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

How would a servant of the nation sound who told the American people and the world — urbi et orbi — in a simple voice from a large stage the truth about the strategic position and objective of the USA?  Say, in offering themself to the polis for service as the nation’s Commander-in-Chief or a Legislator.

They would sound confident and courageous.  They would self-evidently care for their country rather than for themself.  They would not have to say it, people would hear it in everything they said.

They would express the interests of the country as a whole and as her individuals, families and groups.  No one would doubt that their thoughts, words and actions were meant to foster the interests of the United States of America and her loyal citizens.

And those interests are:

1. Safety
2. Food, clothing and shelter
3. Opportunity to develop a career and take care of one’s family
4. National, state and local boundaries inside of which one is comfortable
5. Agreeable dynamics between the benefits of law and the benefits of freedom

They would defy and put to confusion despisers and parasites of America and Americans.

They would tell Americans that a fresh set of USA allies is indicated by the present and foreseeable USA strategic condition and objective and that the foundation of that fresh configuration is USA-Russian-Indian cooperation.

They would tell Americans that their enemy and the enemy of their country is any person, group or nation, foreign or domestic, who does not respect American national sovereignty or who harms or plans to harm Americans or American national sovereignty.

They would tell Americans and all others that any person, group or nation, foreign or domestic, who harms or plans to harm America or Americans has renounced their independence and sovereignty and will be treated accordingly.

They would tell Americans that their strategic position is weak to the point of requiring the whole nation to mobilize for war against an array of enemies who have been attacking Americans and America by subversion and direct action for decades without being suitably answered.  Meaning, stopped.

They would tell Americans that self-described Muslims are an invading, alien hegemonic force bent on overwhelming Americans and American national sovereignty, and they would treat self-described Muslims in view of that their nature and purpose.

They would tell Americans that immigrants to America must live as Americans, dedicated and loyal to Americans and to American national sovereignty, mores and moral values, and they would seal USA borders to all but legal immigration and entry and find and deport foreign nationals not here legally or loyally, including visa over-stayers.  They would deny immigration and entry to self-described Muslims and those suspected of lying that they are not.  They would track and deny entry to agents of Chinese military, industrial, economic, political and social imperialism.

They would tell Americans that their largest and most capable enemy is Communist China (and here), and they would block and stop Chinese military, industrial, economic, political and social imperialism — including espionage — which is aimed at overwhelming American national sovereignty and transforming Americans into slaves.

They would tell Americans that they will not be asked to fight an enemy except to victory in the form of that enemy’s unconditional surrender to American Arms.

And they would tell Americans — before they are sent into battle, which is for an enemy’s unconditional surrender — that American military, financial and diplomatic power will occupy the defeated enemy’s country or territory for as long as it takes to extirpate therefrom every slightest impulse to harm America or Americans.

They would tell those who do not respect American national sovereignty or who harm or plan to harm Americans or American national sovereignty that they can freely acknowledge unconditional surrender to American stewardship of their affairs now, and pay tribute, or do so under compulsion through fire on their properties, families and persons.  The United States of America will not stand for being harmed, they would say, and everyone would know it as true.  And to the inevitable tester, they would say nothing beyond immediate and total annihilation of their power and will to harm America or Americans, followed by American occupation of their country.

They would tell Americans that the overt harms they have sustained from the Middle East since 1979 will be answered starting with the oldest first and working consecutively forward in time.

They would tell Americans that they have business to conclude in the Middle East, starting with unconditional surrender to American Arms by Iran followed by occupation until such time as Iran is quit of impulses to harm America or Americans.  This will have a stabilizing/sobering effect on other countries in the region.

They would tell Americans that, moving on from Iran, they will conclude unconditional surrender to American Arms by Syria and Hizbollah, followed by occupation, and then to Qatar for the same unless Qatar, by then, has come to her senses.  This will give Saud, Pakistan, North Korea and the usual suspects in and about Afghanistan food for thought in their coming stare-down with USA, Russia and India.

Update 1: At Power Line, Paul Mirengoff comments on Angelo Codevilla’s essay, Washington’s Ruling Class Is Fooling Itself About The Islamic State.  I commented on Paul’s comment as follows:

Paul, if you are an SDSer, you may remember George Wallace at the Garden in 1968:  Here is how the NYT covered it (talk about biased reporting!).

“There ain’t a dime’s worth of difference between the Republican and the Democratic parties,” said Wallace sometime at or around that Garden event. I lived in NYC at the time, a third-year seminarian, and followed the Garden event with great interest, though not on scene in person. George had strong support from NYPD rank and file. The usual suspects “protested” and the rank and file, especially those mounted, got in a few licks.

You are missing Codevilla’s point. He is not talking about tactical issues, your focus, where there are differences, however slight, between the parties. He is talking about grand national strategy, where there are no differences between the parties or between, say, WSJ and NYT. Wallace’s reference was to the same phenomenon, grand national strategy, not specific policy differences.

George at the Garden: “…left-wing intellectuals and Communist professors who advocate a victory for the Vietcong.” Today they call themselves global elites — and are called The Clerisy — and continue to shape both parties — ergo morals and the economy — for their personal benefit, not the country’s. Wallace and Codevilla converge in calling it what it is: a single, defiance-intolerant ruling class whose implicit but unexamined strategic view (it is not a strategy) hurts everyone, including themselves, and firstly their mother country.

Update 2: And Al Saud intends to keep it up.  See also here.

Update 3: 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 4: 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 5: Ed Driscoll on Americans who are not anti-war, just on the other side, the Communist side, anti-America.

Update 6: Former Obama Intel Chief: Administration’s Iran Policy Is Willful Ignorance

Update 7: 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 8: Michael J. Totten reviews ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror

Update 9: Shame in Wisconsin.

Update 10: 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 11: 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 12: Regarding developments in North Korea.

Update 13: The Blindness Of The Ideologically Bound.

Update 14: Eric Raymond: Gramscian Damage.

Update 15: The Saudi Connection: Wahhabism and Global Jihad, and related: Qatar.

Update 16: Scott S. Powell: The Quiet Revolution: How The New Left Took Over the Democratic Party

Update 17: Daniel Greenfield: Dear Corporate America

Update 18: The actuality of women in the Israeli Defense Force

Update 19: Spengler: Balance Of Power – The Board Game

Update 20: 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 21: Franklin C. Spinney: Introduction To The Strategic Theories Of John Boyd

Update 22: Austin Bay: On the Anniversaries of Benghazi and 9/11/2001

Update 23: [The Fraud’s] New Middle East

Update 24: Theresa May’s Well-Deserved Defeat, And The UK’s Uncertain Future

Update 25: The Strategic Condition Of Western Europe

Update 26: Why It’s Time for the Carrier Battle Group

Update 27: Dubik’s ‘Just War Reconsidered’ and Schadlow’s ‘War and the Art of Governance’: A double review

Update 28: Contemplating Positions On Chinese Flanks

AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA