hindu Kush and Himalayan Region, Africa, Central and South America and the Pacific Ocean — and with no intention of promulgating freedom and every intention of promoting slavery — there is ample reason for the other Great Powers — USA, India, Russia — to ally against China, their only truly capable enemy modernly, and the only one disinclined fundamentally to freedom’s road.
[Note: The phrase freedom road is appropriated and sanitized, with gleeful shamelessness, from the Freedom Road Socialist Organizations(!). In itself the phrase is felicitous, and, of course, those organizations, Communist to the core, contemplate nothing like freedom from its use. It is always good to restore an artifact of human yearning for the Divine — Who is Freedom — from corrosion, corruption, dirt and diminishment by evil doers, in this case Communist morons.]
The battle is joined.
Update 37: See this geo-political analysis of Russia at StrategyPage: Leadership: The Forlorn Fourteen Seek Salvation
Update 38: Andrew Bostom: Islam As An Ur Fascism, Or Islamo(fig leaf)fascism?
Update 39: Richard Fernandez: Leadership Qualities Needed Now
Update 40: A major reason Russia would be happy to ally with USA and India
Update 41: To be pondered with reserved skepticism: Spengler: The 30% Solution: When War Without End Ends
Update 42: This is rambling and tendentious in the wrong direction, and also not entirely accurate or useful, but a worthy read: Analysis: What Russia’s Military Withdrawl From Syria Means For Fight Against ISIS, Assad Regime
Update 43: Good News: Zoroastrian revival among Kurds
Update 44: Auspicious developments between India and Pakistan
Update 45: Natalie Nougayrède: Putin’s Long Game Has Been Revealed, And The Omens Are Bad For Europe
She gets the omens accurately, but her moral evaluation of them is faulty. Overall, a very important essay.
Update 46: Leadership: The Key To The Baltics (Russia testing and training in Syria and Ukraine)
Update 47: By this and so many other novel and dangerous developments, a complete, fresh international strategic alliance structure is indicated, forged from the common core of three brother nations: USA, Russia and India.
Update 48: Very interesting. A thought I had from this: depending on how it’s done, rooting out evil can cost more than the destruction evil perpetrates; in such a case, therefore, there must some measuring means other than cost/benefit analysis that compels movement to root out evil in preference to joining or tolerating it.
Probably has lessons for facing down this generation’s evil caller: Salafist Jihad in its many, many guises.
Somewhat related: a stat that has impressed me through the years: GOA MacArthur went from Brisbane to Tokyo with fewer casualties than the Navy sustained, with four Army and two Marine Divisions, at Okinawa alone. I forget the exact SWPA figure, low 50Ks. So there are methods of rooting out evil that incur less cost than the destruction evil perpetrates.
The great Hebrew Prophets did very much see the Almighty conducting Holy War. They describe it with considerable color.
Update 49: … a century of wars, revolution, civil wars and communist misrule that killed off a quarter of the population had an enormous impact on Russians. Morale: What Changed In Russia
Update 50: How Poland Saved The World From Russia
Update 51: Spengler: Mitt Romney was wrong. Russia isn’t the biggest threat to the United States.
My comment: Indeed, Russia is not the biggest threat to the USA. But noting that is not solving the problem. Nor is saying jihadism is. After WWII an international structure was created to keep the peace and stable communications.
That structure’s obsolescence by on-going natural hubbub of nations — and anti-national sovereignty activists — demands a new, fresh structure for doing the same: keep the peace and guarantee communications. The Solons (statesmen) have NOT produced the same.
Here is a suggestion: Three Brothers Doctrine.
Update 52: The Fraud rejects cooperation with Russia in Syria.
Update 53: China is a nation of slavers. China cannot be stood down without being triangulated. That is by USA, India and Russia. Reference the geography. Only way to do it. There is the third offset strategy. It’s spiritual first, then diplomatic, military and financial, with technological later. Technology is merely means. Various kinds of pencils. That is all. There is no technological solution to any problem. Technology simply embodies a problem’s solution into a reproducible form. Problems are solved in will, ideation and mathematics. Technology is a result of those.
Update 54: India exports large warships
Update 55: Long, informative interview by Washington Compost of LTG Michael Flynn, U.S.A. Retired
Update 56: Do Not Spare Pakistan
Update 57: Indian Infrastructure Build-Out
Update 58: India army chief: we must prepare for simultaneous war with China and Pakistan
Update 59: BRICS Declaration on Pakistan
Update 60: Secretary Tillerson Discusses USA Relationship With India
Update 61: Sundance: Chinese Central Planners Forecast “Weak Growth” in Manufacturing and Housing …
I commented: I might be less downright about alliance between Russia and China. I see cooperation on specifics there but not fundamental common interest or presence in being. Russia has considerable common interest and presence in being with both India and USA. And they with Russia. So I would factor, as a squeeze, an alliance among those three leaving China no chair to sit in. Frankly, that alliance — USA, India, Russia — is the grand throttle on China’s hegemonic aspirations. There is not another one entirely able to do the job.
Update 62: When India’s Strategic Backyard Meets China’s Strategic Periphery
Update 63: L. Todd Wood: Putin Getting Played By China, Needs A Deal With Trump
Update 64: ISW: How We Got Here With Russia: The Kremlin’s Worldview
Update 65: James P. Pinkerton: Why Buying Greenland Is One Of Donald Trump’s Best Ideas
Update 66: Sundance: Big Winning – REPORT: India and U.S. Close to Final Trade Agreement
Update 67: Anthony Vinci: How to Stop China From Imposing Its Values
America’s alliances were built to address a Soviet military threat. The economic bullying that Beijing uses requires a different kind of collective self-defense.
This is a hoot! Vinci calls for a solution to the problem I have already solved with Three Brothers Doctrine.
AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
