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
Binding together power and freedom is the grand national strategic objective. Binding together power and freedom is also the strategy and the tactics for achieving the grand national strategic objective. Grand national strategic means — strategy + tactics — and grand national strategic objective — power + freedom — are one and the same: bind together power and freedom.
Power is monopoly of the will and ability to conduct victorious war-fighting — that is, the will and ability to compel an enemy’s unconditional surrender — over, under, around and through an expanse of land, national domestic or national foreign.
Freedom is loyalty to the mother nation, deference to the penultimate authority of leaders and, more so, the offices they discharge and faith in the ultimate authority of Almighty God, before Whom every individual — including every leader — and every nation stands alone for judgement.
Power is bound to freedom — and freedom to power — when a nation’s citizens do not demand leaders with ultimate authority — an impossibility — and leaders do not assert ultimate authority for their persons or for the offices they discharge — an insanity.
A national citizenry whose faith is in God, whose loyalty is to their mother nation and whose leaders foster knowledge of the ultimate authority of God and the penultimate authority of themselves and, more so, the offices they discharge must accomplish their grand national strategic objective of binding together power and freedom.
A next step is to correlate the foregoing dialogue with the following dialogue regarding Statecraft:
STATECRAFT comprises three components: Diplomatics – Finance – War Fighting.
Diplomatics comprises three components: See Thoroughly – Hear Carefully – Speak Softly.
These components of Diplomatics may be described as: Clear Eyes – Clear Ears – Clear Voice.
These components of Diplomatics also may be described as: Spying – Influencing – Negotiating.
Finance comprises three components: Stability – Fluidity – Impartiality.
These components of Finance may be described as: Strong Body – Hard Mind – Soft Heart.
These components of Finance also may be described as: Acquiring – Husbanding – Distributing.
War Fighting comprises three components: Constant Readiness – Quiet Vigilance – Lethal Seriousness.
These components of War Fighting may be described as: Active Feet – Open Eyes – Raised Arms.
These components of War Fighting also may be described as: Drill – Anticipate – Hit.
The foregoing dialogues reflect months and probably even years of conscious and unconscious rumination upon the phenomena of statecraft and grand national strategy, tactics and objective. As things happen, today tracks came together in my mind and issued in the foregoing dialogue, which I find satisfies at least a large part of the quest that has been under rumination. I want to credit assists: Dr. Marek Jan Chodakiewicz for numerous reasons; Dietrich Bonhoeffer for this as for so much else by way of fundamental direction; Matthew Continetti for this; Andrew Klavan for this; Ed Driscoll for this; Glenn Reynolds for this; and Mark Levin for this.
In addition, some of my tracks pursuing these phenomena comprise posts to this proscenium:
Caliphists: Theology Of Murder Called Islam
The Churches Hemorrhage Members Because They Went Pacifist
USA, Russia And India: Brothers
Strategic Considerations I / Strategic Considerations II
If I Were King Of The Forest ….
Law Of Expansion: How To Get A Handle On This Situation
Ethics And War – Amplifications Of A Theme From Trinity Season
Grand National Strategic Objective: Colonize And Culture-Splice
What Is Intel? What Is Military Intel?
Containment Doctrine, Military Doctrine: Are They Compatible?
Some Considerations Of Military Operations And Statecraft In The Middle East
An EU Effect Of Forced Stand Down Of USA
When Shrines Become Political And Military
Military Force And Police Force
Some Considerations Of Military Operations And Statecraft In The Middle East
Re-Forming Western Civilization (The Christian Church), In Partes Tres
What Happened: An Insight / The Futility Of Containment
Outline Of A Field Manual For Defeating Chaotics
Clear View Of The Picture Puzzle
New Being, New Strength, New Alignment
Setting The Record Straight / Telling The Truth
The Train Bombings In India And Iconoclasm
Two Heads Of The Caliphist Snake
More On Leadership In The Middle East
Three Depositions On Theological Education
Towards An Homeopathy Of History
Update I: Former Senator Bob Kerrey, WSJ, 22MAY07.
Finally, Jim Webb said something during his campaign for the Senate that should be emblazoned on the desks of all 535 members of Congress: You do not have to occupy a country in order to fight the terrorists who are inside it. Upon that truth I believe it is possible to build what doesn’t exist today in Washington: a bipartisan strategy to deal with the long-term threat of terrorism.
The American people will need that consensus regardless of when, and under what circumstances, we withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq. We must not allow terrorist sanctuaries to develop any place on earth. Whether these fighters are finding refuge in Syria, Iran, Pakistan or elsewhere, we cannot afford diplomatic or political excuses to prevent us from using military force to eliminate them.
Update II: Robert Spencer: Whitewashing The Caliphate.
Update III: Political correctness is disinformation (dezinformatsiya) (and here) to camouflage truth. It descends from operations Cheka and its successors call aktivni meropriyatiya (Активные мероприятия, active measures). From the phrase Latinate media take the designation activist. An activist to them is a saint. More political correctness. A dissident, by contrast, as per Cheka indoctrination, is an enemy of the state/media — in which reposes ultimate authority — suitable for torture and execution.
Update IV: On 20JUN14, one Raymond Ibrahim, at PJMedia(!), essayed superficially on Islam’s Protestant Reformation. I commented:
Historical, textual and form criticism of the Koran proceeds quietly and with palpable risk to life and limb. But it proceeds. These tools were applied to the Christian and Hebrew Bibles over the last nearly 300 years, since Reimarus. Probably the best work of this kind will come, as it did for Christianity and Judaism, from Germany.
This is the most powerful threat to Caliphist pretensions and its potential has triggered the several visible reactionary vectors of puritanical Caliphist violence just as did the several Enlightenments of the 18th Century, including the American one, trigger the puritanical, hateful reaction of Wahhab. USA has been at war with Wahhab’s terrorized, purist minions since before Jefferson sent a Naval and Marine punitive expedition to the Med and Tripoli.
It is not a ten-year war. It is a 200+-year war. Time to end that war in victory through unconditional surrender of every trouble-maker in the Middle East, Europe and the Americas. Then we can get on to the big enemy today: China (and here).
It’s not about who is good or bad. It is about who is right and who is wrong. Puritans, purists, violent ones, are always wrong. They deserve power crashing down on them and flattening their wills to fight.
Update V: Honoring COL Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and the others.
Update VI: Interview with retiring LTG Michael Flynn.
Update VII: Re-Examining Imperialism, So-Called
Update VIII: David Rothkopf
Update IX: Robert Farley on China’s War-Fighting Lessons-Learned
Update X: LTC (Ret.) Ralph Peters and COL (Ret.) David Hunt promote two of the components of Statecraft — War Fighting and Finance — but do not mention the other: Diplomatics.
Hunt promotes Finance and Peters promotes War Fighting. And Hunt correctly names Saud, whom hardly anyone is brave enough to name. Peters would do wonders if he could deliver exactly that message with impeccable sangfroid, giving meta-message by eyes, face and body daring anyone to deny the truth of it. Maybe next time.
Peters and Hunt do express, rather accurately, the feelings of Americans and others regarding how they would like their affairs discharged by their leader cadres. This degree of intellectual and emotional forthrightness is welcome indeed. It is how Americans feel, and well they should.
Update XI: And Al Saud intends to keep it up. See also here.
Update XII: So does China (and here).
Update XIII: The feeble-minded degenerates submit their plan: strategic patience.
Update XIV: On 04 February 2015, the 274th anniversary of the birth of Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kościuszko, Don Surber wrote appreciatively of General Kościuszko. Theological Geography has honored the great Pole and American of Polish descent in several posts. A friend of Theological Geography, Dr. Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, sent these bits of color in the picture of General Kościuszko:
Kosciuszko freed his serfs before he came to the U.S. So I doubt his reflex to help black slaves erupted suddenly because of the South.
The Kosciuszkos were from Merekowszczyzna outside of Minsk. That was about 500 miles away from Mscislaw (Mstislav), outside of which my family sat at the time.
Update XV: An American Renaissance.
Update XVI: On 27 January 2015, Marine GEN (Ret.) James N. Mattis addressed the United States Senate Armed Services Committee on the subject A New American Grand Strategy. At Hoover Institution, who published an adapted version of General Mattis’ address, I commented — with edits here — as follows:
Not that it matters, but, I both appreciate and despond over General Mattis’ address here. Appreciate because (1) as a genuine warrior he says what he sees and eloquently and (2) his heart is unalloyed courage and compassion. Despond because (1) his address reflects lack of situational awareness — half his auditors at least regard the nation state, including USA, as obsolete and perishing — and (2) his address, although latterly specifying or implying serious tactical weaknesses of current operations, transits the periphery of his title: grand national strategy.
It is rare for a military leader to grasp and execute the several strands — principally diplomatic, economic and military, but others as well — of grand national strategy sufficiently to create a rational grand national strategic *objective* that is also inspirational. It is rare for anyone to be able to do that. General David Petraeus has that ability, which is why the Anti-American, Globalist-partisan US Justice [so-called] Department is persecuting/prosecuting him. Asking Congress or a bureaucracy to develop that ability and execute with it compares with asking a herd of cats to organize an expedition to summit Annapurna. Distilling and serving a happy grand national strategic *objective* is a personal, leadership thing few can do, but some definitely can and do accomplish. Their thoughts merit discovery and attendance.
The cynosure of a nation is not her grand national strategy. It is her grand national strategic *objective.* Given what we see now, project and anticipate — always expecting the unexpected, as General Mattis mentions, thankfully, in his address — where and what do we want to be as a nation three, five, ten, etc. years hence? What is our objective? What do we really, truly — as a nation — want for and of ourself to be, to do, to think? What is our inner necessity as a nation? What are we on this earth to accomplish as a national presence? And why do members of Congress not live in the states from which they were selected for office?
Related: On 04 March 2015 Marine GEN (Ret.) James N. Mattis wrote for Hoover Institution under title Using Military Force Against ISIS. I commented:
I am content that GEN (Ret.) Mattis’ thinking, clear and compelling, be expressed in public. Thank you, General! Our countrymen are working their way towards how they will think and what they will do when they are quit of the hag riding their back. And they will be that. This exercise in preparation for the restoration of national sovereignty and wealth flowing from national moral and intellectual strength is what should be happening and what is happening. I am content.
Update XVII: 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 XVIII: Angelo M. Codevilla: While The Storm Clouds Gather and here
Update XIX: Former Obama Intel Chief: Administration’s Iran Policy Is Willful Ignorance
Update XX: Stephen D. Krasner embodies the bathetic stupidity of America’s ruling class. I commented:
Good enough governance. Sounds micro-managerial, timid, sophistical/Solomonic and Ivory Tower. And a military not tasked with winning a war/conflict? … words fail and casting aspersions is unmanly. I prefer colonization and culture-splicing. Solve the problem, don’t manage it. It is unmanageable. Defeat it or detach from it. Do not manipulate/manage it.
Update 21: Michael J. Totten reviews ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror
Update 22: The US Navy Needs To Radically Reassess How It Projects Power, and related
Update 23: The Kingpin Strategy … it fails!
Actually, the kingpin strategy as this author presents it is a misread of the strategy that eliminated Pablo Escobar and a mis-learning of the lessons thereof. Escobar was reached — by US military, as I recall, not DEA or CIA — by working inward from his perimeter protections, eliminating those piecemeal, until none was left to protect the boss who had been their center. That is how Pablo came to be running alone on a roof. None remained to protect him, all had been neutralized. Other networks than Pablo’s increased the flow of cocaine into the USA following his death. Had kingpin strategy been applied to Pablo, his own network would have decentralized and, probably with others, even more ramped up the flow of product to American nostrils.
Conclusion: a network is taken down by movement from its periphery towards its center, not by direct movement at its center. See also the elimination of Saddam Hussein — in a rat hole without protection. If other networks move to replace or even restore an eliminated network — a near certainty, at least by effort — then the same strategy is applied to them, one at a time or several simultaneously, as assets permit.
Expose the queen by killing off her guardians. Then kill the queen. If the queen only is killed, up front, her guardians will anoint a new queen and proceed merrily onward with conjurings from their fevered minds.
Update 24: Scott Johnson at Power Line links two videos of Senator Tom Cotton discussing USA foreign policy. These are instructive, depressingly so. I commented as follows:
I have attended, carefully, both videos mentioned here. Senator Cotton is a good man, a fine man. His intellect, heart and bona fides are unimpeachable. He walks point for the best intentions and thinking our nation’s official leader cadre can produce at this moment in time.
His grasp of American strategic objective, strategy and tactics so lags the need as to arouse disconsolation.
This is not a personal failure of Senator Cotton’s. It is a corporate failure of America’s leader cadre. And behind them it is a failure of America’s parents (in particular, mothers, but also fathers), schools, churches and synagogues to foster spiritual, cultural and moral infrastructure that builds and protects our mother country.
Related: PL has two mentions in Tom’s Wikipedia bio. And he’s a knuckle-dragger. The Times letter may have caused his move from line to staff and then out. Something got him out early after a fast rise in the line, consignment to staff and a short time in reserves. I’d say the Times letter signaled political aspirations and counter-signaled mil career, another reason for an early out for a rising OBC line officer.
PL featured the Times letter, as I recall. It would be a rare serving officer, especially a junior, who would address the Times without command prior-approval and expect a mil career afterwards. Maybe the Harvard Man Syndrome punched through to dominance for that incident. The military is not a democracy.
Update 25: Paul A. Rahe: Political theater and coordinated disinformation are the order of the day.
Update 26: Regarding developments in North Korea.
Update 27: The Saudi Connection: Wahhabism and Global Jihad, and related: Qatar.
Update 28: Something to consider: Could Russia Breakup After Putin?
Update 29: Mark Moyar: Lurching Without Direction
Update 30: Soi-disant policy makers ponder their options — to keep business as usual or expanding — without consulting (1) the wishes and concerns of citizens or (2) a worthy grand national strategic objective — that is, the general religious, cultural and moral will of the nation, not merely that of its commercial interests.
Update 31: Russian fighting ability is compromised by their fighting protocols, as illustrated by their horrendous casualty rates, especially compared to America’s.
Update 32: 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 33: Russian defense industry on life support.
Update 34: Nancy Pelosi preaching active measures.
Update 35: Earlier student publication, Active Measures, at The Institute Of World Politics
Update 36: Murphy’s Law: The Realities Of Defense Spending
Update 37: ISIL/ISIS in Libya
Update 38: Interesting analysis of tactical situation in re Boko Haram. Living off plunder won’t carry far in the modern world.
Update 39: Papa Francis is Exhibit A of someone who has the nub of a good idea and spreads it out into a bad idea. Out of his depth and, more importantly, his remit, commission. Pity.
Update 40: John R. Schindler: How To Defeat The Islamic State
Update 41: Franklin C. Spinney: Introduction To The Strategic Theories Of John Boyd
Update 42: Austin Bay: On the Anniversaries of Benghazi and 9/11/2001
Update 43: [The Fraud’s] New Middle East
Update 44: 6 Reasons Why Starship Troopers Is The New The Art Of War
Update 45: Deliberate civil-military discussions about that desired end result at the beginning of setting force management levels should then inform the subsequent [force management levels] imposed on our military, not the other way around.
Update 46: The Fraud-Linked Chaotics Have A Training Manual
Update 47: The Strategic Condition Of Western Europe
Update 48: Why It’s Time for the Carrier Battle Group
Update 49: Dubik’s ‘Just War Reconsidered’ and Schadlow’s ‘War and the Art of Governance’: A double review
Update 50: John Quincy Adams, July 4, 1821: Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be [America’s] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
Update 51: Xi Jinping wants to co-opt Three Brothers Alliance
My comment: Xi is a smart cookie, bent version. He sees the Three Brothers global authority rationale and wants to be one of the brothers. Not possible: his people are not Christian and he has the wrong geography and ethnography. His three brothers would rest on economics, not geography or ethnography. Sand, not rock.
Update 52: Contemplating Positions On Chinese Flanks
Wiki: Mongol military tactics and organization
AUM NAMA SHIVAYA
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