Candidates Ignore Growing Risk of ‘War for our time’

George Rebane

Among the many failures of the Obama presidency, I believe history will record that his chamberlainian naiveté and failures in foreign policy will eclipse the other disasters he has authored for America.  More observers are starting to see the growing number of harbingers to war popping up all over the globe as America repeats its preambles to both 20th century world wars.  Mark Helprin, senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, warns that “Obama is weakening US defenses and credibility, but there’s little debate about the growing risk of war.”  His latest piece in the 18apr16 WSJ opens with –

In this powerful nation with founding principles and latent capacities second to none, politics have become fit for the fall of Rome, the culture is sick with self-destruction, and the rule of law is routinely perverted. Though politics, culture and law are the arch of the nation, the keystone without which they cannot hold is defense. For war transforms whole peoples and threatens their sovereignty and national existence more decisively than any other force.

Today we (should) recall the prelude to WW2.  Starting in March 1936, Hitler’s Wehrmacht remilitarized the Rhineland.  Seeing no material response to this violation of existing treaties, Hitler then occupied Austria, then Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, and finally the Memel territory it lost to Lithuania after WW1.  The western allies’ response was Chamberlain’s tragi-comic visit to Hitler, and waving the famous ‘Peace for our time’ paper on his return.  Hitler then concluded the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty on 23 August 1939 which set the stage for the start of hostilities barely a week later with the USSR overrunning the Baltics and Poland from the east and Germany attacking from the west.

During these pre-war years the US ignored world events as it tried in vain to end the Great Depression, in the process reducing its military to historically low levels.  The takeaway here is that in the late 1930s the people of the interstitial countries between Stalin and Hitler knew that war was coming.  (I was born into that war, and along with millions of Europeans the Rebanes became the hapless participants and victims of the greatest of human conflicts.  I recommend historian Max Hasting’s Armageddon to get an idea of what really happened on the eastern front during 1944-45.  See also the 'My Story' entries.)

As a reprise of such preparatory forays, we have quietly acceded to Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian and Georgian territories, and China making good its claim on the entire South China Sea.  And today China announced it is building a large naval/air base in Djibouti at the mouth of the Red Sea.  This coincides with Russia’s recent expansion into the Mediterranean with its new land and sea bases in Syria.  In the meanwhile both countries harass our military in international waters and air space with their combat aircraft, which events go noticeably unanswered.

My own worry is a scenario in which Russia and China (Iran is the Lucky Strike extra participant) conclude a secret treaty to concurrently send their forces into the Baltics and, say, Taiwan and/or ethnically Chinese Singapore.  The west would be overwhelmed with little capacity to do anything short of emptying its silos to start WW3 which we would not do without a direct attack on our landmass.  While we and the EU scratch our collective heads and assure Russia and China that they are ‘on the wrong side of history’, they would annex Byelorussia and the Ukraine, and make South China the new inland sea of the reborn Middle Kingdom.

This more likely outcome would be a new world order, one that neither Hitler nor Stalin could achieve.  This Eurasian alignment of powers will abandon ALL western values, and return the entire globe to a pre-Westphalian world in which territories that are mine are mine, and territories that are yours are in play.  The resulting tripartite balance of power would be something like Orwell already envisioned in the 1940s.

And what kind of leadership do the Democrats have in the pipeline to counter any of this?  The words feckless, ignorant, and inadequate come to mind.  Given that the Comey vote will be corrupted, as president Crooked Hilary will implement Obama V3.0 and do little beyond what her dim foreign policy lights illuminated as SecState.  And in the remote off-chance that the DoJ does think she looks better in orange, I cannot wrap my head around the prospect of Bernie, the dufus communist (nee socialist), sitting in the White House.  So I’ll just leave it there.

On the other hand, what do the Republicans offer us?  One is a politically indeterminate loose cannon whose message to the miffed masses is the simple singleton, ‘I’ll make America great again, just trust me.’  Another is a distant third middle-roader (with policies I can live with) who promises to change little with his already declared ‘go along to get along’ approach to governance.  And finally we have the Texas senator whom no one is supposed to like, but given Trump’s ascendancy, more are coming to him as the convention nears (his policies come closest to my desiderata).

Right now the pundits tell us that it will come down to Hillary and The Donald in November.  The above graphic gives a good summary of where their current (i.e. the primaries) support comes from.  Each dot represents a county plotting its percentage support for the candidate as a function of the county’s 0-100 ‘Opportunity Index’ (national average is 54).  The OI is “a measure of economic mobility, which combines data on jobs, education and community health.”

Perhaps putting a loose cannon in the White House will give pause to Russia, China, and Iran.  But it will take a lot more than the bravado we have seen from the podium to muffle the war drums.  And given Obama's incompetence on the world stage, you can bet the ranch that our next president will be sorely tested by Putin, Xi, and the ayatollahs.

Comments

[Don Bessee]

Yes Dr. R very much like the 30's and the late 70's. All the bad actors are emboldened and we in the next administration will be at a turning point. Will we put another 0carter in the white house or will we as a nation grow a spine and (alert the PC femanazis and the dark lord of liberal lament land) some balls?

[Brad C.]

I guess we can only hope for Trump or Ted Cruz(missile) to have the launch codes. Trump will be sure to "hit back harder" if he feels slighted in any way by our pesky international expansionist friends who might "kick sand in our face" by buzzing our navy ships. Cruz will probably be pro-religious war.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford also seems to have some "issues",

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, in concern for the lives of current and future US military personnel and to honor those who have gone before, I must speak to the nation today.
I’ve called this press conference to announce that I am resigning as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and I am retiring after 39 years on active duty, which included combat service in Iraq leading the finest Marines in the world.
I am resigning as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and retiring from the Marine Corps for the following reasons:
For the last seven years during the Obama Administration:
I have watched and remained silent as hundreds of senior officers were forced to resign or were forcibly retired because of their disagreements with the current policies wrecking the military.
I have watched and remained silent as people who have never served a day in uniform laid siege to the glorious traditions of the US military.
I have watched and remained silent as male ROTC cadets paraded in red high heels, male soldiers conducted physical training wearing pregnancy simulators, combat units dealt with breastfeeding and lactation issues in the field and sensitivity training became the standard operating procedure of the US military.
I have watched and remained silent as trans-genders were authorized to serve in the ranks, and three females graduated from the US Army Ranger School, under what I believe are the most dubious of circumstances.
My predecessors in the JCS chose to look the other way, and like Pontius Pilate, wash their hands of these egregious affairs.
My predecessors in the JCS were more concerned about their careers than about the welfare of the nation and the troops they led every day.
Now the final nail in the coffin of the US military has been hammered in. On April 1, 2016, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, with the full backing of the President of the United States, authorized the legal inclusion of women in the combat arms branches and special operations units of the United States Armed Forces.
In good conscience, I can no longer remain silent. The stakes are too high for this nation and for the women in the US military who, I believe will be greatly harmed by their inclusion in the combat arms and special operations.
I can no longer watch the US military be annihilated. While many have chosen to sit on the sidelines, I must step forth and report to the nation concerning the mortal danger the US military is in tonight because of its commander in chief, President Barack Obama and his cabinet and advisers.
The evidence against women in direct combat from the Center for Military Readiness and the Marine Corps: 36 million dollar, 9 month study and the performance of women at the Marine Infantry Officers Basic Course is overwhelming. Yet, the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of the Army refuse to acknowledge that the evidence even exists.
It does exist and it indicates that while women perform spectacularly in 80% of the jobs in the military, the combat arms and special operations should be closed to them; permanently.
Women are simply prone to more injuries than men, have less muscle mass, do not have the upper body strength, the same aerobic lung capacity and the aggressiveness to fulfill the military’s combat readiness requirements and missions.
The so-called experts often say that women have already served in combat. In the last two conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, females did engage the enemy and many performed heroically and beyond the call of duty. But, returning fire during a military police security operation is not the same as being in a combat arms unit that has the mission of finding, fixing and killing the enemy. That is like comparing Pop Warner Football with the NFL.
Reality says that women serving in the combat arms and special operations is not just a bad idea, but a horrific decision that puts this nation in mortal danger.
The President and the Secretary of Defense are not dealing with reality, but with a feminist based fantasy based on false premises of gender neutrality. They see the world the way they want it to be, not the way it is. These policies are based on the illusion that genders are neutral and that none of this will affect the military’s readiness, esprit de corps and ability to wage and win wars.
There is no gender neutrality on a battlefield.
It is the responsibility of America’s military leaders to protect the nation and to obey the lawful orders of those appointed above us. But, our military leaders are not martinets. There is no Fuehrerprinzip in America. An order is not just an order. The nation’s military leaders have a moral duty to inform our elected officials when policies they support and implement are destructive to the nation itself.
Silence is not golden. It is pure and unadulterated moral cowardice.
Congress also has a duty to protect the nation and to insure that the military is strong and readiness is maintained. On the issue of women in combat, Congress has been full of sound and fury, while signifying nothing. Except for a few concerned veterans like Senator John McCain and Congressman Duncan Hunter, Congress has remained silent because a majority of Congress has never served and is largely ignorant of the issue itself.
I cannot in good conscience promote policies that will order American women, ages 18-26 to register and be eligible for a military draft which could place them in combat arms units in wartime.
I cannot in good conscience serve as the highest ranking military member of the US military, when I am completely at odds with the social engineering directives emanating from the Secretary of Defense and the President.
The military has one sole mission. That is to wage war and to vanquish the enemies of this nation on land, on the seas and in the air. It must never be used as a social engineering project by naive and uninformed politicians and lobbyists.
As the military prepares for this cataclysmic change, the enemies of this nation are lining up against us. They know that this is a lose, lose situation for us and a win, win situation for them. They know that we are now going to wage war with a much weaker force and that our readiness is withering by the hour.
It is very possible that the United States of America may never win another war. I do not believe this is hyperbole. I believe this is a fact.
The fate of the republic hangs in mortal jeopardy. I pray that my successor and a new President elected in 2016 have the courage and the wisdom to amend the policies that might very well destroy this great nation I have served for nearly four decades.
I bid you farewell. Semper Fi.

Unfortunately, it is all just BS; but this email fantasy is quickly echoing through the neocon ranks.

http://www.snopes.com/jcs-chairman-resignation-speech/

[Walt]

Well,, not since the civil war has "we the people" ever been closer to shooting at each other, thanks to "O" and Co. He still has a few months to accomplish that mission.

[Jon]

Walt, how did Obama create the civil war in the GOP party? Sad that you Drumpf supporters are already justifying the predicted violence this summer in Cleveland when the chaos starts.

[Walt]

Nice try Jr. The "Right" is far from what you hope.
But "O" has done a bang up job for fueling another civil war of Dem VS Repub.

[Jon]

Um, not sure you got the memo there..Walt. Everything coming up roses in the GOP, eh? :)

[Don Bessee]

In another lame of the lamest games the usual suspect the 'jon'inserts the GOP when Walt in no way mentioned the GOP. WE the People must not include the 'jon'. No surprise there gang. ;-)

[Walt]

Better look to your own party first. How many labels have they got these days?
Turned "Democrat" into a dirty word decades ago. Then trashed meaning of Liberal.
Now are on track to make "Progressive" the next to be vilified.(too late the damage is done) What next open use of Commie pinko? HELL! Crazy Burnie is taking down the queen of the damn...uh, LIBS.
The Democrat plantation managers are now digging up graves to find votes to save their own skins, and you want to point fingers at the Right? LOL!!

Like I said before. The Left has it rigged in Hillary's favor, yet no one on the Left is bitching. Talk about a useless vote. At least the people on the Right have stood up to take notice to buck the back room deal making.

LIBS could trot out Charles Manson as a contender, and the likes of you would blindly vote for the somebitch.

[Walt]

Hay "jon".. It's not "right" thinking college kids nutting up in fear over someone's name written in chalk, or demanding "safe arias". Trigger warning "jonnie",,, TRUMP!!!(boo) Now call that therapist you have on speed dial.

[Walt]

Need more proof "jon"?
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/04/19/girls-soccer-game-suspended-over-traumatizing-pro-trump-chants/
What will the young do when they enter the "real" world?
" “One of the girls was cradled in the arms of one of our assistant coaches for a good 15 to 20 minutes.”

[Jon]

Walt, don't get me wrong. I'm all about Trump winning the GOP. But because he's in a commanding position, and he's not good for the brand (not to mention the Senate losses in 2016) the GOP money bosses are going to do everything possible to create CHAOS.

and I love it.

Hillary will be the President. But please don't choke on any turkey bones at Thanksgiving :).

[Jon]

Walt, since you mentioned it, I think the safest aria I know is the Habanera from Carmen. Usually pretty safe when sung by the right person. The soprano usually finishes without any sign of throat damage.

[Don Bessee]

How dark lord of liberal lament land, what ever you are the 'jon'.

[Walt]

Really Capt. Obvious? The real problem will from generation wuss. And their all LIB kids.
Your boy "O" has made the U.S. a laughing stock to all that hate us. Russia really testing our resolve, N. Korea?who knows what will happen there. How bout China? Yup "O" has dome a great job.
Think Russia would pull the same stunts if Trump was in office? Our navy should have splashed those jets. " OK men!, it's coming around for another pass. Target practice in two minutes!" Yet President nutless did nothing.

[Jon]

Walt, I know, I know, you wouldn't rule out Nukes over Japan or anywhere in Asia or Europe. Yeah...that's the ticket...

[Jon]

Walt 8:19, yes, Obama has DOME a good job, both with Russia and China. The Chinese and Russian economies are crippled for the foreseeable future. You can credit Obama domestic economic policies for China's recent major swoon, and you can credit the President's well placed and well timed sanctions on Russia.

Thanks for asking.

[Walt]

"DOME"???? And OUR economy? Yup,, crippled too. Better recheck your tea leaves(or MJ) on Russia.

[Account Deleted]

"You can credit Obama domestic economic policies for China's recent major swoon, and you can credit the President's well placed and well timed sanctions on Russia."

Like most of Jon's pronouncements, he has no explanation or facts but I do certainly hope the weather is nice on whatever planet he exists on.
And like most of the leftists, he has no education in history. Weakening America's defences at the same time our enemies are facing economic problems at home seems to be the same scenario leading up to WWII.

[fish]

Posted by: Walt | 20 April 2016 at 06:11 AM

C'mon Walt give a guy a break.....jon isn't fully with it when he's thinking about a little "me" time with this months copy of "Modern President" magazine. I hear that this issue is particularly stimulating......there's a fascinating article about Brooks Syndrome titled "Freshly Pressed" - Sharply creased trousers and how they're helping resolve erectile competency issues in todays modern progressive male

[George Rebane]

jon 1026pm - Thank you for sharing your economic insights. Actually, China's economic woes are totally indigenous that involve the well-known unsustainable rapid growth of a large economy which has no significant middle-class and consumer base; an economy that is further impeded by Beijing's elite central planners who have no more clue how an economy responds to centralized control than do the central planners that America's socialists are trying to install to run our economy.

And Obama's "well-timed sanctions on Russia" have produced the geo-political results that include Russia's (and China's) emboldened expansionism which now threatens a new war of the kind I described in my above commentary.

As SecState Hillary demonstrated that she has no more clue about how the world works than does her mentor Barack Hussein. It's looking like deja vu all over again.

[Jon]

Of course China's woes are indigenous. Perhaps you did detect irony and sarcasm in my comments to counter Walt's steady stream of blame on Obama for every economic and geopolitical event and revelation in the world.

[fish]

Posted by: Jon | 20 April 2016 at 11:35 AM

Perhaps you did detect irony and sarcasm in my comments to counter Walt's steady stream of blame on Obama for every economic and geopolitical event and revelation in the world.

Much like the convergence between articles found in "The Onion" and the MSM, your comments (a fairly representative sample of modern progressive thought) are indistinguishable from satire.

[Jon]

Walt is a pure black and white type of fella, and damn proud of it! Sometimes its fun to play the white to his black. Of course, the actual world we live in is a great sloppy sea of gray. But it doesn't compute for Walt.

[George Rebane]

Relieved to hear that I'm not the only one having a problem with Jon's satire.

[Account Deleted]

So Jon can't fault or deny what Walt writes so he pronounces him to be a 'black or white' fellow.
The 'sloppy sea of gray' Jon refers to is the moral relativism of the left. It is a complicated world Jon, but many of us operate on sound and solid first principles. No matter how the events of history and society swirl around us, we have an ocean of calm that comes from a bed rock of seeking what is true, no matter what the outcome.

[Walt]

OK "jon",, name something,(just ONE) that "O" has improved. His golf score does not count.
Middle East? Nope,, he's burned that to the ground. Red lines with Putin? Yup, that worked out well. " Don't you Dare Mr. Putin"... The reply "O" got was,,"Really? well watch THIS!!.. How do you like me now?" China? "uh, can we get another loan?" Then we sent some of that money back in the form of aid. That makes PERFECT sense. (to a LIB)

Obummercare in imploding. Damn he would make a great used car salesman.

Now you can't use this "improvement". Gotta find another. he has done wonders for gun sales.

So.. just what HAS he done? Even pigs have turned their collective noses up at all the crappy food thrown out from the school lunch programs.

[Walt]

Thanks Scott for helping describe this knuckledragger's way of of seeing things in a more "enlightened" way. Yes.. How Dare I see things as they are in full sunlight, and not in the 7 shades of shit a "jon" would like things interpreted.

[Walt]

Speaking of war, us construction workers here in the U.S.ofA. are more civilized than the place "jon" likes to look up to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGMsgxqgU5M&noredirect=1
But this is one "war" I would love to be a part of. "winner gets the job!"

[Bill Tozer]

Well, the House of Saud is not ignoring the growing risk of war. Obama bowed to the King for nuthin'.....again.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/saudi-officials-give-obama-chilly-reception-in-riyadh/?ftag=YHF4eb9d17

[fish]

Posted by: Bill Tozer | 20 April 2016 at 10:04 PM

The Saudis realize that they deal only with a footman for power when Obama drops by to chat.

[Todd Juvinall]

Hey look at this study. I wonder if the true believers will say uncle!

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-climate-change-weather-america-20160420-story.html

Many of us have been saying this type of thing for twenty five tears. Look at the issue from a positive rather than a negative. Less heating oil in that liberal northeast.

[fish]

Posted by: Todd Juvinall | 21 April 2016 at 07:35 AM

Well done Todd......6:38 am and you have "Americas Conscience" worked into in a full lather. Ya know if it wasn't for you jeffy wouldn't get any cardiovascular exercise at all!

[Todd Juvinall]

Fish, I do rattle his belly fat don't I? LOL!

[fish]

Posted by: Todd Juvinall | 21 April 2016 at 08:42 AM

He does seem to.....fixate....on things don't he?

Oh well it's probably good for him....to have a hobby.

[Todd Juvinall]

I may be traveling around the Congressional District soon as a possible delegate. We will see.

[George Rebane]

What the hell do any of these comments have to do with the topic of my post? You guys with your oh-so-clever mudballs belong in the sandbox. I really don't have time to play this game, but if you see your irrelevant comments gone, then that means I made time for some house cleaning. One thing is for sure, the 'jon' sure knows how to push all of your buttons, and your responses remind me of Pavlov's dogs. I do believe he's cracked the code on how to have the last laugh.

[fish]

Posted by: George Rebane | 21 April 2016 at 09:33 AM

Sorry George.....got lost in the threads.

[Bonnie McGuire]

Hahahaha....you nailed it George!

[fish]

When Dr. Strangelove is a “community leader” I guess we need to stand up and Sieg Heil right in der Fuehrers face.

Ahhh...for some it will always be 1933!

[Don Bessee]

That sounds like it came from a frischy comment I got sent a screenshot of, of course source is from the liberal lament land run by the dark lord. Don't have time to go into all of it but what a bunch of 0 talking points devoid of the real world facts from frischy. ;-)

[fish]

Docs gonna yell at me for putting this here.....but in reference to that certain someones Nazi fixation I thought this was apropos!

“No one has ever had a fantasy about being tied to a bed and sexually ravished by someone dressed as a liberal”

― P.J. O'Rourke, Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer

[Bill Tozer]

O's entire foreign policy sucks. What a mess. Backing the banned Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was a fatal flaw. Claiming there were moderate "freedom fighters" and moderate opposition groups to back everywhere across the region during Arab Spring was ignorance and naïveté beyond any reasonable explanation. Now we have a ISIL stronghold in Libya....the nation that was playing nice with us and got rid of their nuke weapons plans. Russian fighter jets are playing Top Gun with us, one coming within 20 feet of our fighter and taking a photo of the pilot. Don't think that what the reset button was meant for.
Then Syria, aka, Hillary's war. We had to go in to "prevent a genocide in Benghazi". Funny how that town's name keeps coming up.
Iran was given the green light to get nukes and we are obligated to defend Iran if Israel tries a first strike for self survival. With Iran making weapons of mass destruction under our "turn the other way" blind eyes, the balance of powers in the region has been knocked on its back. The Saudis are pissed and refuse to deal with Obama. Israel is pissed and cancelled a planned visit by Obama. RSVP denied. That pissed Obama off big time. China knows they are dealing with an an amateur. At a G-7 summit, Obama wanted to meet with the Chinese. He was waiting for them in a conference room when word leaked that the Chinese were hosting world leaders down the hall. Obama had to rush down the hall and crash the Chinese conference with other G-7 chieftains just to get in lol. Was not invited and it's a crying shame to host a party and no one shows. Of course, the White House has a different spin on this and everything.
As Obama pushes his global governance ideology, he is viewed by friend and foe alike as a pussy. His ideology does not fit into the political realities of our planet. Juxtapose this to Bush when the "world according to the liberals" did not like us anymore, but now our allies do not respect us nor like us. And few trust us. And fewer still think the O plans are even worth considering.
The Obama legacy is a sharp spike in nationalism, a more dangerous Middle East, China telling us to go pound sand, Russian expansionism, a anemic economy, a racial divide that pits Ameticans at each other's throats, and allies who question if Obama should even be listened to. They are waiting for a new President, like most of us.

Ideology over politics collide where the rubber meets the road.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-suggests-part-kenyan-obama-may-have-an-ancestral-dislike-of-britain-a6995826.html

[Bill Tozer]

Short version:

http://patriotpost.us/cartoons/23174