Nationhood Strategy War

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

For a number of years — probably since around 1997 — my mind has exercised on the related matters of nationhood, strategy and war.

A not inconsiderable anthology of essays and other writings has emerged from that labor.

I mean to collect its salient representatives here using the three headings comprising the title of this post.

Update I: Stupidity reigns in D.C. and academe. Russia, USA and India should be, inherently are, strategic partners facing China. Making that happen is where effort belongs, not on demonizing one another. The whole subject of national strategic goal has to be rethought and recast, starting with the substitution of national sovereignty for national security. They are not the same, and in fact, national security depends on national sovereignty. And national sovereignty is what this regime of Globalists in D.C. and academe is trying to eliminate.

Banging the ideas of national security and national sovereignty against one another with avidity and assiduity would produce, I think, the requisite result.

Update II: How Eisenhower Solved The Illegal Border Crossing From Mexico

Update III: Robert Farley on China’s War-Fighting Lessons-Learned

Update IV: 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 *goal* 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 *goal* 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 *goal.* 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 goal? 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 V: Angelo M. Codevilla: While The Storm Clouds Gather and here

Update VI: The Templars Show How To Fight ISIS And Win

Update VII: GEN (R) Petraeus: The Islamic State Is Not Our Biggest Problem In Iraq

Update VIII: Daniel Greenfield: The Left Is Eating Itself.

Glenn Reynolds notes the phenomenon via an incident at Scripps College

Update IX: Reconstituting The Militia.

Update 10: Mark Moyar: Lurching Without Direction

Update 11: 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 12: Dan Koboldt: Building A Fantasy Army: Leaders

Update 13: The Jihadis’ Master Plan To Break Us

Update 14: ISIL/ISIS in Libya

Update 15: StrategyPage: Leadership: SWOs Go WTF Against The USN

Update 16: StrategyPage: Attrition: Where Have All The Good Officers Gone?

Update 17: 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 18: Franklin C. Spinney: Introduction To The Strategic Theories Of John Boyd

Update 19: Austin Bay: On the Anniversaries of Benghazi and 9/11/2001

Update 20: [The Fraud’s] New Middle East

Update 21: 6 Reasons Why Starship Troopers Is The New The Art of War

Update 22: Why It’s Time for the Carrier Battle Group

Update 23: Dubik’s ‘Just War Reconsidered’ and Schadlow’s ‘War and the Art of Governance’: A double review

Update 24: Contemplating Positions On Chinese Flanks

AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA