Freedom In Sovereignty

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

Good and strong words from a plain man whose call sign is not Mad Dog but Chaos. Yet, the statement is tactical only, not strategic and has not been backed up, in public at least, with a statement of US grand strategic objective in the Pacific. Ditto MENA: excellent tactical successes but no grand strategic objectives to guide the same.

The nation’s blood and treasure are being poured out — still! — to gratify, by default, a century-old bit of left-wing imperialist stupidity said to be statecraft: that (1) everyone else wants to be like us and (2) we are obliged to help everyone else enter upon that elysian utopia.

We are obliged to maintain our sovereignty and freedom inside that sovereignty. We may elect to assist others achieve their sovereignty and freedom inside their sovereignty, but those are elections, not obligations, and justifiable only if they conduce to our own sovereignty and freedom. Our own freedom in sovereignty is the touchstone of our statecraft worthy of the name and nothing else is or can be.

So far, POTUS Trump and Cabinet have not affixed our own freedom in sovereignty as our grand national strategic objective. They wisely pursue fairness in trade relations and look with appropriate jaundice upon Oriental and African imperialisms. But as to affirming freedom in sovereignty as USA grand national strategic objective, there is no there there yet.

Update 1: VDH: Trumpism is not an eponymous political movement per se. It was merely an adjective for the reification of far greater preexisting political realities.

Update 2: VDH: Trump’s High-Stakes Tweeting

Update 3: Sundance: ¹China tells DPRK to do stupid thing. ²DPRK does stupid thing. ³Trump hits China with economic punishment for [doing] stupid thing.

AKA: If you have leverage, use it! Don’t hesitate, deploy your assets. This is statecraft, not afternoon tea. Parable of the Ten Talents territory.

Update 4: Conservatives Need A Remedial Course In Sovereignty

Update 5: Why Trump’s U.N. Speech Was A Triumph

Update 6: Foreign Policy magazine gnashes her teeth, good: Brazil’s Love Affair With Diplomacy Is Dead

Update 7: Vaclav Klaus: National Sovereignty and the Unsolvable Problem of the EU

Update 8: Roger Kimball: Don’t Celebrate Bastille Day

Update 9: Contemplating Positions On Chinese Flanks

AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA